Gossamer

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  She felt the heat flowing up to her face as he removed his hand from inside her bodice and carefully adjusted the gold and tiger-eye head of the hatpin so that it covered her empty buttonhole.

  “There,” he pronounced, satisfied with his handiwork. “Now you’re ready to face Lo Peng, Augusta Bender, and anything else that comes your way.” James smiled at her, then took a moment to straighten his waistcoat and tie, replace his comb, and button his jacket before he offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

  Elizabeth nodded and automatically reached for her parasol.

  “Leave it here,” James told her. “You won’t need it.”

  “But it’s the only one I have.”

  “The sight of you and that battered parasol is only going to fan the flames of Lo Peng’s anger.”

  “That makes it mutual,” she muttered. “Seeing him, without my battered parasol, is going to fan the flames of my anger.”

  James laughed. “Be good,” he said, tracing the scratch on her cheek with the tip of his finger. “Let me handle it. Remember, I’m paying you fifty dollars a day to be an exemplary governess. Exemplary governesses are seen and not heard.”

  The need to protest bubbled up from deep within her. Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but managed to swallow the words in time.

  James noted her struggle, then gave her a nod of approval.

  The warm expression of admiration in James’s dark blue eyes came as such a surprise to Elizabeth that she forgot all about the need to voice her protest. Suddenly, she had newer, more fundamental needs to worry about—like the need to slow the rapid beat of her heart and the need to remind herself to breathe at an even, steady rate.

  Eight

  THE MOMENT ELIZABETH saw Lo Peng, surrounded by his three henchmen, standing among the crowd of policemen, witnesses, suspects, and curious bystanders, her knees began to quake. As she watched the little Chinaman gesticulating wildly, his long black queue swinging to and fro across his back as he shouted in a high-pitched mix of English and Chinese, Elizabeth forgot all about her earlier bold brave pronouncement. Her courage seemed to desert her all at once, and if James hadn’t kept a firm grip on her arm, Elizabeth would have run right out the back door. She only hoped she looked more confident than she felt.

  “You look lovely,” James whispered, as if he had read her thoughts. He squeezed her hand in encouragement and continued, “You look serene and confident. Keep that look. No matter what happens, remember not to show Lo Peng any other face. No sign of fear or dismay.”

  Elizabeth started to reply, but James cut her off before she could say anything.

  “Don’t speak,” he reminded. “Don’t utter a sound. Don’t look at Lo Peng. Look at the floor.” He smiled down at Elizabeth. “I know it’s difficult, but try to act submissive. In Lo Peng’s world, women only speak when spoken to and never when a man is present to speak for them.” James nodded toward Lo Peng, then leaned close to Elizabeth. His warm breath brushed her earlobe as he whispered, “Buck up, Miss Sadler. He’s seen you and he’s coming this way. Remember to be exemplary. Look down at your feet and leave everything to me.”

  Some of her apprehension must have shown in her eyes when she met his gaze, for James leaned close once more before Lo Peng reached them and whispered, “Trust me.”

  There was no time to decide whether or not to trust him, Elizabeth thought as she stared down at the red dragon embroidered on the hem of Lo Peng’s trouser legs, the feet in the black cotton shoes, and the white cotton socks mere inches away from her own. All at once, Lo Peng was waving his arms and shouting right at her. He was so close she could feel the spray of his spittle on her hair, could smell the sandalwood and garlic and ginger and the sweet sickly odor of the opium den oozing from his pores, flavoring his breath, and permeating his clothing, could hear the underlying venom and the promise of retribution in the furious rush of foreign words she didn’t understand.

  Elizabeth felt a wave of nausea wash over her as the combination of odors assaulted her nostrils. She swallowed convulsively, and doggedly kept her attention focused on the feet rocking back and forth on their heels in front of her as Lo Peng’s already high-pitched voice took on a highly agitated, screeching quality. Clenching and unclenching her fists within the heavy folds of her skirt, Elizabeth fought the powerful inclination to lose her breakfast all over the little tyrant’s cloth-covered feet, then meet his black-eyed stare and dare him to do his worst.

  She was so busy concentrating on retaining her breakfast that it took her a moment to absorb the fact that Lo Peng had stopped screeching and was listening intently to what James Cameron Craig had to say. She listened as well, but the rush of foreign words made no more sense coming from James’s lips than they had coming from Lo Peng’s.

  Lo Peng laughed and Elizabeth could stand it no longer. Feeling the massive weight of betrayal weighing on her chest, Elizabeth lifted her face to stare at James Cameron Craig. He was speaking to Lo Peng in the Chinaman’s native tongue. And the two men appeared to be on good terms, for they were sharing a hearty conspiratorial laugh at her expense—a laugh reminiscent of the camaraderie shared by the members of the Millionaire’s Club—the Chinese version. Elizabeth didn’t have to speak Chinese to understand that the rules were the same. In Providence and in San Francisco, American, British, or Chinese, it was still very much a man’s world. A man’s club. And by virtue of her sex, she was excluded from the membership. She glared at the two men, refusing to return her gaze to the floor. Lo Peng looked over at her, wrinkled his brow, and frowned mightily when he saw that she had abandoned her submissive pose and was staring at him. He spoke sharply to James.

  James smiled at Lo Peng, then hissed at her in a firm, steady voice, “Do as you were told, Elizabeth, keep your gaze on the floor. You are a most unworthy woman, not fit to look upon a worthy lord like Lo Peng.”

  “Unworthy!” Elizabeth turned on James. “How can you—”

  “Down!” James’s one word rebuke echoed like the crack of a whip.

  Elizabeth instantly obeyed.

  Lo Peng cackled in delight.

  James issued the necessary apologies for Elizabeth’s bad manners, waited until Lo Peng had acknowledged his apologies, then resumed his explanation of Elizabeth’s behavior, immensely grateful that Elizabeth couldn’t understand a word of the banbury tale he was weaving for Lo Peng’s benefit. He didn’t like lying. He didn’t like telling tales at Elizabeth’s expense, but if his outrageous explanation amused Lo Peng and kept Elizabeth alive and safe from Lo Peng’s wrath, it was worth every lie he told.

  James finished speaking, then held his breath, waiting for the old man’s reaction.

  “Craig’s crazy female wreck my shop,” Lo Peng replied in an oily voice. “Craig must pay.”

  “How much?” James asked.

  “Four hundred gold dollars.”

  James raised an eyebrow at the amount. He doubted very much that anything in Lo Peng’s shop was worth anything near that price.

  Lo Peng watched him carefully, then moved closer to Elizabeth and fingered a strand of tawny hair that had worked loose from her braid. “Five hundred gold dollars.”

  To her credit, Elizabeth did not flinch when Lo Peng approached her, didn’t look up or even breathe as the old warlord touched her hair, but James nodded in understanding. The price had gone up. And it would continue to go up every minute James delayed. Nothing in Lo Peng’s shop was worth five hundred dollars in gold, but Elizabeth was. And he and Lo Peng both knew it was Elizabeth’s life, Elizabeth’s well-being, that was under negotiation. “Agreed.”

  He reached inside his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He removed a bundle of blank bank drafts and glanced around for a pen. If the situation hadn’t been so serious and if he hadn’t feared offending Lo Peng even more, James would have laughed when a pen and a tiny bottle of ink appeared as if by magic from the depths of the sleeves of one of Lo Peng’s hatchet men. Bowing in appreciation of Lo Peng’s thou
ghtfulness in providing the writing instruments, James took the pen and ink and carefully filled in the amount on the bank draft, signed his name, and extended the bank draft to Lo Peng. “If you take this to the British American Bank on Montgomery Street, you’ll be paid in gold,” he said.

  Lo Peng let go of Elizabeth’s hair and took the bank draft. His hatchet man retrieved the pen and ink bottle. James watched as all the items—bank draft, pen, and ink—disappeared into me depths of two black silk sleeves.

  Their business concluded, Lo Peng stepped away from Elizabeth and met James’s unwavering gaze and confided, “Craig must be more careful in the future. Craig must teach his unworthy female discipline. He must learn to control her. For if Craig cannot control one unworthy adult female, I must ask myself why he should be allowed to continue to receive our gifts of female children who will also learn how not to obey.”

  James clenched and unclenched his fists in a reflexive action as he clamped his mouth shut and ground his teeth together in an effort to keep from exploding. The threat, couched in flowery formal Chinese phrases, was very polite and very real. If James didn’t cooperate, if he failed in his mission to keep Elizabeth away from Lo Peng and his Washington Street establishment, more innocent girl babies would die because Lo Peng would no longer allow the families under his control to leave their unwanted daughters on James’s doorstep. James wanted to yell and curse at the unfairness of it.

  “I have respect for Craig and for his powerful family. That is why I must now concern myself with his inside matters. Why I must advise Craig in the way a father advises his son,” Lo Peng continued in a smooth tone. “A man must control the women in his household. Especially the ones with tempers.” The old man stared up at James, his sharp black-eyed gaze searching James’s blue one. “Especially the ones with large feet and hair the color of precious coins. If not—” He broke off, shrugging in a self-deprecating way.

  James couldn’t resist. “If not?” he asked.

  “She will die.”

  With that, Lo Peng clapped his hands. His two hatchet men moved to stand beside the old man, then escorted the Tong leader from the police station and into the sedan chair waiting on the sidewalk beyond the front door.

  James looked on in mute, impotent anger. They had been lucky this time. Lo Peng had been willing to be bribed. But Elizabeth’s parasol rampage had cost them dearly. Lo Peng would be watching them now. Watching them closely. Looking for weaknesses in James’s armor. Waiting for him to make a mistake—or allow Elizabeth to make one. Elizabeth. James let out a sigh of frustration. Elizabeth’s act of destruction could bring a halt to James’s rescue work, could threaten the futures of his beloved Treasures and other little girls like them, but it could cost Elizabeth even more. If she wasn’t careful, her parasol rampage would cost her her life.

  Nine

  “WHAT DID YOU tell him?” Elizabeth asked in a tight, angry voice once she and James were settled into James’s double brougham and on their way down Kearney Street toward Bender’s Boardinghouse.

  “Whom?” James replied, trying to avoid an impending and unavoidable confrontation.

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in an imitation of the questioning gesture she’d seen James use on more than one occasion—a gesture that didn’t require explanation.

  James exhaled. “I told the judge I would vouch for you, that I’d pay your fifty-dollar fine and see that you didn’t get into further mischief.” The corners of his mouth turned up when he recognized the fiery gleam in her eyes. “Mischief.” James nodded as if to himself. “I believe that’s the term Judge Clermont used.”

  Elizabeth sucked in a breath and straightened her back against the leather seat until she sat ramrod stiff in a pose that reeked of an old-money, blue-blooded background. “I wasn’t talking about Judge Clermont,” she enunciated clearly in an effort to control her temper, “and you know it. I was talking about that creature Lo Peng.”

  James shrugged. “You heard him.”

  “Unfortunately,” Elizabeth, continued, “I’m not as talented as you. I’m not on friendly conversational terms with Chinese merchants.”

  She practically spat out the word conversational and again the corners of James’s mouth curved upward. Elizabeth Sadler was in a fine snit not just because he had raised his voice at her in front of Lo Peng, but because he had attempted to cajole the old man by speaking in Lo Peng’s native Cantonese.

  “Well, pardon me, but I was born and reared in Hong Kong in a house full of Chinese servants,” James told her. “I spoke Chinese before I spoke English. Are you going to be unreasonable and hold that against me?”

  “I hold your lack of manners against you,” Elizabeth replied spiritedly. “It’s rude to converse in a foreign language in the presence of someone who doesn’t understand it. And you know it.”

  “How was I to know you didn’t understand Cantonese?” James’s expression was innocence personified.

  The look Elizabeth gave him should have cut James in half. “Unlike you, I didn’t grow up in Hong Kong. I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, where Chinese is rarely, if ever, spoken.”

  James bowed his head. “Then I humbly apologize for my rudeness.”

  “That’s better.” Elizabeth inclined her head regally in acceptance of his apology.

  “Of course,” James continued, “had I not succeeded in cajoling and amusing the old tyrant with my inventive tale, he might not have been so agreeable.”

  “He wasn’t the least bit agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Not until you bribed him.”

  “I didn’t bribe him,” James corrected her. “I paid for the damages you caused to his establishment.” He didn’t tell her that the money he’d paid for the damages had also insured her a much longer life span. “What did Lo Peng do to make you so angry?”

  “I despise Lo Peng,” Elizabeth told him. “His very existence makes me angry because he deals in a terrible vice that preys upon the innocent.”

  Although he heartily agreed with Elizabeth’s assessment of Lo Peng’s line of work, James wondered at the depth of her animosity. Had he unknowingly hired a religious zealot or a temperance leader as governess to his daughters? Did she intend to make a habit of wrecking opium dens in her spare time? James shuddered at the thought. “Did Lo Peng prey upon you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then what made you choose the Red Dragon?”

  “The Red Dragon is an opium den,” she announced.

  “That’s right,” he agreed, “and Lo Peng is within his rights in owning an opium den here in San Francisco. They’re perfectly legal. You have no right to wreck it simply because use of the poppy offends your sensibilities.”

  “Wreck it? He’s lucky I didn’t burn the place to the ground,” Elizabeth muttered beneath her breath as their carriage lurched to a halt in front of Bender’s Boardinghouse.

  “No,” James said, catching hold of her wrist and encircling it with his fingers, before Elizabeth could open the carriage door. “You’re lucky. Lucky he was willing to accept my jumbled explanation of your behavior and an exorbitant amount of gold.” Watching the way Elizabeth’s eyes widened in alarm, James released her wrist, clamped his mouth shut, and quickly unlatched the door. “Let’s go.”

  “What did you say to him? What explanation did you give him?”

  James stared down at her, wondering if he should lie and spare her and himself the embarrassment of the truth, then decided against it. He wasn’t going to begin his association with his children’s governess with a lie. As embarrassing as it might be, he was going to tell her the truth. “I told him you behaved foolishly, because you were jealous. I told him you mistakenly thought I had been spending my nights in the upstairs rooms of his establishment.”

  “Why would he think I was jealous?” Elizabeth asked. “Why would a wily little creature like that believe your daughters’ new governess would care where you spent your nights?”

  “I didn’t tell him you were my da
ughters’ governess,” James said. “I told him you were my concubine.”

  “What!” Elizabeth’s breath left her body in a rush.

  “I told Lo Peng you were my concubine. My very jealous concubine who destroyed his opium den in a pique of anger because she thought I was spending time with the prostitutes upstairs instead of lavishing all my attention on her.”

  Elizabeth’s face turned beet red and she stared at him in shock. “Why did you have to make up a fantastic story like that? Why couldn’t you have simply told him that I’m the governess you hired for your little girls?”

  “I made up that fantastic story,” James explained, “because Lo Peng would never believe you’re my daughters’ governess.”

  “Why not?” Elizabeth demanded, fully aware that brandishing a parasol and using it to destroy a business was not standard governess-like behavior.

  “Because once I explained the function of a governess, Lo Peng would consider me a complete and utterly hopeless idiot.”