Rebecca Hagan Lee (15 page)

“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 reply, 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,” Elizabeth 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.”

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.

CRAIG CAPITAL
,
LIMITED
, is hereby granted … Craig Capital, Limited, is hereby granted …
James tossed the
contracts aside and looked over at the mantel clock in disgust. He had spent the last quarter-hour reading the same sentence and he couldn’t recall any of the information contained in the sentences leading up to it. He pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up, then walked over to the fireplace, leaned against the edge of the mantel, and stared at the logs neatly stacked in the grate. He couldn’t concentrate on a railroad contract when his mind was fully occupied with thoughts of the woman upstairs.

Elizabeth Sadler. Lovely Elizabeth Sadler. Mercurial Elizabeth Sadler. Enchanting Elizabeth Sadler. Mysterious Elizabeth Sadler. Bigoted Elizabeth Sadler. James squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to block out the memory of the way Elizabeth had looked as she backed away from the Treasures. He banged the top of the mantel with his right fist. “Damn it! Is expecting an intelligent woman to look beyond my children’s obvious differences too much to ask?” He lifted his gaze from the fireplace and looked heavenward. He was too old to be an idealist, too jaded. So, when was he going to stop expecting the people he cared about to accept the Treasures, and learn to anticipate their bigoted reactions? When was he going to stop expecting the people he cared about … James stopped suddenly, then shook his head as if to clear it. He didn’t care about Elizabeth Sadler. He didn’t value her opinions or care about her feelings. Or did he?

I have my reasons.
Her fervent admission echoed in his mind. She had her reasons. What the hell were they? What reasons could be strong enough to warrant her repulsion at the sight of the Treasures? Had she been so sheltered by her family she hadn’t known people came in differing skin tones? And if so, what the hell was she doing traveling out West alone?

James sighed. He’d grown up in Hong Kong. He’d grown up surrounded by people whose beliefs and skin color differed from his own, where he was the minority. And his parents had often commented that growing up in Hong Kong had prepared him for anything. James snorted
in derision. Anything except intolerance. Anything except life in America. Anything except how to cope with his massive frustration with, and disappointment in, Elizabeth Sadler. Christ! His mother hadn’t reacted as badly as Elizabeth when he’d announced he was marrying Mei Ling. In fact, Julia Cameron Craig had barely batted an eye as her only son announced his plans to marry the girl whose family had given her to him as a concubine. Oh, she’d argued against it later, but his announcement hadn’t really caught his mother by surprise. And although Mei Ling wasn’t the daughter-in-law Julia Cameron Craig would have chosen for him, she had done her best to secure Mei Ling’s position as James’s wife within the British community and to make her feel at home. Why couldn’t Elizabeth do the same? Why couldn’t she welcome four motherless little girls into her heart and make them feel safe and wanted and loved? James sighed.
You must be patient, Jamie. Some things take time.
James heard his mother’s voice speaking those words as clearly as if she were standing in his study beside him, as clearly as he had heard them back in Hong Kong when he’d complained to his mother that the wives of the men in the banking community had yet to invite Mei Ling to their afternoon teas or to acknowledge her as his wife.