Gossamer Read online

  Two

  ELIZABETH SLOWLY OPENED her eyes and recognized the interior of her room at the Russ House. Her eyelids felt weighted down, swollen, and gritty. She tried to stretch but found herself held securely and surrounded by warmth. She luxuriated in the warmth as she breathed in the woodsy, spicy aroma permeating the room and listened to the reassuring thump of a heartbeat beneath her ear and the even, rhythmic breathing of a deeply slumbering man.

  Not just any man. James. Startled, Elizabeth jerked upright and bumped her head against his chin as the memory of the night before came flooding back. She might have tumbled to the hard floor if not for the strong arms around her and the large hands intimately cupping her bottom, the long lean fingers laced together holding her in place. She wiggled in his embrace and rubbed at the tender spot where her head had come in contact with his chin, waiting for him to awaken. But he simply tightened his grip on her and continued to sleep. Elizabeth sighed. She knew she shouldn’t linger. She knew she should get out of his arms right away and feel scandalized by their intimacy, but she didn’t. She hadn’t had anyone to watch over her or hold her or cuddle her for a very long time.

  She waited, barely daring to breathe, as he nuzzled her hair with his mouth and murmured unintelligibly in his sleep. She fought against the weakness sapping her resolve, fought against the almost overwhelming urge to burrow deeper against James’s chest and cloak herself in his strength. But the night was over and with the dawn came the reality that she wasn’t a child any longer. And she couldn’t expect to be pampered and petted like a child. She was a woman grown. A woman who didn’t waste her breath wishing for things she couldn’t have. She had never prayed for miracles or hoped for impossible dreams to come true. She had learned a long time ago that there was no point in wishing for someone to hold her at night, to comfort her and keep the monsters at bay. And she didn’t intend to start relying on the kindness of strangers at this late date. Even strangers like James. Especially good, kind strangers like James.

  Men like James deserved women with untarnished reputations. They deserved—he deserved—the best. And she wasn’t the best. Not anymore. Still, it was nice to think about … Elizabeth bit back a wistful sigh and ruthlessly suppressed the hundred unnamed, restless yearnings plaguing her. Don’t think about it, she admonished herself, just do what you have to do. She pressed her lips together, flattening them into a firm determined line, and carefully extricated herself from James’s protective embrace.

  She tiptoed around the room, quietly retrieving her belongings. But Elizabeth couldn’t help but glance over from time to time to study him. She’d guessed him to be about thirty years of age when she opened her door to him, but he looked so much younger in repose. His face was relaxed and his lips slightly parted. His piercing blue eyes were closed and shielded from view, and his black eyelashes fanned against his face, drawing her attention. His were the eyelashes of a child—thick and impossibly long—and the way they caressed the curve of his cheekbone made it relatively easy to believe the boyish illusion and to disregard the fine network of lines crinkling the corners of his eyes and the dark shadow of his unshaven jaw that gave proof of his maturity.

  Unable to resist the impulse, Elizabeth walked over and gently traced the line of his jaw with the pad of her thumb, delighting in the sandpapery feel of it. James was an impressive man. The most impressive man she’d ever been close enough to touch. He wasn’t as classically handsome as Owen. His looks were too dark, too rugged, but she couldn’t deny his appeal. James exuded strength and a masculine vitality, even in sleep, that Elizabeth found impossible to ignore.

  But ignore it she must. She had to forget the comfort of his arms, the warmth and feel of his body against hers, and the sense of well-being he offered. She had to dismiss the almost overwhelming desire she felt to lay all her troubles at his feet and let him sort them out. Because she couldn’t allow herself to do otherwise. She couldn’t allow him to take her cares and concerns onto his shoulders—even if his shoulders were broad enough to carry them. She didn’t know why it seemed so important to her, but Elizabeth desperately wanted James to recognize the fact that she wasn’t weak or helpless and that she was perfectly capable of handling her own affairs. Especially since he’d seen her at her worst. What must he think of her already? Allowing him into her room in the middle of the night was bad enough, but crying on his shoulder was really mortifying, because she never cried—not when Papa died or Owen left or when Grandmother …

  Elizabeth bit her bottom lip. That didn’t bear thinking on. Not when she had so many other worries to tend, not when she was about to do the most cowardly thing she had ever done in her whole life. Not when she was about to sneak out of her hotel room like a thief in the night because she couldn’t face James in the morning light and risk succumbing to that age-old female weakness of relying on a man’s strength instead of her own. Because she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing contempt replace the kindness in his eyes.

  Firming her resolve, Elizabeth gathered her carpetbag, her hatbox, and her room key. She placed her luggage beside the door, then tiptoed over to James still asleep in the wing chair, reached into the pocket of his robe, and carefully eased his hotel key out of his pocket. His handkerchief was entwined with the key. The same handkerchief he had used to wipe away her tears. Elizabeth untangled the key and lifted the silk square to her nose. She breathed in the heady scent of James’s cologne. She meant to put it back, to wrap his handkerchief around her hotel key and tuck it back into his pocket, but a sudden yearning gave her pause. Surely, he wouldn’t miss one handkerchief? He’d given it to her to use. Would he mind her keeping it? Not when he probably had a dozen or more at home. Not when all she’d ever have were her memories and one tiny memento of the night a very special man had held her in his arms and rocked her to sleep.

  Her decision made, Elizabeth clutched James’s handkerchief to her breast for a moment before tucking it safely inside the pocket hidden in the seams of her skirt. Afraid to risk another foray into James’s pocket, she squeezed her eyes shut, then opened her hand and let her hotel key slide between his muscular outer thigh and the arm of the chair, down between the cushion and the frame. James wouldn’t be able to find the key so readily now, and when he did find it, Elizabeth hoped he’d think it slipped from his robe and into the cushion while he slept.

  She’d done what she had to do to delay him. She had switched room keys. Elizabeth felt more than a pang of guilt at repaying his kindness with deceit, but she couldn’t chance that he would try to follow her. Instinct told her that James was the kind of man who’d be inclined to seek her out—if only to make sure she was all right. He had a room key and could prove he belonged in the unlikely event that the hotel management tried to evict him. She wouldn’t have to worry about him not having a place to sleep if he needed one. She wouldn’t be depriving him of shelter, only temporary access to his belongings. She didn’t want to hurt him. But Elizabeth didn’t want him to try to find her, either.

  Grabbing her shoes in one hand, Elizabeth opened the door to her room and peeked out. The corridor was empty. She nudged her baggage into the hallway and took one last look around. She meant to check to see if she’d left anything behind, but all she noticed was James. The room that had seemed so big and lonely when she arrived seemed somehow smaller, cozier with him asleep in it. She couldn’t help but notice how he dwarfed the chair he sat sprawled on and how he had crooked his head at an uncomfortable angle in order to hold her on his lap. Elizabeth frowned. She couldn’t leave him like that. It wouldn’t be right.

  Quickly, before she had time to think better of it, Elizabeth crossed the room, snatched a pillow from the bed and oh-so-gently worked it beneath James’s head and the wing of the chair. He sighed, as if in gratitude, and Elizabeth gave in to a heartfelt impulse and brushed her lips across his hair before she straightened her shoulders and walked quietly out of the room.

  An hour later Elizabeth shivered, hugged her double
shawl closer to her body, and muttered a sincere, but decidedly unladylike, curse beneath her breath as the fog that shrouded the San Francisco hills seeped through several layers of clothing and into her very bones. She gripped the ends of her shawl in her fists, protecting her hands against the biting cold as she left the cab and started up the steps to the building ahead of her. The thick fog surrounding her diluted the weak sunlight, distorting the sights and sounds of the ordinary urban activity all around her. But the cold and the fog and the fact that she had only been in San Francisco one night and part of a morning could not keep Elizabeth from the task she had set for herself. She’d already endured too much to let anything prevent her from locating her brother’s final resting place and that horrible establishment that had caused his untimely death. She was determined to fulfill her duty to Owen, to search the whole city if necessary, and she intended to start at the San Francisco City Police Department.

  She opened the doors of the station house. The entrance hall was practically deserted at such an early hour, so Elizabeth made her way right up to the front desk. After taking a deep fortifying breath, she announced in a rush, “My name is Elizabeth Sadler. I was here late yesterday afternoon seeking information about my brother, Owen, and this morning I’ve come to find—”

  “Step back, please.” A voice, coming from above her head, interrupted her flow of words.

  “I beg your pardon?” Standing as close as she was to the front desk, Elizabeth couldn’t see the officer seated behind the raised dais, so she wasn’t quite certain she’d heard him correctly.

  “Step back away from the desk so I can see you, ma’am.”

  “Why, yes, of course,” Elizabeth said, carefully moving back a couple of steps until she could see the officer behind the desk and he could see her.

  “Now, ma’am, if you’ll give me your name and state your business.”

  Elizabeth stared up at the policeman. “I’ve already given you my name and stated my business.”

  The officer lifted a pen from its holder and opened his log book. “I didn’t catch your name or your business,” he told her. “So, if you’ll kindly repeat it for the record.”

  “My name is Elizabeth Sadler.” She enunciated her name slowly and clearly. “I was here late yesterday—”

  “Can you spell that for me?”

  “Certainly,” she replied. “Y-E-S-T-E-R—”

  “Your name, ma’am,” he interrupted. “Please spell your name for the record.”

  Elizabeth blushed. “Yes, of course. E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H-S-A-D-L-E-R.” She spelled her name for the policeman, then waited patiently for him to introduce himself.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You didn’t introduce yourself,” she said.

  The officer gruffly cleared his throat “Darnell, miss. Sergeant Terrence Darnell.”

  Elizabeth nodded, then began again. “As I said before, my name is Elizabeth Sadler and I came here late yesterday afternoon.”

  “What was your reason for yesterday’s visit?”

  “I was told to come here by the landlady who rented a room to my brother.”

  “Your brother’s name?”

  “Owen,” Elizabeth replied, standing on tiptoe, trying to peer over the edge of the dais as she repeated, “O-W-E-N-S-A-D-L-E-R.”

  “Older or younger brother?”

  “Why?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I need his approximate age for the report, miss.”

  “Younger,” she answered. “Owen is twenty-one.” She waited as Sergeant Darnell made a note in his book.

  “Got it,” he informed her. “Go on.”

  “My brother, Owen, left home seven months ago bound for San Francisco. He arrived here two weeks after leaving Providence.” Elizabeth paused for a moment, waiting to see if the officer would ask her to spell Providence. When he didn’t, she continued, “Rhode Island. We grew up there. Anyway, Owen arrived in San Francisco and took a room at Ordley’s Boarding House on Montgomery Street. He roomed at Mrs. Ordley’s until two months ago—”

  “And now you want us to find your brother”—the policeman glanced down at his notes—“Owen Sadler, because he’s moved on without contacting you.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “And no.”

  The officer stared down at her, impatience written on every line of his weathered face.

  Elizabeth hurried to elaborate. “Yes, I do want you to help me locate my brother, but not because he moved away from Mrs. Ordley’s, but because …” Her voice quivered and she fought to retain control. “He died.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Owen died. And that’s why I need your help. You see I only arrived in San Francisco yesterday. I came to live with him, but when I went to Mrs. Ordley’s address, she had already rented Owen’s room to someone else. She suggested I come here. I spoke to Officer Anderson. He told me Owen had died. Nearly two months ago. In an opium den on Washington Street in Chinatown. Officer Anderson said the owner of the establishment identified Owen as a regular customer.”

  “I’m sorry, miss.” Sergeant Darnell’s expression showed genuine compassion.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” she replied.

  “How can we help you, Miss Sadler?”

  “I want to know where my brother is buried. I’ll comb this city on foot all by myself if I have to,” she told him. “Because I won’t be able to rest until I find his grave.”

  “Did your brother leave any money?”

  “No,” she answered. “He worked in the Wells Fargo Bank on Montgomery Street. But his account was empty. I arrived during banking hours yesterday. I expected Owen to be at work, so I went directly to the bank. Mr. Knight, the bank manager, told me Owen no longer worked at the bank, that he hadn’t worked there for over two months. He said Owen had failed to show up at work, and they had assumed he had left without giving notice. Mr. Knight suggested I try Ordley’s Boarding House.”

  Darnell thought for a moment. “If your brother didn’t leave any money for burial, then he’s most likely buried in a pauper’s grave in one of the city cemeteries.”

  Elizabeth nodded her understanding. “Sergeant Anderson told me the same thing last evening. But there are several cemeteries with potter’s fields in San Francisco, and he didn’t know where to begin looking. I came back here this morning hoping for more information.”

  “You say your brother died in Chinatown?” Sergeant Darnell repeated. “In a den on Washington Street?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed. “That would be Lo Peng’s. And your best bet would be Saint Mary’s Church. Go to Saint Mary’s and ask for Father Paul. There’s a vacant lot down the street from there. I heard that the church had donated the land as a burial ground for the poor victims of Chinatown. Father Paul sees to the burying of the occidentals who go unclaimed.…” Darnell let his voice drift off.

  “How far is it?”

  “A few blocks.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “You go down Market, then turn on Kearney toward Portsmouth Square—” Noting the confusion on Elizabeth’s face, the Sergeant brought his directions to an abrupt halt. “I’ll draw you a map,” he told her, before taking his pen and sketching a rough map on one of the blank pages in his log book.

  “Oh, thank you, Sergeant.” Elizabeth’s face lit up like a thousand-candle chandelier.

  Sergeant Darnell stood and leaned over the high desk to hand the map to Elizabeth. “Take a cab,” he advised. “The fog’s as thick as porridge this morning. And we don’t want you wandering around the city getting lost. Saint Mary’s is too close to Chinatown. And Chinatown is no place for an unescorted white woman. Even in daylight.”

  ELIZABETH LET GO of one end of her shawl, reached inside her skirt pocket, and pulled out the hastily drawn map of the downtown area that Sergeant Darnell had given to her. He’d been right. She should have taken a cab. The fog was as thick as porridge—even thicker than it had been when she left her hotel this morning. But she’d already
spent a part of her dwindling cash on one cab, and she couldn’t afford to spend more money on another one when she only had a few short blocks to go.

  Pausing under a street lamp, Elizabeth studied the rough sketch in the eerie glow, then carefully stuffed the map back into her pocket and continued her journey. Only a few more blocks and she’d reach Saint Mary’s Church on the fringe of the alien reaches of Chinatown.

  Beyond the church, in one of the vacant lots between Saint Mary’s Square and Portsmouth Square, was a tiny graveyard. A paupers’ graveyard. A place where occidental drunks and opium-eaters were buried. Although she and Owen had been brought up in the Methodist faith, Elizabeth felt comforted by the fact that a kindly priest watched over her brother’s final resting place.

  If only she hadn’t stayed behind in Providence. If only she had left her job at the academy months ago when Owen turned twenty-one and told her he was tired of clerking at the bank, when he informed her that he was heading west to seek his fortune in San Francisco. She should have gone with him. She knew he was high-spirited and adventurous and eager to see the world that lay beyond the bank teller’s cage. She knew he was a dreamer with a tendency toward laziness, a young man who resented the fact that he had been forced into learning the trade by clerking at the bank their family owned.

  Elizabeth bit her bottom lip and fought to keep the tears stinging her eyes from rolling down her cheeks. Owen hadn’t been bad, just young and headstrong and, at times, foolish. She was older and more content with her life. Owen had hated the bank, hated answering to others, but she liked Lady Wimbley’s Female Academy and had been reasonably happy teaching there. Like Owen, she had needed to escape the two-story stone house on Hemlock Street, where she and Owen had grown up. But unlike Owen, she had been safe and secure at Lady Wimbley’s up until two weeks ago, while Owen had been lying in a pauper’s grave unmourned and unclaimed for two long months.