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  He took one of the girls’ hands in each of his. “I’ll make things as right for you as I can, I promise,” he continued into the silence.

  “You’re not as handsome as Daddy,” Beryl pronounced.

  Marigold licked her dry lips. Beryl must prefer a more refined look. To Marigold, Gordon Chambers, at least in profile, outweighed his brother in attractiveness, at least to her, silly female that she was in that moment.

  “Will you bring Mommy and Daddy back?” Ruby asked in her whispery voice.

  “I wish I could, child.” His voice roughened. “But since I can’t, I’ll make sure you have good people to take care of you.”

  Good people? Not him?

  The doorbell announcing his arrival should have been an alarm.

  Marigold clenched her teeth to keep herself from speaking out of turn.

  Beryl stuck her pert little nose in the air. “We already have good people to take care of us, sir—Mrs. Cromwell and Miss Marigold.”

  “I see.” Releasing the girls’ hands, Mr. Chambers stood. “I know Mrs. Cromwell, but who is Miss Marigold?”

  “She’s right behind you,” Beryl announced in a tone verging close enough to insolent that Marigold would have to talk to her about respect.

  But not now. At that moment, she found herself receiving Gordon Chambers’ full attention. Eyes the brown of root beer swept over her from head to foot, from her unbound mop of hair to her unshod feet.

  “Miss Marigold, I presume?” he drawled.

  “Yes.” Marigold’s voice sounded as whispery as Ruby’s.

  “Then I am making the right decision, and no one here should be in charge of these children for much longer.”

  Two

  Gordon Chambers stared at the female in charge of his nieces and wondered how anyone thought her old enough, let alone responsible enough, to oversee the well-being of children whose parents were alive, let alone. . .dead.

  His heart tripped over the last word, thoughts of the brother he hadn’t seen in eleven years, the sister-in-law he’d never met. Careless actions had driven a continent-wide wedge between him and his family, and he wasn’t prepared to let someone as young as he had been at that time remain in charge of Ruby and Beryl.

  Which meant he couldn’t go to Alaska as soon as he wanted.

  He sighed. “You are Marigold—”

  “McCorkle, yes. I came here fifteen months ago to be the girls’ nurserymaid.”

  He expected her to bob a curtsy, as his nurserymaid had done with his parents when he was a boy. She remained upright and met his gaze with bold, green eyes.

  “I’ve also taken on some of the duties of a governess,” she added with a hint of censure, “since they haven’t been able to continue their summer lessons.”

  “What summer lessons—” He stopped. “We’ll discuss that later.” He glanced around. “Which room was prepared for me?”

  “Your old room,” Beryl spoke up. “Mommy left it just as it was so you’d come home.”

  Ruby pulled her fingers from her mouth. “Just like we left Mommy and Daddy’s room just like it is so they’ll come home.”

  Miss McCorkle cleared her throat. Gordon thought he understood why. His own neck tightened.

  He swallowed. “Well, you see, I did come. . .back here. And I’m glad I’ll have my room to go to.” He tried to smile, though his lips felt stiff like the mouth on a mask. “Can someone bring me up hot water? From the smell of it, Mrs. Cromwell has dinner about ready, and I need to wash first.”

  “You don’t need someone to bring up hot water,” Beryl announced, her pert nose a bit elevated. “We have bathrooms.”

  “Hot water comes up from a reservoir in the kitchen,” Miss McCorkle added.

  “Thank you.” He glanced at her, shuddered at her wild appearance, and picked up his valise. “I have a trunk back at the station. Will you send the coachman to fetch it?”

  “We don’t have a coachman no more,” Ruby mumbled around the fingers in her mouth once again.

  “Anymore,” Beryl and Miss McCorkle said at the same time.

  “That’s right,” Gordon said. “It’s his day off, isn’t it? That’s why he couldn’t come get me at the train station.”

  “No, that isn’t why no one could come get you.” Miss McCorkle’s tone sounded as hard as railroad ties. “When Ruby said we don’t have a coachman, she meant we don’t have a coachman or any other staff except for Mrs. Cromwell and me.”

  “Why not?” He had to face her to see what her expression gave away beyond her words. “The last I knew, this house was overflowing with servants.”

  “It was until—” She glanced at the children. “Girls, go wash your hands and see if Mrs. Cromwell needs you to help her carry things into the dining room.”

  “Ruby can’t carry anything.” Beryl made a face. “She drops the plates and spills the water.”

  Miss McCorkle drew together brows as red as her hair. “Then help her sit in her chair and be quiet until we join you.”

  “But Uncle Gordon gives us orders now,” Ruby protested in an undertone.

  “I’m going to my room to make myself presentable for Mrs. Cromwell’s dinner.” Gordon smiled at the girls. “You may wait for me in the parlor, and Miss McCorkle can set the food on the table.”

  Beside him, the nurserymaid ground her teeth hard enough for him to hear it.

  The girls shot her glances of triumph and strolled into the parlor.

  “How dare you counter my directions.” Her tone, though low, held so much fury Gordon expected sparks to fly from the ends of her hair. “I am their governess, and they need to view me as an authority.”

  “I am their uncle, and they need to view me as an authority.” He made his own voice as cool as he could to emphasize her hot fury. “Since I am their legal guardian, I believe what I say has precedent over what you say.”

  “Since you couldn’t be bothered to come home for months,” she shot back, practically hissing, “you seem to have relinquished your right to barge in here and start telling them and me what to do.”

  “I couldn’t get here faster.”

  “Or ensure that we had money for wages and other fees?”

  “I didn’t realize—”

  “The only reason we have had food to eat and clothes the girls fit into is because their parents had good credit and the vendors knew they’d be paid eventually. The music teacher and others haven’t been quite so accommodating, nor were servants.”

  “You’re here.”

  “I”—she slapped her hands onto her hips—“cared too much about the girls to desert them in their time of need.”

  The twin daggers of her green eyes hit their target. Gordon’s heart clenched. He flushed from his necktie to his hairline.

  “We’ll continue this discussion later.” He bowed his head. “I seem to be in need of some information surrounding the deaths of my brother and sister-in-law.”

  “Indeed you are.”

  Her hauteur should have been the final straw of her ill-judged behaviors to compel him to dismiss her on the spot. Instead, he found the corners of his lips twitching. He suppressed the urge to grin at her insolence and gave her a brusque nod. “In the library after supper. I presume that hasn’t changed?”

  “No, sir.” She seemed to grow smaller before his eyes. Even her hair looked less like the ruffled flower for which she was named. “If I may, um, may have a few minutes to finish dressing?” Her face turned the color of a New Mexico sunset, clashing with her hair. “I mean, my hair.” She yanked on a strand, straightening the curl. When she released it, the tendril coiled back like a watch spring.

  “Please do.” He headed for the steps before he gave in to the temptation to see if he could make her hair spring back from his fingers, too. “I’d rather not have that mane end up in my soup.”

  Behind him, the front door closed with a bit more force than necessary. When he glanced over the railing, only a spark of carroty hair flashed by on
the way to the kitchen and back steps. That door closed more gently than the street entrance, and Gordon stood alone at the head of the staircase.

  The cavernous foyer yawned below him, rising two stories so that the fanlight window above the door spread out across from him, and a skylight glowed red and blue and green above him. The upstairs hallway stretched out like a road he knew would lead him away from where he wanted to be—east toward the sea, not west toward another ocean, snow, ice, gold.

  Jaw tense, he stalked down the hallway to where his bedroom overlooked the back garden and the house next door. He could see the ocean from the back windows, too, the capricious, stormy Atlantic. How he’d wanted to sail on that ocean, lift the canvas to the wind and disappear without the noise and stench of the steam engines. He liked sails with their peace and struggle of man against nature, or man working with nature. He’d objected when their father began to get rid of the sailboats for their excursion company and replace them with the steam-powered vessels. Father had kept one sailboat until Gordon—

  He slammed the door on that memory and opened his bedroom door. As Ruby had claimed, nothing had changed. Framed watercolors and photographs of sailboats lined the walls. Blue and white curtains fluttered at the open windows, wafting the scent of the sea around the spotlessly clean chamber. His model ships still graced the mantel, bedside table, and every other available surface.

  “Welcome home,” he said with a sardonic twist to his lips, setting his valise on the floor with a thud.

  He opened the door that had been the dressing room he and his brother had shared, curious to know if his clothes had been kept, too. They hadn’t. The large closet was indeed a bathroom now, complete with basin and tub. If the aroma of roast beef and tarts hadn’t been climbing the back stairs to creep under his door, he would have taken advantage of the latter. Every muscle ached from days on the train. His stomach hurt worse, gnawing at his insides in demand of food.

  He settled for a wash and change of shirt and necktie, a comb through his hair, and a touch of water to hold it in place off his face. Then he descended the steps, finding Beryl and Ruby perched side by side on the sofa, as though awaiting a photograph portrait to be taken—or sentencing.

  He was going to sentence them.

  Shaking off that ridiculous thought, he offered them a smile and held out his arms. “May I escort you lovely ladies to dinner?”

  “It’s more proper for you to escort Miss Marigold,” Beryl said. “Since she’s so old.”

  Gordon lowered his arms. “Miss McCorkle eats with us?”

  “Of course.” Ruby spoke around her fingers. “We’re too little to eat alone.”

  “You’re too little to eat alone.” Beryl stuck her nose in the air. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  “But when your parents were—here. . .” Gordon glanced toward the patter of footfalls in the hallway, a click of heels.

  “We ate in the nursery.” Beryl narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you know anything about children?”

  “Apparently no more than you know of manners, Miss Beryl.” Marigold strode into the room, her hair already beginning to slip from the knot on the back of her neck. “You know better than to talk to an adult that way. Now, apologize.”

  The girl’s blue eyes clashed with the woman’s green ones. Gordon expected to see sparks ignite in the middle. Beryl’s mouth thinned. Marigold’s grew thinner.

  And Ruby began to cry. “Just say you’re sorry, Beryl. I don’t want Uncle Gordon to go away like Mommy and Daddy.”

  No sparks ignited from the older two females, but the younger one’s words sent an arrow straight into Gordon’s heart.

  Apparently it struck Beryl, too, for she bowed her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  “It’s—” Gordon found his chest too tight for easy speech. “I accept your apology, Beryl. I should have realized you wouldn’t normally eat in the dining room.”

  “And speaking of eating,” Marigold said, “Mrs. Cromwell is waiting for us.”

  He wouldn’t ask her why she wasn’t helping the housekeeper serve. He’d already stepped into deep waters in this familiar yet unfamiliar household. Nor did he offer Marigold his arm. He simply stood back and gestured for the ladies to go ahead of him into the dining room.

  It, too, had remained much the same, with the long french windows open to the verandah, filmy draperies floating on the sea breeze, and silver shining in the late afternoon sunshine. White linen gleamed like new snow. The chairs remained the heavy mahogany from his parents’ day, but now the cushions were deep blue instead of red. Likewise, the velvet hangings on either side of the windows had been changed to blue.

  Mrs. Cromwell trotted in from the kitchen, bearing a laden tray; she had changed more than anything he’d seen thus far. Her hair held far more silver than black, and her eyes reflected the milky cast of cataracts. Her shoulders stooped, and the food dishes appeared to weigh more than she did.

  “My dear Mrs. Cromwell.” Gordon stepped toward the woman who had sneaked him cookies when he was a lad, who had added an apple to his supper of bread and water when he’d been sent to his room without supper. “Mrs. Cromwell,” he repeated, for lack of anything better coming to his lips.

  Marigold turned from tucking a napkin into the neckline of Ruby’s dress and stepped between Gordon and Mrs. Cromwell. “Let me take that.” She removed the tray from the old lady’s gnarled hands. “I’ll make sure everyone gets everything, but go hug Mr. Chambers, as I know you’re anxious to do.”

  “Hug him?” Mrs. Cromwell fixed her brown eyes on Gordon.

  He wanted to squirm.

  “I suppose all those apples I sent up to you spoiled you so much you forgot your duty to your family.” She scowled. “What took you so long to get here?”

  “Too many things to say without spoiling dinner.” Gordon held out his arms.

  Mrs. Cromwell embraced him, then swung away, dabbing her apron to the corners of her eyes. “Come into the kitchen after dinner and tell me.”

  She beat a hasty retreat.

  Gordon returned to the table and his wide-eyed nieces. “I thought she was old when I was your age.”

  “She’s at least seventy-five now,” Marigold said from where she dished up plates of food at the sideboard. “She wants to retire to Georgia with her sister.”

  “I can arrange for that.” Gordon picked up his glass of lemonade and sipped. He hadn’t tasted many lemons in his wanderings of the past eleven years. The sweet tartness triggered a hundred memories of picnics on the beach or aboard one of the boats.

  “She can’t go away,” Ruby protested. “Who will cook for us?”

  “He’ll hire someone else.” Beryl frowned at the plate Marigold slid before her. “I expect he’ll hire lots of new servants now.”

  “I hope he doesn’t expect me to cook.” Marigold laughed, as she set food before Ruby and him. “We’d be eating eggs and bread for every meal.”

  The girls made faces.

  Gordon dropped his gaze to his plate. With each passing moment, his plan to leave seemed more and more difficult. But not impossible. He would have to find the girls a school quickly. A boarding school, perhaps in Philadelphia, some place where they could remain on holidays, too, or find friends who would take them home.

  “Will you ask the blessing, sir?” Marigold asked. “Before the food gets cold?”

  “Of course.” Gordon reached out a hand to each of his nieces. Two hands, less than half the size of his, tucked themselves into his palms like trusting kittens. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of anything but these small charges, couldn’t recall what one said in a blessing. No one in mining camps or aboard freighters asked the blessing over a meal. The silence grew, profound enough for the drone of bees outside the window to sound like distant engines and his stomach rumbling to resemble thunder.

  “Thank You for Mr. Chambers’ safe arrival,” Miss Marigold murmured from the other side of R
uby.

  “Yes.” Gordon cleared his throat. “Thank You for a good journey and for the health of these children. Thank You for this meal we are about to partake and for the hands that prepared it. Amen.”

  “Amen.” Beryl removed her hand from his.

  “Thank You for the blackberry tarts.” Ruby added her own blessing.

  “You have to eat your green beans first,” Beryl admonished.

  “I will.” Ruby picked up her fork and stabbed a mouthful of beans.

  Smiling, Gordon tucked into the food himself. While the first savory bite of roast beef fairly melted on his tongue, he conjured questions he could ask the girls. He should get to know them, his last living relations.

  Or maybe he shouldn’t. If he was leaving in a week or two, why should he allow himself to get close to them?

  He continued to eat in silence.

  “Girls, tell your uncle what we’ve been reading.” Marigold McCorkle wasn’t eating. She perched on her chair, a forkful of potatoes balanced in her hand, and darted glances between Gordon and his nieces. “Tell him about reading Little Women.”

  “Beth didn’t come back.” Ruby’s face screwed up. “Jo shouldn’t have cut off her hair. Maybe Beth would have come back if she hadn’t cut her hair.”

  “She couldn’t come back,” Beryl said with a twist of her lips. “She’s dead like—”

  “Beryl.” Marigold’s voice cut through Beryl’s scornful response to her sister, though the nurserymaid never spoke above a murmur.

  “Beth was sick,” Beryl said in a gentler tone. “That’s why she didn’t come back.”

  “Mommy and Daddy weren’t sick.” Ruby smiled for the first time since Gordon’s arrival. “ ’Cause drowning isn’t the same as being sick.”

  “No, it’s not.” Gordon looked to Marigold for help before he said more.

  She caressed Ruby’s cheek. “No, my dear, it’s not the same. But your mother and father. . . Here, eat these lovely tomatoes. They’re fresh out of the garden.”

  As delicious as the food was, Gordon had lost his appetite. He finished what remained on his plate, while allowing Marigold to direct the conversation around walks on the boardwalk, the pretty shells they’d found on the beach, the dolphins they’d spied from the lighthouse.