Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
She had closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Let’s talk about what you came to discuss.”
Of course. She needed to sleep. “It can wait,” he decided.
Her eyes flew open. “You had me wait up, and now you say it can wait?”
“We’re both tired, Claire. Perhaps it would be better if we talked another time.” That smoky hint of gray in her eyes concealed deep emotion. He wondered what thoughts dwelled behind those eyes. “I kept my promise.”
Warily, she took stock of the envelope on the table.
“The papers you wanted,” he clarified.
She didn’t make a move.
He picked up the envelope and tossed it in her lap.
Finally, she looked up. “Thank you.”
She could barely keep her eyes open. She’d probably checked on her mother, fed William and sent the servants to bed all since he’d seen her last. And then she’d waited for him to come rant at her.
“Lean forward.”
She eyed him uncertainly, but complied.
He slipped one arm behind her and another beneath her legs, and her scent assailed him as he picked her up. A little floral, a little earthy. A lot woman.
Dangerous.
He placed her on the bed and stepped back, his seditious body already responding. “Go to sleep.”
Abruptly, he turned and left her room.
Alessia removed the ice from her foot, opened the unsealed envelope and slid the papers onto the bed. All the facts of Claire’s life lay before her, some scrawled in spiky longhand, others printed neatly. Of course he’d hired the Pinkerton Agency, nothing less for Nicholas Halliday, so the information had been recorded with detailed accuracy and a list of sources.
Claire’s limited schooling, her friends, her parents, all the details of her brief life were described on the pages. Celia drank before her husband died. Theirs had been a rough and rocky marriage. Claire had had a brother who had been killed in a street brawl.
Struggling to keep her eyes open, Alessia read of three men with whom Claire had kept intimate company before she’d met Stephen. Perhaps those men had been the reason Nicholas questioned Claire’s motives where his brother was concerned. But Nicholas couldn’t know of her love for Stephen. He’d never observed them together.
If there’d been men before Stephen, there certainly would never have been any after. Alessia had never known two people in love before. But she’d recognized it when she’d seen it.
So Claire had led a rough life. She’d lived in a slum area and worked in a sweatshop until she’d met a man involved in the theater and gone to work as a seamstress and costumer. That didn’t make her the gold digger Nicholas believed her.
Too tired to do more than slip out of her dress and stockings, Alessia unpinned her hair and slid between the sheets in her underclothing.
His challenge to ask for anything she wanted had prompted her boldness in asking for the papers. But he had agreed to provide them. And even after the fiasco with Celia, he’d kept his word. Why? It seemed too much to believe he had a conscience in there somewhere where she was concerned. Maybe he’d experienced a twinge of guilt for having his sister-in-law investigated. She doubted it.
Closing her eyes, Alessia prayed William wouldn’t wake too early. But exhausted as she was, sleep eluded her. Self-recriminations rolled through her mind more acutely than the dull throb in her leg.
She’d told one person the truth that day. Celia. She’d always thought that telling the truth set a person free; however, she was anything but free now. Celia’s knowing who she really was bound her more securely to the lie. Now she had to double her defenses and her efforts to keep Nicholas from finding out.
Claire hadn’t deserved to die. No matter how unpleasant her past, no matter who her parents were, she’d loved Stephen and would have made him a good wife.
Celia hadn’t deserved to hear the truth about her daughter like she had. It might have been better than an impersonal telegram, and there was no good way to announce a loved one’s death, but she hadn’t deserved this.
Alessia’s stomach ached with the depth of her deception. What would all this lead to?
Before long, she would gather William and leave. At this point getting away from Nicholas and his suspicions, running out from under the stifling web of lies she’d woven for herself should come as a relief. But she didn’t know how she would she do it, what she would say. Just take off? Leave a letter, confessing?
Leda had been warm and welcoming, and the dear woman loved William so much. How could Alessia just leave her and Nicholas to deal with the shock of knowing Stephen’s true wife was dead and that Alessia had done nothing about it?
Even Celia must think her a monster for allowing Claire’s body to go unclaimed, undiscovered. The horror of that had plagued Alessia from the first.
She rolled to her back and stared at the shadowy ceiling. As a Halliday, she had resources at her fingertips. The Hallidays would spend their money finding Claire, so there was no reason she shouldn’t do it for them.
Obviously sleep was for those with clear consciences.
She scrambled to the side of the bed, found the tin of matches and lit the rose-painted glass oil lamp. Fumbling through the papers, she found the name of the investigator Nicholas had hired. She would hire a different agent to assure he would not contact Nicholas. Here was something she could do before she left. It wouldn’t make up for the lies, of course, but it would be a way to make up what she’d done to Leda and Nicholas when they learned the truth. Perhaps, too, it would be an atonement to Claire’s mother.
Carrying her small lamp, Alessia slipped down the hallway to the lavender room, and stealthily opened the door.
Celia’s frizzy head could be seen above the back of one of the chairs. “Are you awake?”
“I’m awake.”
Alessia slipped around and sat on the footstool. “I’ve made a decision.”
“What’s that?”
“First thing tomorrow I’m sending a wire to the Pinkerton Agency and arranging for them to find what happened to Claire’s body.” Perhaps Alessia would have a small measure of peace if she knew, if she could bring Claire to lie beside her husband in the Mahoning Valley cemetery.
“That make you feel better?” Celia asked.
“I was hoping it would make you feel better.” Celia would have something tangible to grieve over. If she could find it in her selfish heart to grieve. Or if she stayed sober long enough.
Alessia admonished herself for her unkind thoughts.
“It’s the least I can do,” she continued. “Actually it’s all I can do.”
Celia shrugged, a careless gesture Alessia hoped was intended to cover her feelings.
“I just wanted you to know.”
“Okay. I know.”
Alessia glanced at the bed. “Why don’t you get some sleep now?”
“I’ll sleep in a while.”
“Good night.” Alessia slipped from the room and padded back to hers. Everything she did had an effect on so many other people. Coming here had had an enormous effect, and leaving would have an even bigger one.
Leda would be the one to suffer the most. William was the joy of her life-the baby she believed was her grandson and the descendent of her beloved son and husband. The sooner Alessia ended the deception, the better. Each day her love for Leda grew stronger.
And each day her love for Nicholas took on deeper and more frightening proportions. Her inability to resist him even though he cared nothing for her was shameful. Removing herself from his presence seemed the answer to more than one dilemma.
Once the authorities knew what to look for it shouldn’t take them long to locate Claire’s remains. Nicholas’s guests would be here a few more days, and Alessia had the obligation of caring for them.
Perhaps in another week or two she’d have the information about Claire. By then, she’d be able to stand and walk for longer periods, and her time here would be over. Until then she’d have to keep Celia quiet
Snuffing the light, she climbed into bed. She would be glad to get away from Nicholas, she had to tell herself. In a hundred lifetimes she’d never meet another man who at the same time angered and puzzled and excited her as he did. Of all the things that could have happened, of all the places she might have been heading, and the trains she could have been taking, she’d boarded an ill-fated one that had introduced her to Stephen and Claire and Nicholas and Leda.