She needed to tell Nicholas everything. She needed to stop worrying about what he would think of her. He had trusted her with the secret of his heart and now the time had come for her to do the same. She needed to trust him enough to show him who she really was. If he refused her, if he turned away from her, she lost nothing. Her heart might be broken, but she would be no worse off.
And if he agreed to pay her debt, if he loved her enough...
Warmed by the thought, she notched her chin and said, “I understand what you’re saying.”
Buchanan’s lip lifted into a sneer as he studied her. As if reading her mind, he snarled, “If you think to have your pretty boy pay your debts, think again, girl. First, I doubt he cares enough for you to do it, and, even if by some miracle he does, if you don’t honor your bargain, I will watch him die.”
His words took the air right out of her lungs, and for a moment, Lexie’s head spun. “You wouldn’t do that!”
“No?” Buchanan asked. “He wouldn’t be the first man I’ve killed, and you’re naïve if you think he is. I didn’t get where I am by allowing anyone to take what’s mine.” He paused for a moment, pulled her in close to him and crushed her lips against his. “He would never expect it. And I...well, who’s going to prosecute me? I’m friends with the governor, and my brother’s the sheriff. The district attorneys in four different counties were elected because of me, and I have more judges in my pocket than your pretty boy has horses. I’ll kill him with my own hands and I’ll enjoy it. You’re the one who would suffer. He won’t care, he’ll be dead. You, on the other hand, will wish you’d never been born. You, I would let live just so you’d have to live with the results of your handiwork for the rest of your life.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and she fought them back. She didn’t doubt he meant what he said about enjoying killing Nicholas. She’d already witnessed Buchanan’s cruel streak. She understood his connections to the rich and powerful throughout the state made him invincible against someone like her, who had so little to fight him with.
Her word would never be enough.
“You can’t do that!” she hissed.
“No? Will you sacrifice them, then? Your father, your employer? If he means nothing to you, then absolutely, go ahead and tell him. What will he do to me? Call me out? Maybe he would, but you can’t think I would lose. Do you honestly believe I would fight fair? There’s a reason why I win all the time, Miss Markland. I cheat. So throw them to the wolves for all I care. See your father jailed, and Mr. Wetherby six feet under. You are mine, by right. Oh, and before you claim Mr. Wetherby is nobler than I, try to remember I would make you my wife. He keeps you as his servant.”
The tears gathered and began to fall before she thought to stop them. She wiped them angrily away. Buchanan’s last comment hurt far more than she cared to admit. Nicholas hadn’t released her from her debt to him, and while she enjoyed her time with him, the fact she remained his servant remained a constant presence in the back of her mind. Though she played at being the mistress of the house, she never forgot she was only pretending. She was still, and would remain, his servant.
Her voice breaking on the words, she said, “I have not forgotten what I owe you, Mr. Buchanan.”
His grip on her arms hurt. “Good,” he replied. “I want you to remember this conversation. I want you to remember this day. Oh, and Miss Markland? Tell your little friend Wetherby about our conversation, and you may as well put the final nail in his coffin.” He pulled her close to him and laid claim to her mouth, a kiss that felt like punishment.
Lexie fought for breath against a corset suddenly far too tight, and her vision swam for a moment. Rubbing away the sting of his kiss, she said tightly, “I understand.”
He pulled her roughly up against him, before shoving her away. “Let’s hope so, Miss Markland, for your sake.”
She stared in the direction he’d gone long after he’d disappeared into the crowd.
Lexie had no idea how long she remained in the alley, fighting for breath in the shadow of the buildings. Her life crashed about her ears as she stood in the shadows of San Francisco’s majestic buildings, grief pouring over her like a tidal wave. There was no fighting her fate. She needed to leave Nicholas immediately. She couldn’t remain in his household, not as his servant and not as his mistress. She had to break from him immediately, permanently.
When she emerged from the alley, she continued with her errands woodenly. By the time she reached Nicholas’s rented house, she had gone to the butcher, the bakery, fetched the post—done all of these things and not remembered a single detail. She had no recollection of paying the baker, did not recall handing her parcels to the driver and requesting dully he take her home. No, not home, not to her, anyway. Back to Nicholas’s house.
Her limbs were stiff and sore, and her stomach churned as she sat down on the bed she shared with Nicholas and wept.
She reminded herself she had known her love affair with Nicholas would eventually come to a bitter end, but she wasn’t ready to let the happy fantasy go. And as she sat on his bed, clutching his pillow to her chest, the scent of him surrounding her, she realized she never would be.
Better now than later, she consoled herself. Every day she found another reason to love him. Better to break things off now, when it wouldn’t hurt so much.
Only she couldn’t imagine the pain being any worse. Her stomach turned, her chest was tight, her heart burning beneath her breast. She shook violently from a cold that would never abate, despite the heat, and that was nothing compared to her emotional turmoil.
She wanted to break in half. She wanted her mind to crack under the emotional strain, only it didn’t. Instead, she remained achingly, agonizingly present. She would not be forgetting these moments. She would find no solace in madness.
In those dreadful moments, Lexie finally came to understand loss, to understand her father in a way she never had before. If she could lose herself in drink and gambling the way he did, she might not be able to stop, either. When the one thing that means more than life itself was lost, it was hard to let go of the only things bringing any comfort, even if the vices brought destruction once the short-lived solace is over. She missed her mother, too, had loved her, too, but she never understood how her father could do what he did, and continue to do it despite her pleas for him to stop, blithely ignoring her as his life crashed down around his ears.
In that destruction, Lexie’s guilt took root. When her mother had gotten sick, Lexie had been unable to look upon her, fearing every time she saw her mother would be the last time. Lexie had fled, refusing to go up to her mother’s room, taking refuge in books and outings with her friends. Her father had shouldered all the responsibility for caring for his ailing wife. In those long months of her mother’s illness, he had been her rock, never faltering, never complaining. They had never been wealthy, but as the medical bills mounted, they descended into poverty, and between that and the financial situation in California, his business went bankrupt. He never complained. During that time, he had been strong and faithful, never wavering in his commitment to his wife.
Lexie let him. She hadn’t made any attempt to share his pain because she had been scared. At the time, he seemed so capable she thought he didn’t need to lean on anyone.
Not until after her mother’s death did she realize how dire things had gotten for her father, and by then it was too late. He sought comfort in drinking and gambling because he hadn’t been able to share his grief with the one person in the world who should have understood it. He escaped his pain for a time, and Lexie finally comprehended how much escape meant, because there would be no solace, no escape for her.
Eventually, her tears dried, not because she didn’t continue to weep, but rather because she had simply run out. Leaning over, she opened the small drawer on Nicholas’s side of the bed, looking for a handkerchief. She pushed aside letters and was pulling out his square of linen when she noticed a carefully folded envelope addresse
d to her.
Picking it up, she discovered a letter from Claire O’Connor, dated from before they had come to San Francisco, offering to pay her debt to Nicholas and reiterating her offer of work in her household.
Shame twisted in her gut as she realized Claire knew about her father’s debt and how she’d come to be in Nicholas’s employ. For the last several weeks, she had behaved like little more than a common doxy. Her father owed Nicholas money, and she repaid his debt with her body. She shouldn’t have been surprised. James was Claire’s brother, and he and Nicholas were friends and business partners. Why wouldn’t Nicholas tell James, and what reason would James have for keeping his silence? His reputation wasn’t on the line.
Lexie turned the letter over in her hand and noticed Claire provided a San Francisco address. She recognized her way out. She had a place to go, someone to turn to. More than that, she had a reason to be angry with Nicholas. She had been offered freedom, which he had denied her by not giving her this letter. It didn’t matter that if he had given the note to her back when it had been received, she would have refused. What mattered was that he had decided for her and allowed her to remain in bondage.
Woodenly, she changed her clothes into the faded red dress she had brought with her and packed her valise. She would take only those things she had come with. Well, that and the book of poetry from Nicholas’s library, the one she had been reading the first time he’d kissed her. The dresses and the jewelry she could part with, but not this book. She needed something tangible, something she’d be able to take out and touch when she wanted to feel his strong arms around her.
Something to remind her of him.
She walked downstairs and told the footman to ready the coach. She heard Nicholas’s voice, laughing loudly, and was shocked to see the entire day had passed. Taking a breath, she realized she owed Nicholas this one, last fight.
Yet something in his voice made her stop at the door and listen.
At first she admonished herself. She had been raised better than this, but that didn’t stop her. She’d done a lot of things recently that went against the way she had been raised.
“I think she’s run her course. She was good while she lasted, but I think it’s time to let her go.”
“You can’t mean you’re through with her? Already? After what you paid for her?” James Campbell’s voice rang clear. He sounded incredulous.
Though her heart pounded, Lexie stopped to listen.
“Well, if you’ll recall, I didn’t really want her in the first place,” Nicholas said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“She has been more than serviceable, but it’s not working out.”
“I think she’s still got some life in her,” James countered. “It seems like a waste of an investment to let her go right now. Keep her for a little while longer, make good use of her.”
Nicholas laughed. “I know how you operate. You would prefer to run her into the ground, use her up completely, while I would prefer to get rid of her while I still can.”
Lexie fought rage. The nerve of him, insinuating she was nothing more than a commodity to be bought and used up. For him to imply their relationship had run its course, well, that hurt worse than any of Buchanan’s threats, worse than anything she had ever experienced.
She could bear no more.
When she opened the door, Nicholas looked up, startled. “Lexie.”
In unison with Nicholas, James rose from his chair. “Miss Markland.”
“Mr. Campbell,” Lexie acknowledged curtly. Glaring at Nicholas, she said, “A word.”
Nicholas’s brows drew together, and his mouth twisted, but he complied. “Of course.”
He closed the study door behind him and stood in the dimly lit hallway of the house she’d made a home. He reached out to touch her, but she skittered away. She’d lose her nerve if she allowed him to touch her. “Don’t!” she hissed.
“Lexie, what’s wrong?”
“As if you don’t know!”
“I don’t know!”
“Spare me your lies, Mr. Wetherby! I know you don’t want me! I know I’m just a thing to you! So spare me your charming suitor routine.”
His jaw dropped as he stared at her. Making an angry gesture with his hands, he said, “What are you talking about? Have you gone suddenly mad?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Lexie demanded, warming to her argument. “Same old routine, the woman being a crazy harpy. You’d like to look like the good guy, the maligned one. Only I see you for what you are.”
“Lexie, goddammit, what the hell are you talking about?”
Hurt and angry, Lexie quoted, “‘She was good while she lasted,’ Mr. Wetherby?”
His brows drew together over his nose. “What? Good while she...?” Then, laughing, he continued. “Lexie, you can’t think I was talking about you?”
Amusement lit his eyes and his lips curved into a jovial smile, and all it did was fuel her wrath. “As if you weren’t,” Lexie snarled. “I know what you think of me. You paid for me! Whether you got your investment’s worth is entirely up to you, but I want out. Now.”
Nicholas’s face fell, a concerned line forming between his brows. “What? You’re not an investment, Lexie.” Gesturing to the study where James still waited, Nicholas said, “That conversation had nothing to do with you!”
Her heart stuttered at his words, for she recognized the truth in them. Whatever they’d been discussing hadn’t been her. Trying desperately to hold onto the edge of her anger, she held up the letter from Claire. “Just like this has nothing to do with me, I suppose.”
“What is that?” Nicholas asked her warily.
Waving the letter at him, she said, “This is a letter from Claire O’Connor, dated from before we even came here. She offered me employment and to repay my debt to you. She offered me freedom. Which you denied me.”
“Lexie, I was leaving for San Francisco at the time. I was going to be gone for months, and I offered you the chance to stay in Sacramento in my house without me. I wasn’t denying you freedom, I was granting it. You were the one who wanted to join me here.”
He had a point. He had invited her to come with him, but only after she had made her feelings toward him perfectly clear. “You’re changing the topic, Nicholas! You never gave me the chance to accept her offer. You never gave me a choice. You never offered me real freedom. The choices you gave me were to stay with you or to stay in your house. Either way, I remained your servant.”
“I never intended for you to stay my servant! That’s why I insisted you take a room above stairs. The help doesn’t stay in guest quarters. Besides, you haven’t even been staying in the guest room since the first week after we arrived, not really. You’ve spent most of your time in the master suite.”
“Lower your voice!”
“What, so Campbell won’t find out we’re lovers? Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but your dirty little secret is already out. He knows. Hell, everyone knows. You haven’t been acting the part of a servant since we got here, and for good reason. Because you haven’t been one.”
“No, Mr. Wetherby, I’ve been your mistress, your whore.”
Nicholas blanched. She might as well have slapped him, his reaction was so violent. “I have never treated you as a whore! No one has ever accused me of that, and don’t you start! You wanted this as much as I did. You always could have said no! We didn’t do anything you didn’t want!” he shouted, stabbing violently at the air with his index finger.
He was right, but it was easier to fight grief with anger, to fight his logical arguments with raw emotion. Her voice breaking on the words, she wailed, “But I’m still your servant! How can a servant ever refuse her employer?”
“You all but asked to come with me, Lexie! When I asked you to come with me, I made it plain you wouldn’t be coming with me as my servant. If you were so concerned about refusing me, you should have stayed in Sacramento, where you wouldn’t have had to abi
de by my presence! If you’ll recall, you were the one who initiated our dalliance with your ‘I would miss you if you left, Mr. Wetherby,’ and, ‘I’m seducing you.’ You were well aware what would happen if you came!”
“How was I supposed to know—I mean, really know?” Lexie spat. “You knew what I was when you brought me here!”
“Right back at you, Miss Markland. You knew what I was. I made my intentions plain, I gave you ample opportunity to back out, and if you were unhappy with our arrangement, then perhaps you should have said something!”
“I’m saying something now!”
“What are you saying? I don’t even know what we’re really fighting about!”
“We’re fighting about my freedom! We’re fighting because someone offered it to me and you didn’t even give me the chance to accept!”
“But you were happy! We were happy! You wanted to come with me to San Francisco. I thought the point was moot. I didn’t think you’d take Mrs. O’Connor up on her offer!”
“We’ll never know, will we?” she demanded, warming to an argument she had no right to win. “You never gave me a choice!”
He threw up his hands. “You want a choice? Fine! You have the letter from Mrs. O’Connor. You want to go work for her rather than stay here with me, go! You want the freedom to choose who you serve to work off your father’s debt? Fine! Make your choice!”
“I’ll do that!” Lexie shouted.
“Fine! I have work to do!” Nicholas shouted back, turning his back and going back into his study. He slammed the door shut behind him, and it was like the lid of a coffin closing. Painful and forever.
Lexie stared at the closed door for a minute, the hurt and the shock washing over her, regretting that this last time she spoke with Nicholas the words flying between them had been ugly. She’d never been a fallen woman in this house. She had been his mistress, but she had far more love here than she would with Buchanan, a man who sought to make her his wife. She would happily trade the title of Buchanan’s wife for the title of Nicholas’s mistress. Happy in sin, or unhappy in wedlock. There was hardly a choice to be made.
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