Rebecca Hagan Lee (27 page)

“Please slide over a little, Garnet, and make room so I can reach your sister.” James overheard and comprehended the meaning of Elizabeth’s instructions in the same moment he stepped over the threshold into the heavy, moisture-laden air of the small steamy bathroom and discovered Elizabeth kneeling in the center of the tub.

Instantly aware of the intimate nature of the situation, James took a hasty step backward, bumped into the open door, and accidentally pushed it shut.

Elizabeth was too busy trying to hold on to Ruby long enough to finish bathing her and to corral the bar of French-milled lavender soap that had slipped from her grasp to turn at the sound of the door slamming. Expecting Delia, she said, “Garnet’s ready to get out if you’re finished with Emerald.” She paused, then chuckled. “And you were right about Ruby. She positively hates a bath. We’ve had quite a battle of wills. And while I know this method is a bit unorthodox, it seemed the best and most efficient way of accomplishing our task, didn’t it, Ruby?”

Ruby didn’t bother to answer. Her attention was focused on the shadowy figure trying his best to escape from the
bathroom without notice. “Daddy!” she squealed with delight.

Elizabeth turned and half-rose from the warm soapy water as James stepped into view. Her lips parted, but all she could manage to say was “Oh.”

“Oh, yes.” He gave Elizabeth a rather sheepish smile. “And although your solution to Ruby’s problem
is
rather unorthodox, it appears to be working.”

Before Elizabeth had time to formulate a reply, Ruby lunged for the side of the bathtub and her father, drenching Garnet with bathwater in the process. “Daddy!”

“Ruby!” Elizabeth reached out to catch her as Ruby dashed for the side of the tub.

Garnet began to cry as Ruby sloshed more water on her, and Elizabeth, who, up till now, had managed to keep her batiste camisole fairly dry, quickly pulled Garnet against her, then gently moved back a little bit so she could brush Garnet’s wet hair off her forehead to keep the droplets of soapy water from running onto the little girl’s face.

James caught Ruby against his thigh as she scrambled to get out of the bathtub and hoisted her into his arms. Holding Ruby securely against his chest, James looked down at Elizabeth.

She looked up at him.

Their gazes met and locked while the humid atmosphere around them seemed to grow thicker and heavier.

Transfixed by the sight of the water droplets shimmering on Elizabeth’s flushed face and the soaked and transparent undergarments tenaciously clinging to her stunning cleavage, James sucked in a breath and shifted his weight from one leg to the other to accommodate the sudden swelling in his groin. He stared at the water around her and the rapidly dissipating lavender-scented bubbles. He hadn’t counted on this incredible assault on his senses. He hadn’t counted on the warm water, the humid air, the scent of lavender permeating the room, or his gut reaction to it. He simply hadn’t counted on finding Elizabeth in the bathtub, hadn’t counted on the powerful surge of desire that shot
through him. He knew he should do the gentlemanly thing and leave. Simply back out the door the same way he’d come in, but once again, gentlemanly behavior was beyond him. He wanted too much. He wanted to look at her, to drink in the sight of a beautiful woman once again. He wanted. James bit back a groan. He wanted. After three long years of loneliness and pain and guilt and denial, he wanted Elizabeth so badly he could feel her, could taste her. Even though he knew he shouldn’t—couldn’t—touch her. Not while she was under his protection. Not while she was in his employ. Not while she lived beneath his roof.

Recognizing the sudden intense interest in his gaze and realizing she was the focus of it, Elizabeth decided discretion was the better part of valor and stood up to make a hasty exit from the bathroom to the relative safety of her bedroom.

“Stop!” The word erupted from James’s lips and reverberated through the small room.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened in surprise. And Garnet began to cry.

“Sit down,” James managed in a softer tone of voice, holding out his hand as if to ward her off. “Wait right there.” He leaned over and gave the water taps a vicious twist, then picked up a bottle of lavender-scented bubble bath from the bathroom shelf and shoved it into Elizabeth’s hands. “Here. Add some more bubbles.”

Elizabeth clutched the bottle of bubble bath to her chest in self-defense, turned the water off, and quickly sank back down into the soapy water. She reached up, with her other arm, for the face towel hanging on the bar above the tub and snatched it down to wipe Garnet’s face. “See what you’ve done!” she snapped, chafing under his tone of voice. “I was managing quite nicely until you walked in. And I could have continued on quite nicely without your interference.”

“I—I …” James was momentarily taken aback by the flash of fury in Elizabeth’s blue-green eyes. Didn’t she realize he’d reacted on instinct to prevent her from further
exposing herself to his view? Didn’t she realize the bathwater made her undergarments transparent? He shook his head. Of course she didn’t. The explanation for his bizarre behavior hadn’t yet occurred to her. She was too angry or too innocent to understand the effect her near-nudity had on him. James automatically lowered his gaze to the floor in a noble effort to keep it, and his wayward thoughts, from reveling in the entrancing sight of his daughters’ lovely governess flushed with anger, semi-nude, and soaked. As he worked to curb his uncomfortably vivid and suddenly overactive imagination, James discovered, to his dismay, a rather untidy pile of feminine garments strewn across the marble tile. At the bottom of the pile was the striped morning gown he’d seen Elizabeth wearing in the park. And on the top of the pile of clothing was a veritable sea of white cambric petticoats and under-petticoats, a chemise, an embroidered corset cover, and a small horsehair bustle. But it was the pair of almost-sheer navy blue silk stockings lying draped across Elizabeth’s leather half-boots that played havoc with his control. James squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his teeth together in a determined effort to will away the image of Elizabeth’s long slim legs, encased in navy blue silk, and locked around his waist, but the erotic image continued to tease his senses.

“Daddy’s quash me!”

James hadn’t realized he was holding Ruby too tightly until she began to wiggle in an effort to relieve the pressure of his embrace. A sheepish expression crossed his face as he immediately loosened his grasp to allow Ruby more freedom of movement. “Oh, Button, Daddy’s so sorry.”

“Humph,” Ruby snorted, still disgruntled about her bath and because her father wasn’t paying attention to her.

James glanced down at his daughter and, recognizing the pouting expression on her face, shifted her to one arm, then tilted her chin up to look at him with the tip of his index finger. “Daddy didn’t realize he was squashing you, Ruby-button. He’s very sorry.” He let go of her chin and planted a tender kiss against Ruby’s forehead.

“He should be sorry for barging in uninvited,” Elizabeth retorted, embarrassed and the tiniest bit envious of Ruby as she watched the way James tenderly cuddled his daughter close and kissed her forehead. “He owes us all an apology.”

James gave a nod in Elizabeth’s direction as he walked over to the closet and reached inside for a couple of thick terry-cloth towels. He wrapped one towel around Ruby, then set the child on her feet beside the bathtub. “I
did
knock,” he pointed out ungraciously, focusing his gaze on Elizabeth. “Although I don’t suppose you heard me. In any case, I owe you an apology for barging in on your toilette without awaiting permission to enter. All I can offer in my defense is the fact that I was worried because I forgot to warn you about Ruby’s unfortunate bathtime phobia and the fact that I was expecting to find you bathing two toddlers, not bathing
with
them.”

His blue-eyed gaze saw too much. Elizabeth felt her face redden beneath James’s intense scrutiny. And in spite of her best efforts to prevent it, her breath quickened and her breasts rose and fell in cadence to her rapid breathing. “Ruby was frightened,” she replied, somewhat defensively. “And climbing into the bathtub myself was the only way to reach her.”

Thunderation, but she was killing him. The strain of struggling to behave normally was killing him. James ground his teeth together again and a muscle in his jaw began to tick from the pressure. He had to get out of there. Elizabeth couldn’t possibly understand how her innocent explanation for climbing into the bathtub evoked images he was valiantly trying to control. Reaching out, he unfolded the second towel and held it out in front of him almost as a shield, then ground out, “For Garnet. She’s turning into a prune.”

“I know,” Elizabeth agreed, bracing her hands on the sides of the tub to lever herself up and out of the water. “We’re behind schedule. I should have finished their baths
half an hour ago. You go ahead with Ruby. Garnet and I will be right behind you.”

“No!” James replied in a rather strained voice. “You stay right there. Just hand me Garnet and I’ll leave you to fill up the tub and finish your bath in peace.”

“I’m not bathing.” Elizabeth said as she helped Garnet get to her feet, then kept a hand on her until James leaned forward, wrapped the child in the towel, and lifted Garnet out of the tub.

“You might as well,” James said, staring down at her. “You’ve had a long, busy day. Relax and enjoy a hot bath. Delia and I can look after the Treasures for a while.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” Elizabeth began to protest, although the idea of filling the bathtub full of hot water and bubbles and soaking her tired body appealed to her more than she liked to admit, “but it really isn’t necessary.”

“Oh, but it is,” James insisted. “You’re joining me for dinner at eight, remember? And if you don’t take advantage of your opportunity to bathe now, you may not get another chance before dinner. Besides”—he bent low to turn the hot water tap back on and whispered—“the question of whether or not you’re bathing has already become a moot point. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s transparent … uh …” James could have bitten out his wayward tongue. “
Apparent
that you’re soaked to the skin.”

Elizabeth looked down at the wet fabric clinging to her chest, revealing more than it concealed, and gasped. “I didn’t realize …”

Unable to stop himself, James grinned an impish grin, then whispered his confession. “I did.”

The glint of blue-green fire in her eyes warned him before her furious squeal did. He opened the bathroom door and shepherded Ruby and Garnet through it just seconds before Elizabeth’s wet, soapy camisole landed against it with loud, watery
thwack.

“Missed me,” he commented as he opened the door seconds
later and stuck his head inside. “You throw like a girl,” he taunted, adding insult to injury.

Maybe so, but the facecloth that followed her camisole came closer to its mark and left a trail of soapy water splashed across James’s handsome face before it slipped down the door and landed on the marble floor.

Much to her disgust, Elizabeth couldn’t prevent a silent chuckle from escaping her lips when she heard James’s roar of laughter on the other side of the door.

ELIZABETH FINGERED THE
edges of her smoke-colored satin wrapper before she loosened it and untied the matching sash. She sat on the edge of her half-tester bed and carefully moved Portia off the pillows to the far side of the bed before she flung herself backward, so that she lay in an unself-conscious sprawl in the center of the bed. She had been about twenty minutes into her long soak in the bathtub when James knocked on the bathroom door to inform her that the wrapper she’d worn at breakfast was hanging on the doorknob whenever she was ready for it. Elizabeth had childishly stuck her tongue out at the door and muttered a few uncomplimentary names about him beneath her breath before reluctantly admitting that she was rather glad he’d thought to leave it for her. Her undergarments were wet and a good many of her outer garments were, too, since the water from the camisole and the facecloth she’d thrown at James had pooled and run across the marble floor to the pile of clothing she’d left lying there.

How could she go downstairs and have dinner with the man after what had happened in the bath? But how could she think of not going? Elizabeth glanced over at the armoire. She was going. And she was going to wear her favorite
dress. The elegant and sophisticated green silk gown showed off her figure in just the right places. She knew she should probably wear a dress more sedate—more governessy—but there was something about the way James Craig looked at her that sent ripples of excitement shivering through her. When he looked at her, Elizabeth experienced a sense of expectation and an acute awareness that triggered goose bumps on her flesh and an intense yearning deep inside her. She wanted very much to explore those feelings.

What was it about James Craig that brought out that restless, unbridled, untamed, unladylike side of her? Elizabeth frowned, suddenly confused and thrilled and dismayed by this new and unexpected aspect of her personality—all at the same time. Less than an hour ago she had knelt in a tub full of water while her employer looked on. That she hadn’t known the undergarments she’d left on, for modesty’s sake, were transparent when wet did not excuse her behavior. She shouldn’t have been in the tub in the first place, and he certainly shouldn’t have barged in and seen her.

But he had seen her, and though embarrassed by her lack of modesty, Elizabeth was also secretly thrilled at the way her body quickened and her heart pounded in response to the look in James’s eyes. Two days ago she had vandalized a business in broad daylight in downtown San Francisco and been carted to jail for her efforts. She should have been ashamed of herself, but she wasn’t. There was a part of her that rejoiced at her having had the courage to strike a blow for Owen and all of the other unfortunate young men who had succumbed to the lure of opium. Less than a week ago she had allowed a strange man to enter her hotel room in the middle of the night and not only offer words of comfort, but to hold her in his arms while she slept. And she’d allowed that same man to kiss her senseless on the front walkway of a boardinghouse run by an infamous madam. That the stranger had been James still did not excuse her behavior. And yet it did, because Elizabeth knew in her heart that she would never have allowed any other man past
her door in the middle of the night or allowed him to kiss her so thoroughly. But how could she explain feeling like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis when she didn’t even know when or why or how the metamorphosis had begun? She only knew that James had somehow recognized and responded to it.