Thief of Hearts (15 page)

Brodie forced himself not to squirm under her grave and unblinking regard. It'll grow back, he told himself, as he'd been doing every few seconds for the last five minutes. Why didn't she say something? He hadn't thought it looked that bad. A little naked, maybe, but she'd get used to that, wouldn't she? Why didn't she say something? He narrowed his eyes grimly and managed to keep from glancing at his reflection in the mirror behind her, not asking himself why he gave a damn what Mrs. Balfour thought about him in the first place.

"It's… " Anna didn't know what to say.

"It'll grow back."

"No, no, it's… "

"It's what?" he demanded, coming closer and standing over her. "What?"

"It's… "

"It's a big improvement," O'Dunne supplied, taking Brodie's arm and beginning to lead him toward the door. "Come on, I want you to try on the new boots that came this morning." Brodie's feet were bigger than his brother's, and the lawyer had ordered new boots for him from a shoemaker in Florence. "Come on, there's just time before lunch."

Brodie let himself be pulled toward the door in a sideways, crablike fashion, still turned to Anna, still waiting for her judgment. "It's what?" he repeated at the threshold.

She held out an irresolute hand. "It's… "

"What?" he called back at the foot of the steps as O'Dunne pressed him onward. Halfway up, he thought he heard a faint voice from below saying, "It's… "

"Listen to this, Billy. A lady only takes the arm of her husband, her fiancé, or a family member. And she never curtsies in the street, she bows. Got that?"

Billy grunted. Brodie's incessant quotes and readings were interrupting his mid-morning nap.

"When meeting on the street, always speak first to your milliner, your seamstress, or mantuamaker. Absolutely; that's democratic. Never say 'snooze' when you mean nap, 'pants' for pantaloons, 'gents' for gentlemen. And don't say an amusing anecdote is 'rich.' Wouldn't think of it." He turned a page. "Oh, say, listen to this."

Billy groaned and put the pillow over his face.

"'An obvious withdrawal to attend to the necessities of nature, particularly after dinner, is indelicate. Endeavor to steal away unperceived.'
Listen
to this, Bill! And when you come back, 'let there be no adjusting of your clothes or replacing of your watch, to say whence you came.'" He guffawed gleefully. " 'Seem not aware of improper conversation. Don't even
hear
a double entendre.' No indeed. And here's his final bit of advice for ladies: 'Dare to be prudish!'"

Anna came into the library at that moment. She paused for a second to listen to the rich, infectious sound of Brodie's laughter, which almost but not quite made her smile. "He ought to have included a piece of advice for you too, Mr. Brodie," she said, startling him. "Dare to try to behave like a normal human being."

Good Lord, thought Brodie, had she made a joke? He closed his hook and stared. She looked so pretty, standing in a slant of morning sunlight in the doorway. She had on a flowered dress of pink and green and white, open in front, and under it another dress, he guessed it was, all white, with long sleeves down to the wrist. When the flowered dress opened, the white skirt underneath showed in the most wonderful, feminine way.

He got up from his chair and came toward her. She wasn't all buttoned up today, either; he could see all of her throat and even some of her chest, though the dress started just at the place where her breasts began their soft swell. Her hair was the color of safflower honey, with loose strands of gold brightening it, falling down around her face from a haphazard-looking knot on top of her head. "You look beautiful," he said truthfully, then savored the special treat of watching her cheeks turn that sweet, lovely apricot color.

All at once Anna gasped, and the color drained from her face. Brodie frowned and stepped closer. She put out an arm to fend him off, taking a backward step. "What are you wearing?" she said in an aghast whisper.

He glanced down at his new suit in bewilderment. O'Dunne had given it to him that morning. The fit was almost perfect, and he'd thought it looked all right. Sober, brown, a gent's, a
gentleman's
suit, he'd have said. "What's wrong with it?" He checked to make sure his fly was buttoned. "Too dull? Maybe a different tie."

"That's Nicholas's suit!" She was mortified when scalding hot tears began to streak down her cheeks. "Damn you," she choked, backing out of the room. She began walking blindly down the hall to the front door. She heard Brodie mutter something to Billy Flowers, then heard footsteps behind her. She quickened her pace, but he caught her at the door.

His hand closed over hers on the knob and he loomed over her, a shadowy giant in the dim foyer. "Nick's dead," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I loved him too, and I wish he was here instead of me. But he's gone." He gripped her shoulder with his other hand and made her face him. "I'm here. Me, John Brodie. I'm not his double and I'm not an impostor, I'm a man." He could feel her trembling under his fierce grip, and he let her go abruptly. When she fell back, he wrenched open the door and walked out into the blinding sunshine.

Anna waited a full ten seconds before following him. His strides were long and quick, he was almost out of sight already. "Mr. Brodie," she called. "Mr. Brodie!"

He glanced over his shoulder and saw her flying after him, holding her skirts, her heels clumsy on the rough gravel walk. She called out to him to stop,
please
, and he halted reluctantly.

Anna kept running, fearful he'd start away again, and by the time she reached him she was out of breath. It took a moment before she could speak. She put her hand over her heart, unaware of the sight she was to Brodie's hungry eyes, with her hair fallen down from its knot and tumbling around her shoulders, the faint dew of perspiration on her forehead, the agitated rise and fall of her bosom as she struggled to catch her breath. "Mr. Brodie," she got out, looking into his face with grave fervor, "I beg your pardon! What I said please forgive me. It was unfair and unkind."

"Never mind," he said immediately. "Already forgotten."

She recalled he'd forgiven her once before, and just that easily, for calling him a liar. "You see, it's still so hard for me to believe he's really dead," she faltered. She felt she had to explain it all now.

"And that suit, Nicholas wore it the day he asked me to marry him." Her throat tightened, but this time she didn't cry. "It was stupid of me to say what I did. I wasn't thinking."

Now Brodie felt like apologizing to her. He took her gently by the arm and led her over the bumpy ground toward a coppice of laurel trees at the far end of the park. He felt her stiffen with surprise at first, then relax. Neither spoke until they were seated at opposite ends of a low bench under the trees, a safe expanse of cold stone between them. Then Brodie asked directly, "How long did you know Nick?"

"Eight years."

"What was he like?"

What a strange question. She answered as best she could, conscious of the irony and perhaps the pain he felt because she'd known his brother better than he had. "He was handsome," she began, then blushed and looked down. "A strong man. Ambitious. Determined to succeed."

"Did people like him? Did he have friends?"

"Yes," she said after a second's hesitation, "he had friends. Perhaps he wasn't universally liked by the men who worked for him, but I think that's understandable. He was their superior, after all, which isn't always a popular position. But certainly everyone respected him."

Brodie thought about the well-dressed, prosperous-looking gentleman who had shunned him on the Liverpool docks a year ago. He could see how a man like that might not be "universally liked."

"Why did you love him?" he asked after a moment.

With scarcely a thought for the impropriety of this conversation, Anna told the truth. "I think I fell in love with him the minute I saw him. I was sixteen. He was my father's new clerk. We met in the office in Liverpool one day, and I could hardly speak a word. Even afterward, for years, the only thing I could talk about with him was ships."

Bewitched, Brodie watched the way her mouth turned down at the comers just a little when she smiled, giving her face a sad, gentle look. She had an ambiguous smile, warm and cool at the same time, sweet but restrained, infinitely subtle.

"Why?" he asked softly.

"Because I always felt so awkward and childish and stupid. And ugly. And he was so perfect, so charming and smart. And kind to me, of course, but with absolutely no idea of what I felt."

"And then?"

"Then… a year ago T.J., my brother, was killed in a fall from his horse. In Lincolnshire, at his fiancée's house."

"Were you and your brother close?" he asked when she hesitated.

"I loved him, but, no, we weren't very close. He was ten years older and saw me as… a bit of a nuisance. He and my father put up with me and my interest in Jourdaine with… " she paused again, weighing her words, "a certain amount of condescension." Which, she reflected, was not as bad as outright indifference, her father's attitude for the first fifteen years or so of her life. She was shrewd enough to recognize that her interest in shipbuilding had sprung originally from a desire to please him, to capture even a little of his stingy attention. It hadn't worked, not really, but over the years it had become its own reward. Ships were her passion, the only one she had thought she would be allowed, until the day Nicholas had asked her to marry him.

"But Nick was different," Brodie guessed, breaking in on her thoughts.

"Yes. He took me seriously, never patronized me. Sometimes he even asked my opinion."

"And after your brother died?"

"Nicholas and T.J. had worked together for years, but never become great friends or so I thought. So I was surprised when Nicholas came to me after the accident, needing comfort. I needed it too. And so we consoled each other."

Brodie kept his expression blank, but something ugly occurred to him.

Anna's face was gentle, her eyes full of memories. "We began to spend time together outside the company." She laughed. "Actually speaking of things that had nothing to do with the building of ships."

"And you fell in love."

"He fell in love," she corrected lightly. "And six months after T.J.'s accident, he proposed marriage. In that suit." She found she could even smile about it now. It felt right, she realized, to be speaking to Mr. Brodie about his brother.

Brodie leaned back on his hands and looked up at the clouds, trying to conceive of his brother and this woman as a couple. He could picture them together physically, that part was easy. But when he tried to put Anna together in any other way with the man he believed Nick had become, the pieces didn't fit. Something was missing.

"At first my father objected. I think he'd thought of marrying me to a peer, some titled gentleman I'd met at my coming-out. But I defied him!"

"For the first time?" Brodie ventured, though he was certain of the answer.

"Yes! I told him I was going to marry Nicholas, with or without his permission. He was so stunned, he gave in. Well, he didn't have anything against him except that he wasn't rich, and he was embarrassed to admit that. So he agreed."

"When did you lose your mother?" Brodie wondered.

"When I was four. She died in a fire."

They fell silent, thinking their separate thoughts. Out of nowhere slunk Dom, the cat. Ignoring Brodie, he heaved himself up on the bench, stalked into Anna's lap, curled himself into a hot, heavy ball, and began to purr. She patted his coarse fur helplessly, adjusting herself to his weight. She wondered at the things she'd seen fit to confide in Mr. Brodie, some of them things she'd never told anyone before. But was it really so surprising? Nicholas had died a sudden and horrible death, and afterward there had been no funeral, no burial, no opportunity to share her grief with friends and family. She had traveled to this strange new place and struggled by herself with the pain of her loss, and with the agony of suspicion and thoughts of betrayal. Alden was an old friend, but even with him she felt constrained, unable to speak freely.

But with Mr. Brodie, at least today, at least for these minutes, she was at ease, and finally able to talk about Nicholas naturally. Healingly. With someone who had loved him too, for some sure instinct told her Brodie had loved his brother very much. Regardless of what had passed between him and her in the past or might in the future, she would always be grateful for this quiet, consoling present.

But the sympathy between them was only an illusion, and his next words betrayed it. "What will you do, how will you feel, if O'Dunne's right and Nick was stealing from your father's company?"

"He wasn't," she said stiffly. "Aiden's wrong. Nicholas would not have done such a thing."

Brodie said nothing, and wondered if she was as sure as she sounded.

His silence antagonized her. "Do you believe he would have?" She was fearful of the answer, but fully prepared to disregard it if it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "Nick and I hadn't been friends for a long time, not since our mother died and we went different ways. I hope not. But… "

"But what?" she goaded.

He stared down at the ground between his shoes, forearms on his knees. "Nick was always dissatisfied, even when we were boys. Restless. And… he always wanted money." Because he believed he'd been cheated out of it, Brodie thought. Out of his "birthright," as he'd called it. "Let's say, I don't rule it out."

He heard the heavy thump of Dom hitting the ground, and looked up to see Anna on her feet. "I should've expected that from you," she said through her teeth. "The mystery is why I bothered to ask. You're the criminal in your family, not Nicholas! You're the one they would've hanged a month ago if it hadn't been for a miracle! Don't talk to me about my husband again, Mr. Brodie, don't even say his name. You're not—"

Brodie shot to his feet and strode toward her. Anna held her ground, but one look at his face told her she'd gone too far this time. He took her by the elbows and held on. The apprehension in her face pleased him. He was heartily sick of people telling him what he could do and what he could say, and he was especially tired of this woman's barely concealed contempt. He gave her a quick shake and brought his face down to her level.