Gossamer Page 4

  “I can’t believe I forgot about the meeting with the Central Pacific board.”

  Will shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. The deal had already been made. Today’s meeting was only a formality, and besides”—he looked over the rim of his coffee cup at James—“I needed the experience and you needed to know the company wouldn’t fall apart simply because you missed one meeting.” Will set his cup down in its saucer.

  “Damn,” James said. “I never forget a meeting. That isn’t like me at all.”

  “I figured something important came up.” Will’s brown eyes twinkled merrily as he gave James a broad knowing wink. “Don’t fret about it, Jamie. No one would blame you for spending a day in San Francisco pleasuring a woman in bed. You’re entitled. Hell, you’re more than entitled, you’re due.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” James eyed Will suspiciously.

  “I heard you created a little … um … disturbance this morning at the Russ House.”

  James raised his eyebrow. “You don’t normally pay attention to idle gossip, Will.”

  “I do where you’re concerned,” Will Keegan answered, meeting James’s unrelenting glare with one of his own. James knew that Will wasn’t just talking about this morning’s episode at Russ House, but about the other gossip that had followed hot on his heels from Hong Kong. “Don’t frown at me, Jamie. You know you’d do the same if our situations were reversed.”

  James sighed. Will was right. James couldn’t blame his friend for paying attention. Will had almost as much at stake in Craig Capital as he did, and any gossip about James that affected CCL affected Will as well. “What did you hear?” James asked abruptly. “How bad was it?”

  “I heard you had a helluva morning. I heard you appeared at breakfast at the Russ House in a silk robe and nothing else, that you were arguing with the management because a prostitute named LilyBeth had stolen your clothes and your money and that you kicked your door out of its frame because the hotel management refused to allow you access to your belongings unless you paid your bill in full.” Will grinned at James. “In short, I heard that the fabulously wealthy James Craig rolled, and was rolled by, a Barbary Coast whore in one of San Francisco’s most exclusive hotels. How close did the gossips come to the truth?”

  “I kicked my hotel room door out of its frame.”

  “Why?” Will couldn’t contain his curiosity.

  “Because I was locked out of my room and it was taking that incompetent hotel manager too damn long to find a locksmith to get me back inside it.”

  “No Barbary Coast whore named LilyBeth?”

  “Definitely not,” James told him, remembering the vulnerable expression in Elizabeth’s beautiful blue-green eyes.

  “No silk robe?”

  James smiled for the first time since Will had joined him at the table. “I was wearing a silk robe, all right, but I had a pair of trousers on beneath it.”

  “Oh, well, I knew it was too good to be true.”

  “Well?” James demanded.

  “Well what?”

  “How do you think this latest rumor will affect the company and the men?”

  Will began to chuckle. “Oh, I think this rumor will prove beneficial to the company and the men.”

  “How so?”

  “This one will make you seem more human. More fallible. The men will tend to think of you as one of them once they learn you were caught with your trousers down around your ankles just like the rest of us have been at one time or another while in San Francisco.”

  “But I wasn’t,” James insisted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Will told him. “Once the men hear the rumor, that’s what they’ll believe.”

  James exhaled a long, slow, deep breath. Why was that? he wondered. Why did everyone always want to believe the worst about someone else? Why would the men in his employ want him to be fallible? Didn’t they understand that he couldn’t afford to be fallible? Not when he held their livelihoods, and sometimes their very lives, in his hand.

  Will Keegan reached over and clapped James on the shoulder. “Cheer up, old man. The men are going to be positively gloating about this one.”

  “I know,” James replied glumly.

  “They’ll like you better,” Will replied.

  “I don’t care whether they like me or not,” James reminded his second-in-command, “but, dammit, I do want them to trust me.”

  “Trust has to be earned,” Will said.

  “How well I know it.” James focused his gaze on the polished wooden surface of the table.

  Will finished his cup of coffee and rose from the table. “Give them time, Jamie. We’re still new here in California. Our ways of doing business are new. But I’m certain that once the men who work for us realize that we pay equal wages for equal work to everyone, regardless of background or skin color, they’ll relax, learn to work together and to trust our leadership. Once the men figure out that you don’t favor one group over the other, everything will be all right.”

  “I hope you’re right,” James said fervently.

  “I am,” Will told him. “You’ll see.” He clapped James on the shoulder again. “I have to see to the unloading of the supplies we ordered,” he said as he prepared to leave the warmth of the salon and return to the deck and the bitter cold. “Don’t forget to read your telegram.”

  “Is it important?” James asked, knowing Will read every telegram that arrived at the San Francisco office of Craig Capital whenever he wasn’t there to do it himself.

  Will smiled. “It depends on how you look at it,” he said. “If I were in your shoes, it would be a tragedy. Your latest governess quit and Mrs. G. is threatening to, unless you find someone else to take care of the Treasures.”

  James ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “Damn. If I had known about this earlier, I could have hired a new governess while I was in the city. As it stands now, I’ll only be able to stay in Coryville a day before I have to turn right back around and return to San Francisco.”

  “Why not simply spend the night in Oakland and take the morning ferry back to the city and hire a new governess?” Will suggested even though he knew James wouldn’t consider it.

  “I can’t,” James told him. “I promised the Treasures I’d be home tomorrow morning. And I can’t disappoint them.”

  “Have you tried to find someone in Coryville?” Will shrugged into his coat, then glanced out the window at the city of Oakland looming on the horizon.

  “You know I’ve hired four governesses in the past month,” James admitted. “And they were all from Coryville. Remember? The first one was a former faro dealer, the second one was a former saloon girl. Our third governess was a Chinese laundress from the mining camp, and the last one a widow of one of the miners. Not a one of them met my qualifications. But …”

  “But you felt sorry for them and offered them a better-paying job,” Will finished for him.

  James gave a curt nod. “But only because it was convenient for me at the time.”

  “I noticed they didn’t stay very long, but you never told me what happened to them.”

  “The faro dealer was in the habit of sleeping all day. She quit because she didn’t like the early morning hours. I fired the saloon girl for sampling my Scotch and brandy reserves and because I discovered that when she took the Treasures out for their daily walk, she walked them downtown and left them sitting in their carriages on the boardwalk while she stopped in the saloons for a couple of beers. The Chinese laundress didn’t understand why I wanted the Treasures in the first place. She kept encouraging me to sell them and buy myself some sons, so I let her go. And the last one …” James reread the telegram. “Who knows?” He pinned his gaze on Will. “We had already had several discussions regarding our differing views of child-rearing. No, this time I think I’ll do better to look in San Francisco.”

  “I think you’re right,” Will agreed. “Now, I’d better see to the unloading. Don�
��t forget to give my love to Mrs. G. and the Treasures.”

  “Aren’t you stopping by the house?” James asked, hoping Will would be a calming influence on his housekeeper, Mrs. Glenross, and help provide a distraction for the Treasures.

  “Nah.” Will shook his head. “You decided I should accompany the supplies up to the high timber camps and check on the progress of the track while I’m there. Remember?”

  “I changed my mind,” James told him. “Send someone else.”

  “Too late, Jamie,” Will shot back, halfway through the door of the salon. “I’m already gone. There’s no one else to send. Good luck finding a new governess.”

  He’d need more than luck, James decided. He’d need a miracle. Because finding a governess for his three rambunctious girls was next to impossible.

  Fortunately, James already had someone in mind and the perfect reason to scour San Francisco searching for her.

  Four

  “WE’VE GOT ANOTHER one.” Helen Glenross, James’s Scottish-born housekeeper, met him at the front door with a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

  “Already? That’s wonderful, Mrs. G.” James didn’t look up. He stomped the dirt from his shoes on the front steps of his two-story Georgian-style brick home and shook the few flakes of a light spring snow off the brim of his hat and the shoulders of his coat, then stepped over the threshold.

  Mrs. G. closed the front door behind him as James dropped his leather satchel, removed his heavy wool topcoat and hat and hung them on the hall tree, and wandered into his study. “Will gave me your telegram on the ferry. I didn’t expect to find another one so soon. Tell me, Mrs. G., now that you’ve hired a new governess, have you decided not to quit?” He picked up the stack of mail on his desk and began to sort through it.

  “On the contrary,” she replied, finally grabbing James’s undivided attention. “Not only have I decided to quit, but the way things are going around here, I may leave tonight.”

  James whirled around and faced his housekeeper. “I don’t understand.”

  Mrs. Glenross carefully thrust the blanket into his arms. “This should explain it.”

  James let go of the mail. Envelopes bounced off his trouser legs, and fluttered to the hardwood floor unheeded as he accepted the bundle his housekeeper handed to him. James felt the warmth of a tiny body and immediately knew he held an infant in his arms. He shifted the blanket to the crook of his arm, then used his free hand to gently peel back the corners of the soft flannel so he could get his first look at the infant.

  As he stared down at the red wrinkled face and body of a female newborn who couldn’t have been more than a few hours old, James reached out and stroked the soft black strands of hair covering the baby’s head. He marveled at the feel of the baby’s tender skin beneath his fingertips, the shape of her nose and mouth, and the length of the dark eyelashes fanned against her cheeks. James ran his knuckles lightly down the delicate skin of the baby’s cheek, then touched her tightly balled fist with his index finger. Instinctively the baby grasped James’s finger.

  James grinned. “She’s a strong one, Mrs. G. A real fighter.”

  Helen Glenross stooped to pick up the mail, then rose to her full height and grinned back at James. Her thin, pinched features were wreathed in a broad smile as she shared the wonder of a new life with her employer. “Aye, that she is.”

  “Where did you find her?” James asked.

  “In the garden behind the greenhouse by the back gate. I had just gone into the greenhouse to pick strawberries for a shortcake. I heard a noise, felt someone brush against the back of my skirt. I glanced around, noticed that a few fruit and vegetable plants were bare, and figured we had another hungry sneak-thief. I went outside to make sure the back gate was secure and found this little moppet lying in a basket in the middle of a row of cabbage—between the regular cabbage and the bok choy. She couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours old.”

  James nodded. “Anything wrong with her?” he asked, an almost hopeful note in his voice as he automatically counted her fingers and toes. “Any deformities? Birthmarks?”

  Mrs. G. shook her head. “Not that I can find.”

  “Damn,” James muttered beneath his breath. He didn’t want to find that the innocent little girl suffered physical deformities; he only sought a sense of reason, of logic to the ancient Chinese practice of abandoning unwanted baby girls. James could almost understand a frightened superstitious young woman abandoning a deformed child. But this … This was beyond his ken. This ritual abandonment tore at his heart, saddened and angered him. Another perfectly healthy, absolutely beautiful baby had been abandoned, left in payment for a few pilfered fruits and vegetables, simply because she’d had the misfortune to be born female in a society that demanded that the firstborn child be male.

  “At least they brought this one inside the gate,” Mrs. G. said. “You nearly ran over Emerald. Remember?”

  How could he forget? The near-accident had frightened him out of ten years of his life. “The word must be finally getting around to every corner of Chinatown,” James said. “I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ll gladly take in any unwanted female children.”

  Mrs. Glenross placed her hands on her hips and snorted in disdain, her thin lips flattened into a disapproving line. “The leaders of the Tongs most likely think you’re going to make slaves or concubines out of these precious little lambs. That’s probably why they’re allowing the poor mothers to bring ’em here.”

  “I don’t care what the Tongs think.”

  “But the terrible rumors going ’round about you …”

  James looked over at his housekeeper. So, Mrs. G. had heard the rumors about him, too. No wonder she was threatening to quit. He couldn’t blame the woman for being uncomfortable living in his household, now that she was alone with him, now that the last governess had flown the coop. Hell, he’d be uncomfortable, too. Nobody wanted to live with a murderer—even a rumored murderer.

  He’d been lucky to find Mrs. Glenross, and he needed her now more than ever, so James decided to do whatever he could to waylay her fears. “Blast the rumors.” James did his best to temper his strong reaction. “I’d rather have the whole nation think of me as a procurer than allow any more of these innocent children to die.” He turned his attention back to the baby in his arms, and smiled when she yawned at him. “The rumors about me are just that, Mrs. G.—rumors,” James met his housekeeper’s hard gaze without flinching. “They don’t bother me. And I sincerely hope you don’t let them bother you. We know the truth. We know I’d never do anything to hurt my girls. I want only the best for them—the best life possible. And I’m more than willing to see that they get it.”

  Mrs. G. gave a sharp understanding nod, before allowing herself, and her employer, another rare smile. “Don’t think I pay any heed to gossip,” Mrs. G. told him, “nor am I wanting to leave your employ. But”—she hesitated a moment—“with three little ones already, and no governess, and now this little mite, I just don’t see how I can manage.”

  James smiled his most reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about a thing, Mrs. G., I already have a governess in mind.”

  She raised her eyebrows at that.

  “I met her at the hotel in San Francisco. She’s young, capable, and experienced,” James said. It wasn’t a lie. He had met her at the hotel in San Francisco. And Elizabeth had told him she’d been a teacher.

  Very familiar with the kind of experience James’s previous governesses had had, Mrs. G. was more than a bit skeptical. “How experienced?”

  “She left a long-standing position as a teacher in a school back East to come west.”

  “And you think you can talk a teacher with that kind of experience into leaving San Francisco to come to a tiny mining town when she’s sure to have plenty of better opportunities in the city?”

  “She needs a job,” James said simply, praying it was true. “And we need a governess.”

  Mrs. G. still lo
oked skeptical. “And what if she already has a job before you get back to San Francisco?”

  “I’ll double her best offer,” James said. “Triple it, even. I’ll do whatever it takes, pay whatever she wants, to get her here.”

  Penny-wise Scotswoman that she was, Mrs. Glenross seized the opportunity. “And what about me?”

  James bit back a smile. “Well, of course, it goes without saying, that since there will be at least two more mouths to feed and bodies to take care of”—he glanced down at the baby—“I’ll be doubling your salary and adding a healthy bonus as a thank-you for staying on. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Helen Glenross agreed.

  “And now that that’s settled,” James continued, “have you told the Treasures about their newest sister?”

  “No, sir, I was waiting for you. I had just gotten them fed and bathed and tucked in for a bit of a rest And a time I had doing it, too. I finally had to promise I’d wake ’em as soon as you got home.”

  “We’ll go upstairs to see the girls in just a minute, but first we have something very important to take care of.” James focused all his attention on his housekeeper. “What shall we name her, Mrs. G.?”

  “It’s April,” Mrs. Glenross replied.

  “And what gemstone represents the month of April?” he asked.

  Mrs. G. thought for a moment. “A diamond,” she replied.

  “Then, Diamond, it is.” James leaned down and gently nuzzled the infant, inhaling the newborn scent of her, Would he ever tire of seeing a newborn child open her eyes and fix her unfocused gaze on him? Would he ever tire of feeling the warmth of a baby’s body in his arms or fail to be enchanted by the simple rise and fall of her tiny chest? Would there ever come a time in his life when he could look at a baby girl and not remember … No, James told himself. Never. He blinked at the sudden stinging in his eyes as he pressed his lips against the baby’s forehead. “Welcome home, little Diamond. Welcome to the family. Now, we’ll go upstairs and introduce you to your new sisters.” James looked over at Mrs. G. “I wonder what our other Treasures will have to say about this.”