Page 131 of A Modest Independence

The next quarter of an hour was taken up with Jenny pouring out their tea and dispensing sandwiches and biscuits.

Tom watched her, knowing how hungry she must be after a night spent in the bullock cart and a morning in which they’d yet to partake of breakfast. In the past, she’d never failed to eat with a healthy appetite. But now, in front of the coolly aristocratic Earl of Castleton, she consumed her sandwich in dainty bites, seeming at pains to be as ladylike as possible.

It irritated Tom to no end.

She shouldn’t have to change herself for anyone, least of all the blackguard who’d taken advantage of her when she was his sister’s companion.

Did Giles even realize how much he’d hurt her? He must have known. He’d referenced the kiss he’d stolen in that letter of his, apologizing for it even as he’d abdicated all responsibility, dismissing any obligation to propose to her or otherwise make amends.

Such events loom large in the life of a young woman.

It did Tom no good to wonder if Jenny would have accepted a marriage proposal from Lord Castleton, but wonder it he did, all through tea.

“The leaf is from the new estate in the valley,” Giles said. “It has a delicate flavor and a subtle fragrance, rather like perfume.”

Jenny lowered her cup back to its saucer. “I’d no idea you knew anything about tea or tea growing.”

“I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years in India. There’s much to learn about the food and drink here if one has a mind to.”

“And that’s what you’ve been doing since you’ve been gone? Making a study of tea cultivation and the culinary arts?”

Giles exhaled. He returned his teacup to the tray. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.”

“I wish you would explain it to us. We’ve only been able to discover so much on our own from talking to Colonel Anstruther and—”

Giles brows lifted. “You spoke to Anstruther?”

“And to his wife, and to Sir Eustace Tavernier at Fort William, Lieutenant-Colonel Tremaine in Jhansi, as well as to Mrs. Kumar at the mission there.” Jenny ticked the names off on her fingers. “We’ve questioned everyone we could think of.”

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“We know that you were injured after storming the walls of the city. That you…that you lost your arm. After that, the accounts began to differ. Anstruther said you expired from your wounds and that your body had been burned in a pit with the rest of the dead. But Mrs. Kumar said you were saved, taken to the mission and then to one of the hill stations to recover. She said you’d likely died along the way.”

“I did lose my arm, as you see.” Giles gave his empty sleeve a frowning glance. “But the wound didn’t kill me, though I was out of my head for a very long while. Thank God for Hossein.”

“Was it he who came to your aid?”

Giles nodded. “He was acquainted with one of the young missionary girls at the school. He took me to her, and thence to Mrs. Kumar. The next thing I knew, the girl was tending to me as we made the journey from Jhansi to Darjeeling. I don’t recall much. She fed me ground-up roots and herbs—tinctures to help with the pain and make me sleep. I spent the next five weeks on a pallet, as helpless as a baby.”

“Was the girl’s name Zaina Chatterjee?” Jenny asked. “Mrs. Kumar said she escorted you to the tea plantation where her parents worked.”

“And here I am.” Giles made a broad gesture which seemed to encompass the bungalow and all the tea fields beyond it. “Miss Chatterjee, alas, is no more.”

Hossein said something to Giles from the doorway. Giles answered back, in the same language, his tone clipped.

“He doesn’t like me to speak of her,” he explained after Hossein retreated back to the kitchen. “She was like a sister to him.”

“Was?” Jenny echoed. “I don’t understand. Is Miss Chatterjee dead?”

“It’s the price she paid for helping me. As I regained my health, she lost her own. The cholera took her within a week of our arrival here. It took her parents as well.” Giles’s expression was taut. “No good deed goes unpunished and all that.”

“Oh, Giles. I’m so sorry.”

He waved off her condolences. “It’s going on two years since she passed. A lifetime ago.”

“Why in the world did Hossein take you to her and not to the depot hospital? Surely it would have been better to have been treated by one of the field surgeons.”

Giles made no reply.