“Oh, no,” James muttered, anticipating the worst. “Ruby.”
Mrs. G. nodded. “We think so,” she admitted. “But we turned the house upside down, and we didn’t find a trace of Portia. If Miss Ruby’s hid her, she did a real good job of it.”
“What can I do?” James asked.
“Well, you might try talking to Miss Ruby in the morning,” Mrs. G. told him. “And I think you ought to talk to Miss Sadler tonight. She’s very upset.”
“What do I say?” James wanted to know.
“Just tell her you want to talk to her about the Treasures, about the nursery, anything. But please talk to her, Mr. Craig, because I’ve become very fond of her. And I’m worried.”
“All right, Mrs. G.,” James said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Mr. Craig.” Helen Glenross breathed a grateful sigh. “Thank you so much.”
James waited until Mrs. G. left, then wrapped a leftover sandwich in a linen napkin and stuck it in the pocket of his robe before he walked down the hall from his bedroom to the nursery. He paused for a moment in the Treasures’ bedroom and stood looking down at the little girls all curled on their beds. They were still sleeping peacefully. James smiled at the angelic expression on Ruby’s face. Looking at her like this, no one would guess the chaos she’d caused today. He shook his head. And over a doll! He looked up at the shelves high on the wall, far above the Treasures’ heads. Three beautiful dolls stared down at him. All the dolls were different. One had curly red hair and big green eyes. Another had brown hair and blue eyes, and the last had white-blond hair and blue eyes. He had bought them in San Francisco for Ruby when she was much too young to play with them. So he and Mrs. G. had placed them on the high shelf in the nursery bedroom, and to his knowledge, none of the Treasures had ever paid any attention to them or ever asked to play with them. But today Ruby and Garnet had had a battle royal over Elizabeth’s doll. He glanced down at the bed where Garnet slept, her thumb in her mouth and a frown on her face. James walked to the side of Garnet’s bed, bent down, and gently rubbed the pad of his thumb across Garnet’s wrinkled brow, smoothing out the lines, as if to erase them and the worry that put them there. James stood and blew a kiss to all the Treasures before he walked silently out of the bedroom.
He knocked on the door twice. “Elizabeth?”
She didn’t answer but James knew she was in there. He could hear the muffled sounds she made as she wept into her pillow. He reached out and turned the doorknob. The door was locked.
James knocked again. “Please answer the door, Elizabeth.”
Still she didn’t answer.
“You didn’t eat dinner. Are you all right?
Elizabeth let go of her pillow at the sound of James’s voice and sat up in bed.
“I’m very sorry about your doll, Elizabeth,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about Portia.” James let go of the doorknob and walked away—back to his room.
Elizabeth rolled off the bed and went to the vanity. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was red from crying. She didn’t want James to see her when she’d been crying over something so foolish as a doll. But she didn’t want to miss seeing him, either. She walked to the door and turned the key in the lock. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall, but it was too late. James was gone. He’d already walked away. Again.
Elizabeth closed the door, then crossed the bedroom and unlocked the French doors that opened onto the balcony. She dragged the chaise longue from her bedroom to the balcony, then sat down and waited.
“My father gave her to me the day my younger brother was born,” Elizabeth said soon afterward, when she heard the scrape and smelled the acrid sulfur odor of a match, seconds before she saw the flare of a blue-orange flame as James lit a cigarillo. “Other than at Christmas and my birthdays, Portia was the only gift my father ever gave me.
“Then I’m doubly sorry she’s missing,” James answered, crossing from his end of the balcony to stand just a few feet away from where she sat on the chaise. He was shirtless and barefoot, as he’d been the first night she met him, wearing only his favorite silk robe and a pair of trousers. And he didn’t appear to be the least bit surprised to see her. James took a handkerchief from the pocket of his robe and handed it to her.
Elizabeth stared at it, searching in the dim light for the initials she knew were embroidered on the corner. J. C. C. “Am I going to jail again if I accept this?”
James shook his head. “No, but if you don’t take this”—he stuck his hand in his other pocket and removed a bundle wrapped in a linen napkin and gave it to her—“I may consider it.”
Elizabeth unwrapped the bundle and found what smelled like a slab of roast beef sandwiched between two thick slices of bread.
“Dry your eyes and eat your sandwich,” James instructed.
“I’m acting like a baby,” Elizabeth sniffled. “Crying over the loss of a doll like this.” She took a bite of the meat and bread and then another.
“I’d say you’re entitled,” James replied. “First Owen, and now, this.”
Elizabeth looked surprised by his mention of Owen’s name.
“I know about Owen, Elizabeth. I did some checking around,” he admitted. “I know where and how Owen died. And why you used your parasol to destroy the interior of the Red Dragon.”
Elizabeth let out a breath. “That’s a relief,” she told him. “I was afraid you might think I intended to crusade against other dens of iniquity and make a habit of destroying other people’s property.”
“Opium dens are legal,” James reminded her. “They may be dens of iniquity, but by law, they’re allowed to operate. Your brother was over twenty-one. He made his choices.”
“I know. That’s the sad part. People like Lo Peng operate businesses that thrive on other people’s weaknesses. Owen was barely twenty-one. He was young and he was weak-willed, but I loved him anyway and he didn’t deserve to die or to have his body dumped on the side of the street like so much trash.”
“So you struck out against the Red Dragon.” James shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” He glanced around for a place to sit.
Elizabeth shrugged. “What was there to tell? Owen’s dead. His body was dumped in the street. I can’t change those facts.” She curled her legs beneath her to make room for James to sit on the end of the chaise.
James sighed. “I know it won’t lessen your grief or the pain of knowing what was done to Owen, but dumping your brother’s body in the street wasn’t personal, Elizabeth. I’m not saying that it isn’t horrible, and I’m certainly not defending the practice. I’m just saying that Lo Peng considered it a necessity. You see the Chinese in this country don’t have many legal rights. They’re forced to cross the street if a white man walks down the same sidewalk. They can own and operate businesses, but they’re always in danger of being harassed by local police and the citizenry. The owners of opium dens and gambling houses are at greater risk because men can and do get killed in fights, or die from overindulgence in the poppy.” He took a puff on his cigar. “When a Chinese dies, nothing much is said or done about it, but when an occidental dies, for whatever reason, a great deal is said and done about it. Chinese merchants have been accused of murder and of poisoning customers, and lynched for having a white man’s body on their premises.” James sat on the end of the chaise longue and blew out a puff of cigar smoke.
Elizabeth shuddered. “It’s still a despicable thing to do.”
“Yes,” James agreed, “it is.”
They sat without speaking for a while, until James broke the companionable silence by asking, “Did you know Owen was addicted to opium? Is that what brought you out here from Providence?”
“A train brought me out here from Providence.” She managed a slight smile at her weak attempt at humor. “But my own faulty judgment precipitated the journey. I didn’t know anything about Owen’s frequenting of the Red Dragon until I arrived and learned of his death.”
&
nbsp; “What happened?” he asked, getting up from the chaise and moving to lean against the balcony railing.
Elizabeth gave a little unladylike snort. “My grandmother Sadler disowned me. She scratched my name out of the family Bible and asked me to leave the house I’d grown up in—and to leave Providence. I didn’t have any place else to go, so I decided to come stay with Owen.”
James didn’t believe Elizabeth could have done anything bad enough to warrant her grandmother’s harsh punishment. “Why did she disown you?”
“I allowed myself to be compromised.”
“I don’t believe it,” James said flatly.
“It’s true,” Elizabeth told him. “At least, that’s the way my grandmother saw it.”
“How do you see it?” He’d already heard enough about her grandmother to know that the lady made moral judgments and set impossibly high standards for the people around her to follow.
“I saw it as taking care of an old family friend who was ill when he arrived in town for his Christmas visit.”
“He?”
Elizabeth nodded. “His name is Samuel Wright. He and my father were schoolmates.”
“Go on,” James urged.
“I’ve known Samuel all my life. So when he arrived for his visit earlier than planned, I didn’t think anything of accompanying him to his hotel room. You see, my mother and my grandmother were out of town. I was staying at Lady Wimbley’s with some of the girls who didn’t go home after term, so our house was closed and the servants were still on holiday. Samuel was feverish and very ill. So I accompanied him to his hotel room and sent for the doctor.” Elizabeth looked down at her tightly clenched fists. “I couldn’t leave him. There was no one else to take care of him. He was alone and sick and burning up with fever. The doctor suggested I stay until Samuel was better or until …” She let her voice drift off. “And I agreed. I didn’t think about propriety or my reputation or the fact that Samuel was a widower. I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was Samuel and the fact that without my help, he might die.”
“But your grandmother did care about propriety,” James guessed.
“Yes,” Elizabeth answered. “My grandmother cared about propriety more than she cared about me or Samuel’s well-being. She cared about propriety to the exclusion of all else. And because I’d spent three days and two nights in the unchaperoned company of an unmarried man, I was compromised.”
“And then what happened?” James asked softly.
“As soon as he recovered his health and realized what had happened, Samuel went to see Grandmother Sadler and asked her for my hand in marriage.”
“She turned him down?” James couldn’t believe it.
“Of course not,” Elizabeth said. “Grandmother was delighted. I turned him down.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth gave another unladylike snort. “He was old enough to be my father. And what’s more, Samuel didn’t love me. Not the way a man should love his wife. Samuel loved me like a daughter. And I loved him like a father. I couldn’t marry him. It wasn’t right. It would have felt too—too—incestuous.” She glanced at James, willing him to understand.
“I take it your grandmother didn’t agree.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “She thought I was crazy. She said I was a fool to turn him down, then she ordered me to rethink my position and to say yes when Samuel asked again. Grandmother knew Samuel would ask again because he felt responsible for destroying my reputation and the only way to repair the damage was to marry me. She knew he would keep asking until I agreed. So when I refused Samuel’s second most generous proposal, I was ostracized by my friends, relieved of my teaching duties at Lady Wimbley’s, disowned by my grandmother, and asked to leave not only her home, but the town of Providence as well.”
James winced. In the time he’d known her he’d compromised Elizabeth far worse than Samuel Wright had done. But Samuel had felt honor-bound to offer Elizabeth marriage. Not once, but twice. “Because you were compromised, or because you refused Wright’s gentlemanly offer?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Either way, the price was too high.” She studied James’s profile in the faint light moonlight. “What about you? What made you leave Hong Kong?”
“I had my reasons,” he answered in an echo of the words she’d given him the first time she met the Treasures.
Elizabeth frowned at him.
“All right,” he said. “Finish your sandwich and I’ll tell you.”
Elizabeth did as he told her, polishing off the rest of the food in three bites.
James smiled. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She blotted her lips with the napkin, then shook her head. “Now, tell me what brought you to California.”
“A ship,” James teased, walking back to sit on the end of Elizabeth’s chaise longue.
“Why?” she asked. “Why did you leave your home and family to come here?”
“Too many memories,” he admitted at last. “There were too many ghosts back in Hong Kong. Too many reasons not to sleep at night.”
“You still don’t sleep enough at night,” Elizabeth pointed out, reminding him that they were both sitting out on the balcony long after they should have been in bed asleep.
“And you don’t eat enough.”
Elizabeth agreed. “We’re a fine pair.”
James looked at her, then reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. “If you think that, Elizabeth, then you can’t have heard the rumors about me.”
“I heard.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Lois Marlin told me,” she explained. “In the park yesterday. But I don’t believe a word of them.”
He was tempted to kiss her, so James dropped his hand from her face and stared up at the stars. “I didn’t kill her,” James said starkly. “I couldn’t forgive her for what she did, but I didn’t kill her.”
“I never doubted that for a moment,” Elizabeth answered, her eyes sparkling with fierce emotion and loyalty.
“I did,” James said. “Oh, logically, I understood that she killed herself. But until today, I never understood that I wasn’t responsible. I kept telling myself that if I’d just been able to forgive her for what she’d done, she’d still be alive. But I couldn’t forgive her. And when she died I felt I was responsible. I thought I killed her.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Be glad you got here after Owen died. It’s horrible to sit helplessly by while someone you love dies slowly, little bit by little bit, until they simply waste away. That’s why I worry so. I try not to, but I can’t seem to help it. Every time someone misses a meal, I think it’s happening all over again.”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath as understanding dawned and the horror of what James had endured sank in. “Oh, my God, what did she do?”
“I have money,” he said. “Lots of it. Millions of pounds of it. And I could have bought her anything on earth she wanted to eat. I tried. But she wouldn’t let me see her. Wouldn’t let me near her. And by the time I realized what was wrong, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t force her to eat.”
Tears sparkled in Elizabeth’s eyes and ran unchecked down her face. “Oh, James, I’m so sorry.” Impulsively offering comfort, Elizabeth leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his shoulder.
“So am I,” he said softly. “But every day I live with the knowledge that even in a house of plenty, there was nothing I could do to prevent my wife from deliberately starving herself to death.”
Twenty-seven
THE MOMENT JAMES turned in her arms, nothing on earth could have prevented Elizabeth from offering him the solace he needed. Desire arced between them like lightning. She leaned forward and closed her eyes as James sought her mouth with his own.
She deserved gentleness, James reminded himself in an effort to go slow. She deserved tenderness. So he devoted himself to giving Elizabeth everything she deserved. He nibbled at her lips, then traced the texture of them with a l
ight brush of his own. James touched the seam between her lips with the tip of his tongue, showering Elizabeth with pleasure as he tasted the softness of her lips and absorbed the feel of her mouth, poring over every detail, every nuance of her lips and mouth and teeth and tongue, with the same single-minded attention to detail he used to orchestrate million-dollar deals. He leaned into her, pressing the lower part of his body against the cradle of hers and Elizabeth opened her mouth and parted her legs to grant him access. Acknowledging her generous offering, James reached up, tangled one hand in her hair, and sent her hairpins scattering in all directions as he pulled her closer to deepen his kiss. He used his tongue to delve deep into the lush sweetness of her mouth. Her tongue mated with his, mirrored his as he plundered the depths, then retreated before plundering again.
Elizabeth sank against him, shivering in delicious response as James left her lips and kissed a path over her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose, brushing his lips lightly over hers once again before he continued on his path to the pulse that beat at the base of her throat. Elizabeth had always prided herself on her independent spirit and her education, but she found she was sadly, shamelessly, lacking in both those attributes as she lay in James’s arms. She was a little bewildered to discover she was more than willing to relinquish her independence and become a willing slave to her desires.
James rubbed his nose into the hollow below her ear, inhaling the fresh lavender scent of her, as he laved the spot where her pulse throbbed with his tongue. He nibbled and teased and coaxed his way from her mouth to her throat, to the dainty pink shell of her ear and back again with a finesse he’d almost forgotten he possessed. A fierce longing flowed through him, making him shudder with the need to touch all of her, to taste all of her. He remembered the way her breasts had looked through the wet transparent fabric of her chemise, the way their pink tips puckered like ripe lips awaiting a lover’s kiss. His kiss. And, ever the gentleman, James vowed not to disappoint them.