Page 8 of A Modest Independence

“When?”

“When he was last home on leave.”

“I see.” He slowly folded the letter. “Did he make you any promises?”

“None at all. It was simply a kiss. I daresay Giles kissed a great many girls. It meant absolutely nothing to him.”

Tom’s jaw hardened. The late earl was beginning to sound like a scoundrel of the first order. He searched Miss Holloway’s face. It was no less arresting than her hair. Dark brows and equally dark lashes framed eyes that were neither blue nor green. They were the exact color of the sea that raged beneath the cliffs of Abbot’s Holcombe. A shade which provoked a bitter longing in his chest. “What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Did it mean anything to you?”

She plucked the letter from his desk and returned it to her reticule. “Such events loom large in the life of a young woman.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“When his letter arrived, I crumpled it up and pitched it into the coal scuttle. It took me a good half day to regain my composure.”

“At which point you retrieved it.”

“And thank goodness I did. We received news of his disappearance a month later. Had I destroyed his final letter, I’d never have been able to forgive myself.” She shut the silk-corded drawstrings of her reticule with a snap. “But all that’s beside the point.”

“Which is?”

She gave a huff of impatience. “Didn’t you notice all the times he mentioned how happy he was in India?”

“I don’t believe he used those exact words.”

“No, but…he spoke highly of the weather and the stars and the spiced foods. He said a man could get lost there. He even said he sympathized with the natives and their cause.”

“That’s not unheard of. Thornhill is a great sympathizer of the natives’ cause as well. He believes we have no right to be there.”

“Giles never went that far. Not that I can remember. But you must see that he had an affinity for the place. Taken as a whole, it’s only logical to conclude—”

“That he preferred India to England? It’s certainly possible. However, a gentleman of his class would prize duty above all else. He could hardly have remained there in good conscience. He would have known—would have accepted—that he was needed at home. Not only to take up his position as head of the family, but to take his seat in the House of Lords.”

“What if he didn’t wish to come home? Not only because of his mother and all the bad associations he had, but because of me? Perhaps he thought I would make a clamor about his having kissed me. Appeal to Helena or something of that nature. He feared being forced into marriage above all things.”

“Miss Holloway…I appreciate what you’re proposing, but it’s still only conjecture.”

Her face fell. “I know it isn’t enough to justify much hope.”

“There’s always reason to hope,” he said. “But…”

“But?”

“It isn’t enough to justify a journey to India.”

“It needn’t. I’ll already be there. What would it hurt if, during my visit, I did a little investigating of my own?”

“Aside from the fact that you’re not a professional inquiry agent?”

“One doesn’t have to be a professional to ask basic questions. All one need do is employ a bit of logic. A bit of common sense. And I’m more than equipped to do that, whatever you might think.”

“What I think is that you would be a vulnerable female in a foreign land. Lest you forget, India hasn’t shown itself to be very kind to vulnerable British females of late.”

“The uprising ended two years ago. Things have settled down now. It isn’t as if I’ll be walking into a battleground.”