Taking the High Road Read Free

whispered, from the sanctuary of his broad comforting shoulder. “Thank you for everything. I love you, and I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.”
    He blinked a few times, and swallowed rather noisily. “That works double for me, Missy. Now go on with you.”
    In the dim-lit paneled hallway leading to the exit, Cecelia nearly bumped into a young man who was entering just as she had opened the door. He stopped, looking her up and down with hard cold eyes and mocking smile.
    “Pray excuse me,” he said in a voice that, oddly enough, asked no excuse for anything he might do. Tipping his hat, he sidled on past toward Gabe’s office and disappeared inside.
    Cecelia shivered. Why would any man greet her with that sort of bizarre reaction? Especially one on his way to see Gabriel Finnegan? The visitor was attractive enough, with curly brown hair and eyes of granite-gray. Yet something about his expression, and his attitude, sent chills down her spine. As she started down the stairs to meet Oliver, Gabe’s driver, she did her best to shrug off the encounter. Perhaps, overtired and emotionally upset as she felt just now, her imagination was simply working overtime.

II
    If nothing else, Cecelia decided, her move to San Francisco some eight months prior had provided an opportunity to enjoy more pleasant weather than Boston’s extremes of hot and cold. Glancing out of her second-story bedroom window onto the street below, she could view the beginning of another perfectly beautiful February day, with sunrise already an accomplished fact at 7:30 a.m., and a sunset far distant in the late afternoon.
    After yawning and stretching luxuriously, she selected her wardrobe, attended to morning ablutions, and was tucking herself into undergarments when a knock sounded at her door.
    “Come in, Bridget,” she called.
    “Oh, I see you’ve chosen that lovely blue frock to wear today,” approved the maid. “One of my favorites. And a fine thing that looks on you, Miss. Is it somethin’ special you have goin’ on, then?”
    “I like it, too, especially for today’s late meeting that I have scheduled. I just wish—” A whoosh of breath as the folds of fabric slipped over her head.
    “Wish what?” Bridget was busy adjusting this and that, tying and fastening whatever needed to be tied and fastened.
    “That someday I might be able to dress myself, without help!” Cecelia laughed. “These formal day dresses, that need two people to put only one together—well, it’s just very aggravating to feel such a victim to women’s fashions, that’s all.”
    Bridget was shocked. “But, Miss, if you were able to get along fine by yourself, then what would I do?”
    Smiling, Cecelia turned to pat the girl’s arm. “Oh, I would have no problem finding plenty for you to take care of otherwise. But I wonder—how does any female manage her wardrobe without having the luxury of a maid?”
    “Hmmph.” A sniff of disdain. “Simple things, if you ask me, put on in a dash and a promise, that wouldn’t hold together for any appropriate occasion. Not that I would ever want to find out, I’m sure.”
    “Well, but—”
    They were still arguing good-naturedly over the issue as they descended the stairs, greeted Mrs. Liang, the housekeeper, and partook of breakfast—each, according to station, in their separate area. While Bridget, with her peppery personality, enjoyed her employer’s friendship, she wasn’t about to presume upon it. Especially under Mrs. Liang’s critical eye.
    “Will you be coming home directly after classes end today, Miss Powell?” asked the housekeeper now. Before emigrating to the distant land of California with her parents, she had attended a missionary school in China; and, despite a Far Eastern appearance, with ivory complexion and hair arranged into shining black coils, she spoke perfect English with only a slight British accent.
    Cecelia glanced up from the newspaper she had laid out carefully