Page 143 of A Modest Independence

“What about you? Do you think to see England again? Or India?”

“I have no set plans.”

Giles didn’t interrogate her. He’d done enough of that on the ship. “Well, if any woman can make a go of it out here, I daresay it would be you. Just see you don’t befriend any more morally suspect solicitors or other unsavory types. Next time it might not turn out so well for you.”

“You presume it turned out well this time.”

He fixed her with a coolly appraising stare. “You’re all in one piece, aren’t you?”

Jenny didn’t feel as though she was in one piece after her adventure with Tom. Rather the opposite. Her heart had been breaking by degrees ever since they left Darjeeling.

After bidding goodnight to Giles and wishing him safe journey for his morning departure, she retired to her room. Mira wasn’t there. She’d gone out with Ahmad to visit the bazaar and then to dinner. The hotel room was shadowed and empty, the heart of it dimly lit by a set of oil lamps with black-and-gold-striped shades.

For the first time in weeks, Jenny felt entirely alone.

Until now, she’d been able to keep reality at bay through constant activity. There’d been no opportunity to dwell on her imminent parting from Tom. She’d thought—or rather, hoped—that they would have time enough yet to say goodbye. That there would be an opportunity to explain how she felt about him—and to articulate more fully why it was she wished to stay.

Tom had plainly had other ideas.

Perhaps he’d thought it would be easier to avoid her? To forego a painful farewell in lieu of a gradual fading away?

Jenny tried to remember the last personal thing he’d said to her, but she couldn’t recall it. They hadn’t shared a private moment since leaving Darjeeling. How could they have when they were under such constant scrutiny?

She spent the next hour readying herself for bed, unpinning and brushing her hair and changing out of her dinner dress and into her nightgown and wrapper.

Her stomach was in knots, her muscles taut with tension. It wasn’t in her nature to sit back and let things happen to her. She wasn’t that sort of woman. Would never be that sort of woman. Tom must know that by now.

And if he did, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she visited him in his room.

It was a scandalous thought, the likes of which turned the knots in her stomach to rampaging butterflies. Indeed, as she crossed the sitting room to her door, she felt more than a little ill. But there was nothing for it. It was either this or let Tom depart Cairo without saying goodbye. And the latter simply wasn’t an option.

She reached for the doorknob, steeling herself for the task ahead.

In that same instant, a soft rap sounded against the door.

Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest. It was an effort to calm its erratic beating. She took a breath and then another. It was past nine. Surely it was only Mira returning from the bazaar.

But it wasn’t. Something in her knew it wasn’t.

Sure enough, when she cracked open the door, it was to find Tom standing there, his hair rumpled and his leather attaché case in hand.

He looked at her, seeming to take in her unbound hair and prim white dressing gown in one comprehensive glance. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” She stood back to allow him entry.

He shut the door behind him and turned the lock. “I apologize for the lateness of the hour. I’d thought to be back by dinner, but everything took longer than I expected.”

“Everything? What everything?”

“Shall we sit down?”

She tightened the sash of her dressing gown, feeling a sudden flush of embarrassment to be standing before him in her nightclothes. “If you like.”

At the opposite side of the sitting room, two velvet upholstered chairs flanked a taboret. Tom turned them to face the small inlaid table, waiting for her to sit down before taking a seat himself.

He withdrew a sheaf of papers from his attaché case. “No doubt you’ll think me high-handed.”

She leaned forward. “What are these?”