Moments later James’s housekeeper, Helen Glenross, appeared in the doorway of the dining room. “What did you say to Annie?” she asked.
“I told her how much we valued her,” James answered.
“Well, whatever you said sure made a world of difference in her. I’ve never seen her stand so tall and proud. She’s practically bubbling over with excitement at having a room to herself whenever she wants it. Heaven only knows how she’s managed so far as the only girl in a house full of boys, headed by a drunken and neglectful father. Her mother ran off, you know.”
“No,” James admitted, “I didn’t know.” It seemed there were quite a few things going on in his storybook town that he didn’t know about. But he intended to remedy that situation as soon as possible.
“I came to add my thanks to Annie’s, Mr. Craig. She’s a good girl and a hard worker, and she ought to be rewarded for it. Besides, a girl her age needs a room of her own. And I hope you don’t mind, but I sort of promised her that she could paint it any color she wanted.”
“That’s fine,” James said. “And take her to pick out wallpaper and all the trimmings if she wants it.”
Mrs. G. wiped her hands on the skirt of her apron. “I’ve got to get back to the kitchen and make sure I don’t scorch your dinner. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it hot without ruining it. When I heard the bell, I thought for sure that you’d finished your sherry and were ready for the first course. What’s the holdup?”
“Miss Sadler’s the holdup,” James replied. “She hasn’t come downstairs for dinner yet.”
“What?” Mrs. G. glanced around the dining room and seemed to notice, for the first time, that Elizabeth wasn’t there.
“I thought, perhaps, she had changed her mind about joining me for dinner,” James admitted. “And I thought that you might have sent a supper tray to her room instead.”
“Miss Sadler didn’t request a supper tray,” Mrs. G. denied. “And I know I didn’t prepare one for her.”
“I know I embarrassed her,” he muttered beneath his breath. “But …” James turned to Mrs. G., a look akin to fear on his face. “You don’t suppose she decided not to eat again?”
Mrs. G. shrugged her shoulders. “It’s possible,” she replied cautiously. “Why don’t I go upstairs and find out?”
“No.” James shook his head. “You stay down here and take care of dinner. I’ll go upstairs and find out what’s keeping Miss Sadler. I embarrassed her earlier this evening. If she’s decided she doesn’t want to join me for dinner, that’s fine. We’ll work out a dining schedule. But she’s going to have to tell me she doesn’t want to share a table with me face to face. I’m not going to allow her to miss meals by hiding away in her bedroom.” He paused for a moment, then lowered his voice and said to himself, “I can’t allow it. Not again.”
Helen Glenross watched as her employer stalked out of the dining room. You never could tell about people. To look at him, no one would ever think that such a fine, fit figure of a man, without an ounce of spare flesh on him, would have such a predilection for eating three full meals a day. But she had learned early in her employment that James Craig was fanatical about mealtimes. Nobody missed meals in Craig House without his knowing why.
Elizabeth Sadler had already missed one dinner served to her at Craig House. She’d better have a darned good reason for missing another one.
Twenty-three
ELIZABETH HAD A very good reason for missing dinner, James discovered as he walked through the quiet nursery, past the bedroom where the Treasures were sleeping, through the kitchen alcove to Elizabeth’s room. He raised his fist to announce his presence by knocking, then found it wasn’t necessary. Her bedroom door was ajar and through the crack James could see that Elizabeth lay sprawled in the center of the half-tester bed, fast asleep.
He started to obey his first impulse and walk away, but James gave into an almost overwhelming need to push the door open a little farther and quietly step over the threshold into her room. He pushed the door open with his elbow, thinking as he did so that, in the short time he’d known Elizabeth Sadler, he had conveniently managed to disregard a lifetime of gentlemanly manners and ethics. James frowned. So far he managed to barge in on her at least three times without an invitation—four times, if he counted the night at the Russ House in San Francisco, and James was honest enough to count the night at the Russ House, because although Elizabeth had invited him to enter her room, he had known he was preying on her sorrow and had been the one to force the issue. And not only had he suddenly developed the habit of barging in to wherever Elizabeth was just to see her, James was forced to admit that he had also been willing to have her arrested on trumped-up charges of theft and even jailed if necessary, so that he could act the part of the magnanimous rescuer and bail her out of trouble. He snorted in self-disgust. Even that part of his despicable scheme had been a lie. Elizabeth hadn’t needed rescuing. The members of the police department had recognized the trumped-up charge and Elizabeth’s character for what they were, and had already taken up a donation to bail her out of jail. There had never been a real reason for him to step in and practically browbeat her into accepting the job as governess to the Treasures except that he had wanted her and had been unwilling to settle for anyone else.
James shook his head. My, how the mighty had fallen! And at what price? Elizabeth lay in the center of the half-tester bed in what could only be described as an exhausted slumber. A small lamp glowed with a steady flame on the dresser in preparation for her toilette and the door of the armoire was open, but Elizabeth had apparently made no further progress in her efforts to dress for dinner. She still wore the smoke-colored satin wrapper she had worn at breakfast—the one he had fetched from this room and hung on the bathroom doorknob while she was bathing. The wrapper had come loose and twisted around her in her sleep, leaving a tantalizing inch or so of naked torso and her long slim legs exposed to his view. James forced himself to ignore the fantasies that popped into his head at the glimpses of tender flesh she revealed. He concentrated, instead, on the way her long tawny-colored hair fanned out across the bed and the way baby-fine wisps of it curled around her face. She slept as soundly as a child, clutching a pillow to her chest. An apparently much-loved doll rested on the pillow beside her.
The sound of her heavy breathing reminded him of his daughters’ in the bedroom next door, as did the way she slept with her lips slightly parted. A strand of hair was caught in the corner of her mouth, and James reached down and gently pulled it away, brushing his knuckles against the satiny soft curve of her cheek as he did so. The flawless ivory skin of her face was every bit as soft as the Treasures’. James marveled at the feel of it. But it was the network of fine blue lines crisscrossing her eyelids and the dark purplish bruises beneath her eyes that caused the first swift kick of guilt to hit him in the gut when he realized how tired Elizabeth must have been to have fallen asleep so quickly and so soundly. She couldn’t have had much sleep in the past few days, not after journeying from the East Coast to California by train. He remembered thinking how exhausted and fragile she had seemed as she slept in his arms that night at Russ House. How could he have forgotten how tumultuous her arrival in California had been? James shook his head at his lack of consideration.
His life had become equally tumultuous since he arrived in California. His life had changed so much since Ruby had joined the family, that he sometimes didn’t recognize it as belonging to James Cameron Craig. He could barely remember a time when he hadn’t slept with one eye and one ear open, afraid to sleep too deeply for fear that he wouldn’t wake up if Ruby or one of the other girls needed him during the night. It seemed he’d spent the past three years existing on catnaps while he managed to maintain a full work schedule at Craig Capital. He wasn’t complaining. He would gladly sacrifice any amount of sleep in order to be there if the Treasures needed him, but James had existed on so little sleep for so long that he had forgotten Elizabeth wasn’t accustom
ed to keeping up with three toddlers and a newborn infant. Or the long hours and the full schedule he’d devised for her as the Treasures’ governess.
He leaned forward and carefully eased himself down on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle the bed and awaken her. His conscience nagged at him. Elizabeth had fooled him. She had a core of strength that made her seem strong and invincible when she stood up to him at every turn, but she also had a vulnerable, fragile streak. He’d recognized both her strength and her fragility the first night he’d met her. He should have remembered how small she was, how delicate and light she’d felt as he held her in his arms. James stared down at her. She was tall and slim, and from what he’d seen in the bath, there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on her anywhere. She couldn’t afford to miss any more meals. And now, because of him, she’d missed two. James let out a breath. And he had thought requesting her company for dinner was a foolproof means of killing two birds with one stone—of seeing that she took care of herself, and of getting to know her better. James shook his head. Well, he’d certainly botched the job by working her too hard. Besides, it was time to be honest with himself. His reasons for inviting her to dinner hadn’t been nearly as noble as he wanted to believe. Certainly he wanted to get to know Elizabeth better and to see that she took better care of herself, but his sole purpose for inviting her to join him for dinner had been to charm her.
He was attracted to her and he fully intended to do everything in his power to charm her, to woo her, and to eventually win her over. He had tried to tell himself that the attraction he felt for Elizabeth could be contained within the boundaries of the governess–employer relationship. And maybe he had believed it when he first decided to hire her. Maybe it had been possible then. But breakfast this morning had shattered that illusion. James had looked at Elizabeth sitting across the table holding his infant daughter to her breast, and he had wanted that reality more than anything else on earth.
Right there and then he had finally understood why he’d tossed aside the ethics of a lifetime to locate her. Why he’d called in markers and political favors in order to have Elizabeth detained on the flimsiest of charges. It wasn’t enough that Elizabeth act as mother for his children—he wanted her to be their mother. As he sat at the breakfast table watching while she fed Diamond her morning bottle, James had been struck by a desire so pure and so powerful that had he been standing, it would have brought him to his knees.
He wanted to see Elizabeth at breakfast every morning. He wanted to watch her care for his children every day, and most of all, he wanted to love her, to give her more children to love—including a few of their own. And then he wanted to share the privilege of bringing those children into the world and watching while they nursed at their mother’s breast. It was as basic and as incredibly complex as that.
James sighed. He was so tired. So bone-numbing tired of being alone. Of course he had Ruby and Garnet and Emerald and Diamond and he loved them more than he had ever dreamed possible, but it wasn’t enough. He was a man who had taken a portion of his family inheritance and made himself a millionaire in his own right. He was greedy. He didn’t want to settle for less when there was every wondrous possibility that he could settle for more. Suddenly James realized that the best part of himself had been missing for over three years. Mei Ling had taken it to the grave with her but Elizabeth had somehow found and resurrected it.
Elizabeth shivered and James leaned forward and closed the folds of her dressing gown around her, then carefully reached over her and pulled the coverlet of the bed up and tucked it in around her legs. This was what was he had been missing. This incredible feeling of tenderness for a woman, the sense of rightness in being with her and touching her.
Mei Ling been dead for over three years, and in all that time, he hadn’t wanted any woman for more than an hour or so. There hadn’t been anyone of any duration since he’d arrived in California. No one he wanted to hold during the night, no one he trusted enough to put in charge of the Treasures or to hold him while he slept. Until Elizabeth. James watched her as she slept and wondered what it was that had prompted his attraction to her beyond an appreciation for her beauty, her spirit, her willingness to tackle any challenge, and her resourcefulness. Was it because he had met her at a time when Mei Ling lay heavily on his mind? Or perhaps, in spite of it? Was it because he had awakened in the middle of the night, heard her crying, and thought it was his wife? Or was it because at first, when he had thought she was Mei Ling, hope had sprung to life deep inside him and James had somehow known that if he could only get past the barred door to her room, he would be granted a miraculous second chance to put back all the pieces of his life and to make things right? Or because the hope had stayed even after he knew she wasn’t Mei Ling? Was it because Elizabeth reminded him of Mei Ling in some way? Or because Elizabeth was nothing like her? James didn’t know. He only knew that when he looked at Elizabeth he felt hopeful again, felt alive in a way that he had not felt since Mei Ling had torn their world apart.
James frowned. Elizabeth and Mei Ling were as different as night and day. As far apart as any two women could possibly be in all the ways that mattered except one—he had wanted both of them the first time he saw them.
James ran his hand through his hair. Even their entrances into his life were as different as night and day. He’d had to pursue Elizabeth to bring her into his home, while Mei Ling had been delivered to him—as a gift. His sixteenth birthday gift.
James smiled at the memory. His father had been amused and his mother appalled at the fact that one of Randall Craig’s oldest and most trusted Chinese advisers had purchased Mei Ling at auction and offered her to Randall as a birthday gift for his son. And there had been no way for Randall Craig to graciously refuse the gift. Not when he knew that to do so would cause his old friend Cho to lose face, and not when he had known that refusal to accept Mei Ling into the household meant she would most likely be turned out on the street to starve. Times were hard in the Canton province, and Mei Ling’s family had sold her to a flesh broker who had smuggled her off the mainland and taken her to Hong Kong to be sold as a serving girl or prostitute or concubine. Randall Craig’s employee, Cho Xing, had seen her at the auction and presented her at the house of his noble employer, Randall Craig, because he knew Craig had a young son who would welcome such a gift.
And on James’s sixteenth birthday, fourteen-year-old Mei Ling had become a member of the Craig household. Cho had presented her to James with great ceremony and fanfare, and the willowy beauty known as Mei Ling had become his. James knew his mother and father would never allow him to keep Mei Ling as a concubine, but he also understood the importance of saving face. He had played along as Cho extolled Mei Ling’s virtues and listened to his assurances that she was skilled in the art of lovemaking and had been taught all the secrets of pleasing a man. And from the moment he saw her, James made up his mind that when the time came for him to learn the art of lovemaking, he wanted Mei Ling to teach him.
In the end they had taught each other. Mei Ling was welcomed into Craig House, not as concubine or servant, but as Randall Craig’s ward. She was sent to the Presbyterian Mission School run by Will’s father, the Reverend Francis W. Keegan, and educated there. James knew his mother and father hoped that welcoming Mei Ling into the family and treating her as a daughter would foster a brother-sister relationship between them, and he tried to oblige them by doing his best to ignore Mei Ling during the two years he lived at home, before he left for England and the university. But knowing Mei Ling was his carried a certain aphrodisiacal cachet all its own. They had both known from the beginning that she’d been given to him as a concubine. And although James tried to please his parents and treat Mei Ling as a sister, he couldn’t. He didn’t want a foster sister, he wanted a lover and he wanted Mei Ling. His feelings for her weren’t brotherly or platonic. He was in love for the first time in his life.
James frowned, amazed in retrospect at how well soft-spoken, timid Mei
Ling had known him. She never set out to win his love, she simply took it for granted that she had it. She had been given to him, but he belonged to her as well. Fate had placed her in Cho Xing’s path on the day of James’s sixteenth birthday, and from that day forward she felt that her destiny and his were intertwined. They belonged to each other. Mei Ling never set out to seduce him, she simply assumed that one day they would fulfill their destiny by becoming the lovers they were meant to be. And while she was quiet and reserved and demure in public, Mei Ling was anything but weak. She was young and beautiful and she believed in the strength of her beauty as only the young and the very beautiful can. She was spoiled and petted and pampered by the Craig household from the day she joined them, and in her own way, Mei Ling became a stubborn force to be reckoned with. Her role as foster daughter to Randall and Julia Cameron Craig failed to satisfy her need to be loved. She wanted to assume the role for which she had been chosen. She didn’t want to settle for being James’s foster sister when she could be his wife. His first wife, not his concubine.
They became lovers shortly after James returned home from England and the university. He was twenty-one. Mei Ling was nineteen. He had learned a great deal about the art of pleasing women while away at school in England. Beautiful, virginal Mei Ling had known nothing about pleasing men, and yet, he’d been pleased because she was his—at last.
When his parents learned of the affair, they decided it would be best to let it run its course. Once the passion between James and Mei Ling burned itself out, they could be married to other, more suitable, spouses. For James, that meant marrying a European heiress to one of the many commercial banking and shipping firms in Hong Kong. For Mei Ling, it meant marrying a young Chinese man from a good family and with good prospects for the future. But James and Mei Ling had other ideas, and three months after they became lovers, James told his parents that he and Mei Ling were going to be married.
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