Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
A small child appeared in the crack that opened. “Yeah?”
“Hello there. Is this Thomas Crane’s house?”
“My pa cain’t get ’round just yet,” he said.
“I know. That’s why I’m here. Is-is your mother here, please?”
“Mama’s abed sick. If you got wash, you can take it to the Paulsons’. It’s down there a ways. They’s a stump in the yard.”
“No, I don’t have wash. I came to help your mother.” She turned to Gruver, who was watching curiously, and called, “Come back at four.”
He saluted his understanding, and pulled the carriage away.
Alessia stepped past the little boy guarding the door. He took on a startled expression and ran into the room to stand by a man reclining on a lumpy sofa, his shirt opened enough to reveal the bandages encasing his ribs. His right arm was wrapped and supported by a sling.
The man looked up at her with the same shocked expression the boy had worn.
“Mr. Crane? I’m S-” She caught herself. “I’m Claire Halliday. I’ve come to do whatever I can to help.”
“Halliday?” he asked, his dark eyebrows climbing to the middle of his lined forehead.
“Yes. Nicholas’s sister-in-law.”
“I’m sorry about your husband, Mrs. Halliday,” he said with a nod.
“Thank you. Where’s your wife?”
“In the bedroom there. The oldest took her some tea before she left, but Mary wouldn’t hear of her missin’ any more school, so she sent her off.”
Alessia removed her velvet cape and hung it beside a threadbare jacket and a homemade shawl on hooks beside the door. She entered the bedroom.
At her approach Mary Crane opened deep brown eyes wide, and Alessia introduced herself. A baby about a year old pulled himself to stand in an iron crib against one wall, and the strong smell of urine hit Alessia.
An older child, a girl of about three, played on the floor.
“Has Dr. Barnes been here?” she asked the woman.
“Yes. He gave me something to help with my stomach. I just pray David doesn’t get it.” She glanced toward the wide-eyed baby.
“Can you eat?” Alessia asked.
“Maybe. The tea stayed down this morning.”
“I’ll fix you some lunch and some fresh tea, and then I’ll clean up David and take the children out for some air. What’s your name, sweetie?”
The little girl stood, stuck a finger in her mouth and said around it, “Elissa.”
Alessia searched the cupboards, finding adequate supplies. Nicholas had indeed seen to it that the Cranes’ stores were set by. It appeared that very little had been used, however, since neither Tom nor Mary was up to cooking.
Alessia hadn’t had a whole lot of practice herself, but she managed a hot meal for the family. Afterward, she bathed the baby, changed his bedding and sent Alex, the boy who’d answered the door, to the Paulsons’ with the soiled sheets.
“You take in laundry?” she asked Mary as she fitted clean sheets on all the beds.
“I haven’t been able to for several days,” she said from the chair where she waited for Alessia to finish with her bed. “Mr. Halliday sent food, but we still have bills to pay. Our rent comes due the first.”
Alessia couldn’t imagine how much one paid for rent of such a pitiful dwelling, but obviously it was a great deal to the Cranes, and it was their home, no matter how humble.
“You just concern yourself with getting well, and don’t worry about that right now,” she said gently, and helped Mary back into the bed and tucked covers around her. She was almost certain the Ladies’ Aid Society planned to do something about that. At least she assumed that was what Phoebe Graham’s plea for funds was all about Mary’s eyes closed almost immediately.
“Thank you. Mrs. Halliday,” Tom said as she donned her cape and prepared to leave. “I thank you especially for helping my Mary.”
She waved to the children and limped to where Gruver had the carriage waiting.
The following day Alessia sent all the Cranes’ laundry to the Paulsons’, appalled that the family had so few changes. As she washed their lunch dishes and prepared a meal to leave for their dinner, she thought of all Claire’s dresses hanging in the armoire back at the house-dresses that Alessia would never wear, and that would eventually be discarded.
The day after, Penelope, Gruver’s wife, helped her pack them all, and Gruver unloaded them in the Cranes’ living room. By then Mary was getting around, and she touched the garments with reverence.
“You sure don’t want these beautiful gowns, Mrs. Halliday?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“Call me…Claire. They’re inappropriate for a widow,” she said. Actually they were inappropriate for anyone, but she didn’t voice that opinion. Mary had to notice. “You can take them apart and use the fabric for anything you like.”
“I’ll enjoy that more than you know,” Mary said gratefully.
After three days of helping the Cranes all afternoon, hurrying home to feed William, and then working on the plans for guests, Alessia nearly groaned when she saw Nicholas had brought Milos to dinner one evening. She hurried to tell Mrs. Pratt to set another place.
The men politely included the women in the dinner conversation, something Alessia was unaccustomed to with her father and his cronies. She tried to keep her end of the conversation going, but weariness got the best of her.
“Are we boring you, Claire?”
She snapped her head up, and heat rose in her cheeks. “Not at all.”
She’d brought William down with her, and Leda had lifted him from his bassinet and now held him against her breast. She turned him to face the men. “Claire’s simply tired, darling. It’s not easy to do as many things as she does during the day and get up with a baby in the middle of the night. You’ll soon be sleeping through, though, won’t you, William?”
She kissed the top of his head, adoringly.
“You exhaust yourself during the day, do you?” Nicholas asked, a derisive grin curling one side of his mouth. “The dinner menus have been very good, but hardly a debilitating task.”
Alessia gave Leda a placating look. She hadn’t revealed to Nicholas where she’d been spending her afternoons, and for some reason she wanted to keep it to herself. “If there’s more you’d like done, all you have to do is ask,” she said obligingly.
“As long as Mother is rested and happy, that’s all I care,” he replied in a placating tone. “And she tells me you’ve taken over many of her tasks.”
Alessia glanced at Milos. She shouldn’t have been embarrassed-after all, he was a close friend of the family-but she wished he hadn’t heard Nicholas’s demeaning tone.
Milos lent her one of his generous smiles, however, bolstering her spirits.
A screech sounded from the kitchen just then, followed by the clatter of metal.
“I’ll see to that, sir.” Mrs. Pratt, who’d been arranging a tray on one of the sideboards, hurried through the swinging door.
Leda paid her no mind, enraptured with the smiles she was coaxing from William, but Nicholas immediately stood and followed the maid into the servants’ hall.
“Excuse me,” Alessia said to Milos, then pushed back her chair and rushed to the kitchen on Nicholas’s heels.
Laughter erupted and Mrs. Pratt shushed and waved her arms in warning. Alessia peered around Nicholas’s broad shoulder and caught sight of the tumble of wet skirts and pant legs on the drenched floor. Giggling and not seeing the other servant or their employer, Penelope wrenched away from where her husband had her pinned, grabbed a pan of suds that sat on a work surface and dumped the contents on Gruver.
He sputtered, and roared with laughter, rising as if to retaliate. Penelope shrieked and turned to escape, seeing Nicholas and Alessia for the first time.
The laughter died on her lips, her smile transformed to a wide-eyed expression of dismay.