Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
“Penelope brought your dinner. You just slept through it and she cleared it away,” Alessia said calmly.
“I didn’t want the whole blamed house up,” she said, unsteadily getting to her feet. “I just wanted somethin’ to eat!”
Nicholas stood, grabbed an embroidered linen scarf from a decorative table nearby and knelt again.
“Don’t-” Alessia objected too late. He’d already wrapped it around her foot. “It will be ruined.”
“Sit there,” he said, ignoring her concern and scowling at them both. “Don’t either of you move until I get back. Understood?”
They nodded in unison.
He descended the stairs into the darkness below on silent bare feet.
“You two got somethin’ goin’ on?” Celia asked when he was out of earshot. The old bird wasn’t too snockered to observe their stilted interaction.
“No,” Alessia said firmly. “How stupid do you think I am?”
The woman cocked a brow and gave her a sidelong glance. “I don’t think that would be stupid at all. I think if you played your cards right, you’d have yourself a dandy little setup here.”
“Well, I don’t want a ‘dandy little setup,'” Alessia denied. “And I certainly can’t afford to stay here any longer than necessary.”
“You could do worse,” Celia said, and rested her head against the oak banister. “Never had servants wait on me before.”
“And what?” she asked, unable to hold the irritation from her tone. “You play my mother for the rest of our lives?”
Celia’s head came up, and she fixed Alessia with a glassy stare. “You’re the one pretendin’, darlin’. I am Claire’s mother.”
Alessia clamped her lips shut and turned to peruse their two long shadows on the wall. After several minutes, she whispered, “You’re right, you know. I’ve brought this all on myself, and I have no right getting angry with you. In fact I owe you an apology. I’m sorry.”
Celia’s brows shot up. “For what?”
“Shh. For playing this part. For getting you entangled in it.”
Celia stared at her lap for a few minutes. “Don’t see as how I’d have done any different if I’d been in your place. Claire probably would have, too.”
That thought took Alessia by surprise. “Well, we got off to a bad start, you and I. I don’t know how I can fix it now, because I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I just want you to know how sorry I am about Claire. When I find her body, I’ll see that she’s buried here by Stephen. You’ll be able to visit her grave then.”
“I got plenty of things I’m not proud of, too,” the woman said, keeping her voice low.
Alessia took that as an acceptance of her apology, and felt a measure of relief.
The shadows dipped and swayed, and she turned to see Nicholas approaching with the lantern and a tray. “Don’t move. Which room are you in?”
He’d asked Celia, but Alessia answered for her. “The lavender room. On the left there.”
Skirting the glass, he disappeared with the tray and returned for Celia. “Come on. I was having a midnight snack myself, so I knew there was chicken and a turnover left.”
His glare indicated Alessia was to wait, and he returned for her. “Pick up the lamp and hold it steady,” he ordered. She did so, and he lifted her into his arms. “That foot’s on your bad leg, isn’t it?”
The heat of his chest scorcned right through the flimsy fabric of her nightgown. One arm banded tightly about her back, the other behind her knees, just as he’d carried her many times before. “Yes.”
“You favor that leg, so I think it prevented you from placing all your weight down and embedding the glass too deeply.”
They’d reached Celia’s room, and Nicholas deposited Alessia on the chaise, turned up the lamp and lit another.
Like a queen, Celia sat upon a tufted brocade chair, picking apart her chicken and licking her fingers as contentedly as a cat with a fresh flounder.
Nicholas carried the supplies he’d gathered and urged Alessia to place her foot at an angle where he could see it. At his touch on her bare ankle, she fought her automatic response and the embarrassment it created each time.
Gently, Nicholas cleaned the area and extracted a small sliver of glass. The alcohol he poured on a cloth and pressed against the cut stung so sharply, her eyes watered.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Their eyes met, and the words took on a whole new meaning. They stared at each other. With all her heart, Alessia wished she were someone else, someone with a clean conscience and an unscarred past. Someone who hadn’t already made too many mistakes and lied about them all.
Someone a man like Nicholas could love.
She blinked away the tears and the foolish thought.
“I’ll wrap it and it should heal in a day or two,” he said.
“I need to wash this down,” Celia said from across the room.
“I brought you a glass of milk, there,” Nicholas said, turning to address her.
“Can’t stand the stuff,” she said and huffed a little burp. She stood and found the bottle she’d left on the bedside table.
Nicholas looked to Alessia as if for advice. As if she knew what to do about the exasperating woman. Or for her. Alessia shrugged.
“I can’t have you breaking any more glasses, Mrs. Pa-“
“Don’t call her that,” Alessia advised softly. “Call her Celia.”
“Don’t need a glass then,” Celia said, sitting on the bed and tipping the bottle to her lips.
Muttering a low curse, he strode from the room, his feet soundless on the thick carpet.
“Nicholas has asked that you join us for dinner,” Alessia told her. “You’re going to need to pull yourself together for that.”
“What’s he want me at dinner for?”
“It’s customary for people to dine together, engage in conversation.”
“I don’t have anything to say that he’d want to hear.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe you’d be entertained hearing what he has to say. And Leda is delightful. It’s not healthy for you to stay shut away up here. I’ll come help you dress for dinner.
Be prepared.
” She hoped her last words were understood as “don’t be drunk.”
Nicholas returned with a silver stein.
“Pretty fancy,” Celia said, turning it to squint at his engraved initials in the lamplight.
He took the bottle from her and poured a healthy portion into the metal cup. “Stephen sent it from one of his journeys,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll feel better knowing you’re not strewing broken glass up and down the halls. Speaking of which,” he said, slipping the bottle in his pocket and tossing all the rags and supplies on the tray, “I’d better get that cleaned up before someone else walks on it.”
“I can see to it,” Alessia said, rising.