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keep.”

Chapter 3
    The day following the hearing, Amelia sat gazing out the Bay View’s Turret Suite window at the persistent fog that was as leaden as her mood. She longed to fling herself upon the silk coverlet gracing the handsome bed in the next room and cry until she had emptied herself of all feeling—but she couldn’t even do that. She supposed she was numb, barely able to summon the energy to look at the gray moisture curling over the bay.
    It was hard to countenance that she and J.D. Thayer were still housed under the same roof. To her amazement, she had returned to the hotel prepared to pack her belongings, only to find a polite note in her room from the hotel’s now-legal proprietor urging her to stay as his guest as long as she needed before moving to her aunt’s home across the bay in Oakland.
    What’s worse? Thayer’s charity or his double-dealing…
    The Ferry Building’s new clock tower at the foot of Market and California streets was partially obscured by this shifting blanket of gray. The structure’s cloaked spire had been the subject of several letters to Paris from her grandfather who was justly proud of San Francisco’s emergence as an important seaport, opening to the vast Pacific.
    Amelia ached with the sense that the loss of Charlie Hunter was now a raw wound that simply would not scab over. When she hadn’t slept following yesterday’s court hearing, she poured over her grandfather’s missives, running her fingers over his spiky penmanship to try to recapture his presence and gain some intuition of the actions he would want her to take next.
    From Thayer’s point of view, she supposed she could understand why he hadn’t given an inch or proposed any sort of compromise—because neither had she. She felt like the proverbial immovable object that had slammed into an irresistible force.
    By early the next morning, the fog finally lifted. Amelia forced herself to face facts. She had no choice but to be the one to give way. She couldn’t impose on Thayer’s pragmatic hospitality forever. Too many loyal hotel retainers of her grandfather’s providing for her comfort at the Bay View would probably pay the price at Thayer’s hand if she stayed much longer.
    And besides, she had a profession to ply and a burning desire to make use of all that she had learned these last, arduous years. In the end, she had to admit that her own ambition got the best of her, not J.D. Thayer’s possession of her lost legacy. It was time to move beyond grief and resentment and begin her life over again.
    She swiftly packed her trunk and portmanteau and ordered Grady O’Neill at the front desk to have it sent to her aunt’s bungalow on Thirteenth Street in Oakland, on the east side of the bay. Then she dressed and took the elevator to the lobby, vowing to make no public farewells, lest she embarrass herself or the staff by dissolving in tears.
    Long before most guests were awake, Amelia marched through the lobby, seeing her profile reflected in the glittering succession of gold-framed mirrors that lined the walls. An unpleasant scent of sauerkraut permeated the hallway, the hallmark of the new chef that had replaced the wonderful Mrs. O’Neill, Grady’s wife and long-time hotel cook.
    Amelia was dismayed to spot J.D. Thayer talking to Grady himself, along with a slender Chinese woman whom Amelia already knew was Ling Lee, Thayer’s Chinese concubine.
    “Miss Bradshaw!” he hailed her across the lobby. “I see you’re—”
    “Leaving,” she abruptly finished his sentence, continuing her pace.
    “Can we call you a driver to—”
    “The cable car stops at the corner,” she said between clenched teeth. “Grady has kindly seen to my luggage—which I hope will not jeopardize his future in any way,” she added, and realized how peevish her words rang.
    “Of course not,” J.D. replied shortly. “He’s a good man, Grady.”
    “The best… as are all my grandfather’s employees. I hope you’ll