Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
“Are you sure it was her?” Celia asked.
“Was it you?”
“Nicholas!” his mother admonished.
Celia unconcernedly raised her hands. “Search my room if it makes you feel better.”
“It will.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it.” Leda said, folding the letter and replacing it in the envelope. “If anyone else had told me I wouldn’t have believed it. But this letter from her leads me to no other conclusion.”
She stood slowly and looked at Nicholas with such pain in her eyes that he wanted to find the woman and strangle her. “Do you know?” she said. “If I had it to do all over again, even knowing what I know now, I wonder what I’d do differently.”
Nicholas knew what he’d do differently. He wouldn’t spare his conscience a second thought.
“I’m going to rest,” she said.
Nicholas watched her enter the house with faltering steps. His eyes were so dry they burned.
“I wouldn’ta thought she’d steal from you,” Celia said with a sad shake of her head.
He sat, thinking back over each incident that should have tipped him off. He should have put it all together. She’d wanted the file on Claire because she hadn’t known anything about her and needed to play the part convincingly. She’d taken Stephen’s letters to learn something of him. She’d never volunteered any information about her life or her relationship with Stephen. Any time they’d inquired, she hedged or lied.
She was everything he’d suspected her of being.
Wasn’t she?
She’d tricked him, and that had him angry. But she’d hurt his mother, and for that he wanted retribution. Leda needed closure on this. He would find William for her, so she’d know the child was safe.
He would find Alessia Thornton.
Nicholas started over. The following morning, he was waiting for Howard Gramb when he opened his store. He grilled the man about the young woman who’d sold the bracelet, but turned up nothing new.
He checked the train station and found no record of either Alessia Thornton or Claire Halliday purchasing a ticket. The man at the counter vaguely recalled seeing a woman carrying a baby who fit Alessia’s description, but he claimed to have sold too many tickets to remember where one particular woman was going. West, he thought.
Doggedly, Nicholas once again made the rounds of the jewelry stores. This time, he encountered a woman at one of them whom he hadn’t spoken to before.
“I’m Nicholas Halliday,” he introduced himself.
“How do you do? How can I help you today?”
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I fill in when my husband has business to attend to.”
“I see. I left my card with him, and asked to be notified if anyone came in with these pieces.” He showed her the list he’d compiled.
“I didn’t know about your request, but those items came day before yesterday.”
At last! Something more to go on. “Did you buy them?”
“Yes.”
“Who sold them to you?”
“A woman.”
“Can you describe her, please?”
“Well, she was dressed in mourning. I didn’t get a good look at her face because she wore a veil.”
“Anything else?”
“She had a perambulator. The baby was sleeping.”
“I see.” His last hope had been doused. She had stolen the jewelry and now she was gone. “I’d like to purchase the jewelry, please.”
“All of it?”
“Unless you’d like to simply return it to me since it’s mine.”
His words took her aback. “Uh-no. I’ll get the pieces from the safe.”
Nicholas made the purchase. Everything was there except one ring. “Did you sell a ring already?”
“No. This is everything.”
He closed the satin-lined box containing the valuables and placed it in his coat pocket.
His mother accepted the items without any show of emotion. Her lack of animation frightened Nicholas. She’d dealt with his father’s death and Stephen’s death, and now this seemed like the last thing she could bear. Her suffering tore at Nicholas.
Alessia had sold the gems only two days ago. That meant she’d still been in Youngstown. He checked the hotels without success. Perhaps she’d gone back to her father. He couldn’t bring himself to locate and wire the man.
He found it impossible to concentrate on his work. He had dressed and gone to the foundry, had gone through the motions of walking through the buildings, checking with each foreman, sitting at his desk…but his mind wasn’t on steel production and his heart wasn’t in the effort it took to be there.
He sat at his desk, his hands folded beneath his chin, when Milos rapped on the edge of the desk.
Nicholas glanced up.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” He made a semblance of straightening the papers before him even though he had already confided in Milos, and knew he didn’t have to put up appearances.
Milos tossed a stack of mail into a wire basket and held out an envelope. “You might want to see this.”
“What is it?”
“I just came from Western Union. Sam Pierce’s been holding this for…” He paused. “For Claire. Alessia.”
“What is it?” Nicholas asked again.
“Seems she told him not to send it with anyone else, to hang on to it for her. But when I told him she wouldn’t be back, he had me sign for it.”
Nicholas took the envelope and slit it open. He unfolded the telegram. “It’s from the Pinkerton agent who investigated Claire for me.” He read further. “He’s located a body he believes is Claire Halliday. She was buried in a Boston cemetery.” He cut Milos a sharp glance. “As Alessia Thornton.”
Boston, Massachusetts
Nicholas stood before a three-story brownstone and rapped the brass knocker gracing one of the black lacquered double doors.