Gossamer

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

James’s expression was cool, his reply even more so. “You didn’t hurt me, Miss Sadler. You disappointed me.”

  His face wore a closed, shuttered expression Elizabeth knew very well, and his words caused tears to well up in her eyes. How many times had she responded to Grandmother Sadler’s cruel, unreasonable snobbery in just the same way? How many times had she promised herself she would be different? How many times had she sworn she wouldn’t be like Grandmother Sadler? And how could she face the fact that she was behaving exactly the way her grandmother behaved, even going so far as to offer her grandmother’s feeble excuses for inexcusable behavior?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, once again.

  James quirked his mouth in a brief half-smile. “I suppose it’s just as well,” he told her, “that you leave before the Treasures have time to form an attachment to you—” He stopped and compressed his lips into a tight, firm line. Before I have time to form an attachment to you. James shook the unwanted thought away. “Besides, the Treasures have yet to have the kind of governess they deserve. A governess who sees them for the warm, loving little girls they are and appreciates the unique gifts they have to offer.”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to offer a defense, but there was nothing she could say. No defense she could give. No reason she could offer him. No comfort to take away the sting of disappointment. She had already been indicted. She’d indicted herself. She simply stood quietly and waited for James Cameron Craig to dismiss her.

  He leaned toward her, and Elizabeth thought he might offer his hand, but James made no move to touch her. “Good-bye, Miss Sadler.”

  “Good-bye? More like good night, don’t you think?”

  James and Elizabeth turned as Helen Glenross stepped onto the second-floor landing, walked right up to Elizabeth, and offered her hand in welcome. “I’m Helen Glenross, Mr. Craig’s housekeeper. And you must be the new governess. Miss—”

  “Sadler,” Elizabeth replied. “Elizabeth Sadler.” She stared at the housekeeper, taking in Mrs. Glenross’s plain, honest face, her graying hair, and her rather gaunt-looking figure.

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Sadler.” Helen Glenross glanced over at her employer, noted the firm shuttered look on his face, and immediately recognized the tension flowing between Mr. Craig and the new governess. Fearing the desperately needed governess was about to slip away, Mrs. G. plunged ahead, salvaging what she could of the situation. “Miss Sadler, I can’t tell you how pleased we are to have a real honest-to-goodness teacher as governess for the Treasures. Mr. Craig and I despaired of ever finding someone suitable. The last four turned out to be disasters.”

  Elizabeth shook hands with Mrs. Glenross, then glanced over the shorter woman’s head, at James. “You’ve had four governesses?”

  “We’ve had four women who thought they could do the job,” Mrs. Glenross quickly replied. “But I would hardly call a faro dealer, a saloon girl, a Chinese laundress, or the ignorant widow of one of Mr. Craig’s miners governesses.”

  “I’m sure you must be busy, Mrs. G.,” James interrupted his housekeeper’s flow of words. “I didn’t realize you’d have to make the trek up the stairs. I expected Annie to answer the bell.”

  “Annie’s having her supper. And I didn’t see the sense in having the poor girl jump up in the middle of it. Especially since I was coming up here anyway to put this little mite”—she patted the bottom of the band of silk fabric that was looped over her neck and across one shoulder and rested against her slight bosom—“to bed and help Delia bathe the other ones. Unless, of course, Miss Sadler would like to take over …”

  Elizabeth reached up and absently fingered a stray lock of her hair as she stared in fascinated silence at the small bulge in the silken sling hanging around Mrs. Glenross’s neck. All at once she remembered what James had said to her back at the jail in San Francisco when he’d explained his expert plaiting of her hair by saying, I have four daughters. Three of them have hair. Well, she’d been introduced to the three oldest girls—Ruby, Garnet, and Emerald—and while all of them had hair, none had hair long enough to braid. And Elizabeth was willing to bet every penny of her remaining seventy-eight cents that this two-day-old little gem, whatever her name, had no hair at all. The tiny tyke, secured in a makeshift sling around the housekeeper’s neck, was the fourth daughter. A two-day-old infant whose mother was no doubt resting in one of the bedrooms lining the second-floor hallway, still recovering from her birth and unable to tend to her needs. Tend to her needs. The phrase echoed in Elizabeth’s mind. Two days ago that child had been born needing someone to tend to her needs. Two days ago Elizabeth had learned of Owen’s death. No one had tended to Owen’s needs. But Owen had been a grown man—immature, but grown just the same. While this infant and her solemn-eyed sisters were babies.

  James took a deep breath before he broke the bad news to his long-suffering housekeeper, well aware that Helen Glenross’s faithful service might come to an abrupt end as soon as she learned the new governess wouldn’t be taking the job. “Unfortunately, there’s been a mistake, Mrs. G. Miss Sadler feels”—he looked over at Elizabeth, torn between exposing her prejudice to his housekeeper and protecting her feelings—“a bit overwhelmed by the situation here. I’m afraid she isn’t going to—”

  “Be able to assume my duties until morning.” Elizabeth’s rush of words surprised everyone. Herself most of all. “I’ve been in ja—I’ve been traveling most of the day.” Elizabeth let go of the lock of hair and brushed at the scratch on her cheek with the back of her hand. “I need to freshen up. I couldn’t possibly touch—” She hastily corrected her wording. “Expose the Treasures, especially the little one, to the grime of the city. So, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask … If you could manage without me tonight,” she glanced back over Mrs. Glenross’s head and met James’s suspicious gaze, “I’d rather start fresh in the morning.”

  “We can manage without you,” James answered un-charitably. “We’ve managed this long without you, and I’ve no doubt that in the very near future, we’ll continue to do so.”

  Mrs. Glenross gasped and glared meaningfully at her employer. She knew he expected perfection, but what was wrong with the man? What was he trying to do? Drive the woman off? Feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of three toddlers upon first meeting them was nothing to be ashamed of—even for a competent governess. Three rambunctious little girls were enough to overwhelm anyone at first glance. And add a newborn into the mix and well … She rushed to reassure Miss Sadler before the woman decided she’d had enough of Mr. Craig’s surliness and walked out. “Of course we’ll manage. How thoughtless of me even to suggest that you start work before you’re even settled in! I suppose I’m feeling my age instead of remembering my manners. Come with me.” She took Elizabeth by the arm and steered her away from James to the next door down the hall. “I’ll show you to your room.”

  Eleven

  “NO, I’LL SHOW Miss Sadler to her room.” James moved forward and deliberately stepped between the two women, forcing Mrs. Glenross to let go of Elizabeth’s arm.

  “If you’re sure—” The housekeeper hesitated, glancing nervously from her angry employer to the new governess.

  “I’m sure,” James said. “You’re free to go about your other duties, Mrs. G. I’ll show our guest to her room for the night.” He emphasized Elizabeth’s temporary status as he released his housekeeper from her hostess role. James motioned toward the doorway that connected the nursery proper to the governess’s quarters and gestured for Elizabeth to precede him.

  “You got what you wanted,” Elizabeth hissed as James took her by the elbow and propelled her through an alcove approximately the size of a butler’s pantry, which contained a dumbwaiter, a small sink, a modern icebox, and a tiny range. “There’s no reason for you to be so angry.”

  “Angry? I’m not angry,” James uttered through tightly clenched teeth as he glanced over his shoulder toward the open door leading into the nursery. Then, before she had a chance to r
eply, he threw open another door and ushered Elizabeth over the threshold and into a bedroom before he closed the door behind them with an audible click. “I’m bloody furious! And I demand to know the meaning of this.”

  “Meaning of what?” she asked.

  “The farce you enacted for Mrs. G. Namely, your oh-so-convenient change of heart.”

  “Just as you said.”

  James arched one eyebrow in silent question. “Explain yourself.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Elizabeth answered. “It’s just as you said. I had a change of heart. I’ve decided to stay and become governess to your children.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” She took a deep breath, drew herself up to her full height, and straightened her shoulders.

  “Why not?” James repeated as if he hadn’t quite understood her correctly. “Because you disliked my daughters on sight.”

  Elizabeth lifted her chin a notch higher and looked him directly in the eye, refusing to flinch under his unwavering scrutiny. “I don’t dislike your daughters personally.”

  “Just on principle,” he retorted. “I remember.”

  “And as I said before, I have my reasons, Mr. Craig.”

  “And I submit that reason plays no role in that kind of prejudice,” he said. “I won’t allow my daughters to suffer because the woman I hired to be their governess can’t see past the color of their skin. I want an answer from you, Miss Sadler, and I want it now.”

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth answered simply.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know why I changed my mind, Mr. Craig. I was quite prepared to spend one night under your roof, collect the fifty dollars you promised me, pay my debt to you, and leave in the morning on the next train out of Coryville. Then I saw Mrs. Glenross standing on the stairway landing with an infant in a sling about her neck and looking at me with such expectation in her eyes that I couldn’t disappoint her.”

  James sighed. “You had no trouble disappointing me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  James’s anger dissolved as he studied the earnest expression on Elizabeth’s lovely face. He suddenly seemed unable to look away. Her honest statement hung between them, thickening the atmosphere with sharp, palpable awareness that had nothing to do with the fact that he was a man needing a governess and everything to do with the fact that he was a man needing a woman. Her plump, pouty lips seemed to beckon him, and the look in her cool blue-green eyes seemed to challenge him to act on his impulses and taste her again.

  Suddenly uncomfortable with the intense, almost hungry, look in James Craig’s blue eyes, Elizabeth pulled her gaze away from his and quickly turned her attention to her surroundings. She glanced around the decidedly feminine room with its delicate yellow silk-covered walls and richly carved Queen Anne furnishing and groped for a topic of conversation—something—anything—that would dispel the tense atmosphere hovering between them. “Whose room is this?”

  “Yours,” James replied. “Unless you have another sudden change of heart.”

  Elizabeth wrinkled her brow in dismay. “You must be mistaken.”

  From the looks of it, the bedroom connected to the nursery already had an occupant. Elizabeth walked to the center of the room, then turned and looked askance at the man she had abruptly decided once again would be her employer. Although the half-tester bed was fully made, the coverlet and the feather pillows atop it retained the imprint of the bedroom’s former occupant. “Or am I expected to share it?”

  James scanned the room and the tips of his ears turned a bright shade of red as he noted the untidy state of the room. Elizabeth’s husky voice and her provocative question wrapped themselves around him like a warm blanket. Images of mussed sheets and long, slender feminine limbs entwined with his filled James’s mind. He took a deep breath, then cleared his throat. “I didn’t realize the room hadn’t been tidied.”

  Elizabeth pointedly fixed her gaze on the heavy woolen topcoat, wrinkled white linen shirt, waistcoat, and suit jacket draped across the foot of the bed.

  “I’ve been catching catnaps in here to be near the children while we’ve been between governesses.” Elizabeth didn’t say anything and James raked his fingers through his hair in a visible show of irritation. “I obviously failed to remind Mrs. G. to check this room when I left this morning.”

  A vivid mental picture of James Craig lying atop the covers without his suit jacket, waistcoat, and white linen shirt added to Elizabeth’s nervousness, and she quickly crossed over to the bed and began straightening the covers. “And it obviously never occurred to you to tidy it yourself.” Her tone of voice was harsher than she intended, but James’s nearness and the unexpected intimacy of occupying a bed James had slept on unnerved her. It reminded Elizabeth of the reason she’d had to come West and all that she’d found and everything that had happened to her since she’d stepped off the ferry in San Francisco two days ago.

  “I’ve been busy,” he said.

  “And your housekeeper has not?” Elizabeth countered, turning to face him.

  “May I remind you that I’ve been in San Francisco all day?” he replied snidely. “Bailing you out of jail.”

  “If you hadn’t had me arrested needlessly, you wouldn’t have had to bail me out,” Elizabeth reminded him. “And your housekeeper’s been overseeing a mansion and three toddlers and carrying an infant around in a sling all day. You might try being more considerate of the needs of your staff.”

  “I pay my staff very well,” James said, bristling defensively. “That makes me very considerate of their needs.”

  “And what of your wife’s needs?”

  James froze, barely able to breathe as Elizabeth’s impudent question penetrated his defenses and stabbed directly at his heart.

  The rudeness of her question surprised Elizabeth as much as it appalled her. Elizabeth hadn’t even realized she was curious about James’s wife until she suddenly found herself demanding to know if he fulfilled her needs.

  “My wife died,” James answered, nearly choking on his guilt. “I can no longer fulfill any of her needs.” And what of your wife’s needs? How many times had he deliberately avoided asking himself that question? How long had it been since he’d been honest enough with himself to admit that he’d never met Mei Ling’s needs at all? That he’d never really known what they were?

  Elizabeth’s knees abruptly refused to support her weight, and she sank down onto the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry.” She thought of the two-day-old baby lying cradled in the sling around Mrs. Glenross’s neck, thought of the three toddlers next door in the nursery, and of the satchel crammed full of official-looking documents James had attended to over the course of the journey by ferry and train from San Francisco. And the hungry way he had kissed her on the walkway of Bender’s Boardinghouse. His wife was dead. His governess had quit without notice, his staff had their hands full with the Treasures, and he had a business to run. Elizabeth hadn’t known about his wife back in San Francisco, hadn’t understood James Craig’s ruthless determination to find a qualified governess at any cost, but now that she understood what prompted him, she was forced to admit his actions made sense. “I didn’t realize—”

  “It’s all right,” James cut her off, acknowledging her offer of condolence with a brief nod. “She died a long time ago.”

  “But the baby …”

  James shrugged his shoulders. “What difference does it make if Diamond has a different mother? Is she any less mine than her sisters? Would you have me allow the child to go wanting when I can give her a loving family?”

  “I owe you an apology,” Elizabeth said softly.

  “And why is that?” As far as James was concerned, Elizabeth owed him several apologies, but since she hadn’t offered to apologize before, he couldn’t help wondering what prompted her to do so now.

  “I behaved very badly. I was rude and defensive and uncooperative because I thought you were acting out of pity,” Elizabet
h said. “I thought you felt sorry for me. And that you only offered me a job as governess to your children because you felt guilty for having me arrested.” Elizabeth looked up at him, her eyes brimming with sympathy for his loss and for his predicament. “But now I understand that you didn’t act out of pity. You really do need a governess.”

  “I never act out of pity,” James informed her. But she did. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and the knowledge that she could salvage her pride by trampling his irritated him more than he wanted to admit. “And I don’t need a governess.”

  “Of course you do,” Elizabeth began, “and I’m willing to—”

  “My children need a governess,” James clarified brusquely. “I am a grown man.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Elizabeth stammered, nervously moving away from him, pushing herself back onto the middle of the bed as James stared down at her, his blue eyes dark with emotion.

  She sucked in a breath. He looked as if he might touch her. As if he might kiss her.

  She stared up at him, waiting for his next move.

  Then, without warning, James leaned very close as he scooped his topcoat, suit jacket, waistcoat, and white linen shirt up into his arms and whispered, “My children need a governess. I do not. My needs are very different.”

  Twelve

  JAMES LISTENED TO the sound of water splashing and the happy chatter of little girls as he stopped outside the door of the nursery long enough to retrieve his leather satchel. He paused for a moment, listening to see if Delia needed help bathing the Treasures, before he made his way down the stairs and into the comfort and privacy of his study.

  He dropped his armload of clothing onto a leather wing chair just inside the study door, then glanced over at the clock on the mantel. He needed to keep an eye on the time. The Treasures’ bedtime was less than an hour away, but he still had a few moments to look over the Central Pacific documents. James set his satchel on top of a massive oak desk, then automatically settled onto the big high-backed chair behind it. He opened the leather case and removed the Central Pacific Railroad rolling stock agreements and turned to the first page.