Thief of Hearts (12 page)

"Stop it!" she said again, to him this time. "Aiden." Her voice shook. "Mr. Brodie saved my life. You told me he's given his word that he won't try to escape, and I… believe him." She swallowed, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on Brodie's taut, dangerous face.

O'Dunne looked back and forth between them with wary interest, then cleared his throat. "Very well. In that case—"

But Brodie wouldn't make it easy for him. "I'm not asking for your permission, O'Dunne. I'm telling you."

Anna watched Aiden's eyes narrow in anger, and spoke quickly. "It scarcely matters, does it, since there's no longer any chain. What's to be done now?" She took the lawyer's arm and moved him forcibly toward the door. "Must we spend the night in this village you spoke of? Is there a constable's office nearby? Or what would it be in Italian, a
questura
?"

At the door she risked a glance back. Brodie stood in the same defensive posture as before, and there was still anger in his eyes. But his hands were free. She sent him an almost-smile, her expression an ambiguous mix of gratitude and mistrust, and pulled Aiden the rest of the way outside.

May 4, 1862 Florence

In the milky-gray hour between night and day, Anna dreamed of flowers. Wakefulness pulled at her, but she resisted. The dream was pleasant, plotless; she wanted it to go on and on. But the relentlessly cheerful song of a cardinal pierced the dream-veil and she sat up, half-expecting to see the noisy bird perched on her night table. She was awake, and yet the barrier between dream and reality seemed tissue-thin because her room, though still dark and shuttered against the morning sun, was already fragrant with the delicate and delicious perfume of freesias. She put her feet on the cold stone floor and reacted to the mild shock as always, by scampering across the room to the long shuttered doors, flinging them open, and stepping with relief onto the sun-warmed boards of her wooden balcony.

The radiant beauty of Italy struck her each morning as if for the first time. All the clichés she'd ever heard about the
color
, the
light
, had turned out to be no more than the truth. It was impossible to describe and she'd tried, often, in her journal. It had something to do with a transparent softness in the air, something rich and gentle and composed in the Italian scene; a mellow serenity; a nameless charm.

Casa di Fiori, house of flowers, was a miniature replica of a medieval castle, built a hundred years ago by a Florentine marchese. It had three floors, a ridiculous number of balconies and ledges, and a tower. Best of all, because it was built into the steep hillside, each floor was abundant in small gardens in different places and on different levels. Anna's third-floor balcony looked out over the highest garden, entered from the hall on the floor below. The Arno was not visible from here, but the flower-starred slope on its far side was brilliant in the early sunlight, with black cypresses cutting through the lushness like long, straight swords. Below her in the garden a Judas tree was in full pink flower, absurdly lovely, its wafting fragrance almost overpowering. A tiny breeze blew. Morning birds sang. Anna hugged herself, feeling washed through with light.

She turned away from the all but unbearable beauty and leaned her back against the railing. The sun flamed on her shoulders, warming her. Through the open doors she gazed into the cool dimness of her bedroom. She loved it too, the bareness of its white walls, the one small rug on the stone floor, the sparse old furniture. It wasn't the spacious "bridal suite" the servants had readied for Mr. and Mrs. Balfour, she couldn't have faced that. This room was tiny. Her bed was of black enameled iron, painted with bunches of gay flowers. Except for a tub of arum lilies by the door and a watercolor sketch of geraniums over the bed, there were no decorations. How different it was from her large, cluttered room at home in Liverpool. It was very odd, but at some deep, nearly unconscious level, and in spite of the circumstances under which she'd come, Anna was almost happy here.

It was hard to admit that one of the reasons she had fallen in so passively with Mr. Dietz's scheme was because she did not want to go home. She loved her family, truly she did, but the thought of grieving for Nicholas in her father's house, under the watchful eyes of her aunt and cousins, even her friends, had cowed her. She preferred being alone now, and she needed it. She was weary of her role as the dutiful daughter, the obedient niece, the unassuming cousin. She'd imagined her marriage beginning to change that role by allowing her some small measure of independence, a slight loosening of the restrictions she'd borne so submissively all her life. But that would not happen now, for she would never marry again. There would be no husband to encourage her efforts to define a life for herself outside rigid conventions or other people's expectations, and her fledgling attempts to contribute to the family business would doubtless come to nothing without the support of any male Jourdaine. She mourned that loss almost as much as she mourned Nicholas himself.

But guilt tormented her. What she was doing was selfish and dishonest. She ought to have gone home immediately and told her family everything. She'd never done anything like this before, it was completely out of character; the very strangeness of it shocked her. She thought of what might happen if the slightest hint of what she had done, denied and concealed her husband's death and taken up residence with a complete stranger who happened to be his convict brother ever reached the staid ears of Liverpool society. She shuddered. It was not exaggerating to say that she would be ruined. Her father's wealth and respectability wouldn't be enough, her reputation would be shattered. But Mr. Dietz insisted there was no danger, swore the secret was secure, and told her not to worry. Alden halfheartedly seconded him. Sometimes she wondered if they really understood the risk she was running. Because they were men, she suspected they did not.

She thought again of her father, and her guilt returned. He was very ill, what if he missed her? What if he needed her? Then she smiled a small, tight smile. He had his nurse all the time now; when Anna visited him in his room, he would look up from his book or his papers with one of two expressions: mild annoyance at the interruption, or mild puzzlement, as if for a moment he couldn't quite place her. No, she thought, almost resigned to it, her father wouldn't miss her. Neither would Aunt Charlotte. No one would, really, now that Nicholas was gone.

Abruptly she flung away from the railing and went back inside. After the brightness, she could barely see. She opened the wardrobe and searched through her gowns blindly, clutching one at random and pulling it out. She held it against herself while she stared at her dim reflection in the wardrobe mirror. She'd brought nothing black to wear on her wedding trip. Each day as she put on her green gown or her pink, her pale blue, even her white, she was seized with a fresh rush of guilt because she wasn't even mourning Nicholas properly. But that wasn't the worst. She turned from the mirror, shamefaced, and began to rummage in her bureau drawer for clean stockings. The worst was that sometimes she forgot to think about Nicholas at all. Sometimes, God help her, her mind seemed to be empty of any thoughts at all except about his brother.

The shipbuilding lessons were going unexpectedly well. Mr. Brodie was intelligent, she had to admit, and he already had a great deal of knowledge of the subject which he'd gleaned from experience at sea. Each day he listened to and grasped the rudiments of the operation at Jourdaine as quickly as she could explain them to him, and often their lessons ended early because she hadn't prepared enough material for them to cover. It was engine design that particularly interested him, which was unfortunate, because she knew much more about wood and metal fabrication. She'd sent Aiden into the city to procure books on the subject, but without success: they were all in Italian. Not that it mattered—Nicholas hadn't designed engines; Mr. Greeley, if he existed, would ask Brodie no questions on the subject, but the teacher in Anna hated to see anyone's natural curiosity stifled. Even Mr. Brodie's.

There was an edge of tension between them despite the success of the lessons, an aggravated double awareness that she found unnerving. She was scrupulously careful never to be alone with him, and yet she never felt truly safe in his presence. And that was strange, considering that a week ago he'd saved her from disaster at the hands of outlaw ruffians. Afterward he'd held her, comforted her, and she'd imagined he had a kind and compassionate heart. But if he did, she'd seen no evidence of it since then. On the contrary, sometimes she thought he was furious with her. But why? She sat down on the bed to draw on her stockings, remembering with reluctant accuracy the dangerous game they'd played
, he'd
played, in the cottage afterward, after he'd almost backed her into the fireplace. Was he angry now because she hadn't thrown herself at him out of gratitude for saving her, or... or because she found him irresistible? If so, he was even more arrogant than she'd thought. She sniffed, and pulled her petticoat over her head with a jerk.

Since that day, she'd treated him with cold, flawless propriety. She had an idea that her attitude irked him, which wouldn't have bothered her, would have pleased her, in fact, if his irritation had manifested itself in some other, some normal way. But his method of countering her frigid civility was to make fun of it. Subtly, without words, in ways she could hardly put her finger on. He accomplished it primarily by staring at her, bemused, amused as though she were a fascinating example of some anomolous subspecies of female he'd only read about in books. And then as often as not his regard would change, and he would stare at her with frank, exaggeratedly sexual interest. That too was intended to disconcert, not flatter her, she knew, and it was intensely annoying to have to admit that it did. A great deal. She told herself she felt nothing but contempt for his games, which were childish in the extreme, craven ploys Nicholas would never have sunk to because he was a gentleman. But it was also true that as the drowsy, sun-drenched days dragged past, her unruly thoughts had begun to focus less on the sterling qualities of the honorable, upright husband she'd lost, and more and more on the devilish antics of his twin.

It shamed her. Confused her. Her reflection in the dressing table mirror was grim as she brushed out her hair and contemplated with deep chagrin the fact that already Mr. Brodie had taken more liberties with her than dear Nicholas had in all the years she'd known him, even during the six months of their engagement. And she'd
let
him. That was the worst, that was what galled! Mentally she groped for an excuse, something, anything that would mitigate the shame she felt because she'd not only allowed the man's advances, she'd responded to them.

In triumph, she located it. It exculpated her completely. The fact was, she hadn't been in her right mind. On both occasions when he'd touched her, she'd been in an extremely vulnerable state. Why, the first time she'd been asleep! Or nearly so. The second, she'd still been reeling from a brutal encounter with three would-be rapists. She hadn't known what she was doing. That was it.
She hadn't been herself
.