Page 111 of A Modest Independence

Some of the color left her face. “You’ve booked passage back to Calcutta.”

“No. Not back to Calcutta. I—”

“To Bombay, then. You could find an East India Company ship there to take you home, even faster than the P & O ship that brought us to Calcutta.”

“Not to Bombay, Jenny. Good lord, do you think I’d book passage home without telling you?” He withdrew a folded square of printed paper from an inner pocket of his coat and smoothed it open in front of her.

She stared down at it in surprise. “Mr. Vidyasagar’s map.”

“I did book passage at the railways station, but not to Calcutta or Bombay. I purchased tickets for all of us on the morning train”—he tapped a location on the map some distance from Delhi—“here.”

“To Jhansi?” Her gaze lifted to his. “Why? We already know how Giles died.”

“Are you that confident in Colonel Anstruther’s account?”

“I don’t want to be. He’s an odious man. Had I suspected he was being untruthful, I’d have been ready to leave for Jhansi without delay. That was my plan, anyway. But nothing can alter the fact of Giles’s death. I suppose we might learn more about what happened to his body, but it isn’t as if it will change anything.”

“It will allow me to stay with you awhile longer.”

Her blue-green eyes softened. “Oh, Tom. Is that what this is about?”

“In part, yes,” he admitted. “I said I’d stay with you until we found out what happened to him.”

“Which we have.”

“We haven’t. Not beyond all doubt.”

Her brow creased. “You’re trying to humor me. You think I’m going to fall apart when you go. To take to my bed sobbing. Naturally you would think so after witnessing my behavior this morning. But honestly, Tom, I can assure you—”

“Perhaps it isn’t only your feelings I’m considering. Perhaps I’m being selfish. I’m not ready to part from you, either, Jenny.” He cleared his throat. “Besides which, I don’t enjoy leaving a task unfinished. There’s still more to be done before I can feel confident of Giles’s fate.”

She held his gaze, her eyes searching his. For a moment it seemed as though she would say something of an intimate nature. Something about the inevitability of his broken heart—and of her own. But when she spoke, it was only of Giles. “Have you a legitimate hope that he’s alive?”

“A slim hope. But a legitimate one, yes.”

“On what basis?”

“Consider the facts as we know them. It was hot as Hades. One hundred and thirty degrees, Anstruther said. The men were taking ill from it. Their brains were addled. Anstruther himself admits to being unwell after the fall of the city. He had to be removed to the hill country to recover. That alone would be enough to put his memory of Giles’s death into question. But there’s more.”

“Such as?”

“The battle was fought at midnight. It was dark. There was cannon fire and smoke from burning buildings. Even if Anstruther wasn’t heat addled, how could he have made a positive identification? I don’t doubt he saw Giles on the wall before he fell, but inside the city it was chaos. How certain could anyone be of a man’s identification? Or that he was dead and not merely fallen into a faint from loss of blood?”

“Do you really believe all of that?”

“It’s certainly a possibility, and Jhansi is only two days away by rail and van. What do you suppose Lady Helena would advise us to do?”

Tom’s conscience gave a rebellious quake. On the train to Marseille, he’d promised Jenny he wouldn’t manipulate her. Mentioning Lady Helena’s name was the closest he’d come to breaking that promise. And it was no accidental slip. He knew full well what he was doing. He was using her devotion to her friend to force her hand. It was badly done of him.

And unquestionably necessary.

“She would tell us to go to Jhansi,” Jenny said quietly.

Tom folded the map back into his coat. “And so we shall.”

North Western Dak Company

Aligarh to Jhansi