Thief of Hearts (29 page)

"But what's the point of seeing this American? We're not forming any partnership with him," Stephen insisted. "It's a waste of time."

"Do you think so? I'll see him myself, then, so you won't lose any time."

Stephen looked nonplussed. "But why?" Suddenly he cast a speculative glance at Anna. He tried another laugh. "This is ridiculous. We've been negotiating with the Navy for the last six months, and we're finally on the verge of a major contract for warships. We've got no business—"

"Then now's the time to reconsider, isn't it? Before it's too late."

"Reconsider?" Stephen went still, except for a vein in his forehead that began to pulse. "You can't be serious. Passenger ships?" He almost spat the words out. "It's the wrong direction for us and you know it. Uncle Thomas agrees with me.
You
agreed with me, Nick. This is just Anna's—"

"Anna's father's agreement isn't as meaningful as it used to be."

The vein pulsed faster. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Only that he's failing. Frankly, I was shocked when I saw him. You see him every day, you don't notice how changed he is."

"He's still the owner of this company."

"Of course. No one's disputing that." Brodie knew Anna was staring at him, trying to disguise her astonishment. He stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the desk; after a moment he remembered to bounce his knee up and down. "All I'm saying is that I don't see any harm in hearing the man's offer. The purpose of this company is to make money, after all. If we can make as much forming a partnership with a private citizen, that's got to be preferable to linking up with the damn government." He had an idea that Nick would've put that another way, but it was the best he could do on short notice. "Horace Carter says he'd like to meet with us when he's in the country in a couple of weeks, and I've told him yes. I'm sorry if it upsets you, Stephen, but I've made the decision and it's final. I hope you'll be with us. Anna and me, when we meet him."

Stephen's hands had balled into fists. He stood for half a minute, rigid with anger, and then stalked to the door. With his hand on the handle, he turned. "I know what you're trying to do," he got out, stiff-lipped, "but you won't get away with it. Uncle Thomas will hear of this, I can promise you. Tonight."

Before he could say more, the knob twisted in his hand, the door opened, and his sister tripped in, wearing a black hat with a rakish green feather. "Goodness," she trilled, laughing and breathless, "why is everybody so grim?"

"Stephen," Brodie called out before the door could close.

"Yes?"

"Shorter's old office next door, who's moving into it?"

"McGrath, at the end of the week."

"Let him keep his old one. Anna's taking it."

Stephen let out an incredulous and completely artificial laugh. "What?"

Jenny's jaw fell, while a small smile tugged at the corners of Aiden O'Dunne's mouth. Anna went perfectly still.

"Will that be a problem for you?" Brodie asked quietly.

A thick fog of hostility seemed to hover between the two men. The shade of purple Stephen had turned went poorly with his reddish-orange hair, and the vein in his forehead looked ready to burst.

"No," he said in a low voice, "that's not a problem, I'll arrange it."

"Thank you." Brodie nodded in dismissal, with no idea how much he resembled his brother in that one small, imperious gesture.

Anna stood with her hands folded, her wide-eyed gaze on Brodie across the room. She didn't know what she would say, but she badly wanted to be alone with him, to speak to him. His pale eyes fastened on her; the world seemed to narrow and focus and funnel until they were the only two in it. Aiden excused himself, but she hardly noticed. Finally it was Jenny's voice, almost strident, cutting through the loaded silence that brought her back to reality.

"I said, why don't you and Nicholas join Neil and me tonight, Anna? You can't have made any plans already. We're invited to the Swansons' card party. And afterward that terrible soprano from Bolton is going to sing. Remember her, Nick, last summer in Clyde Park? Lord, we laughed so hard!" She laughed again, remembering it, laying her hand on Brodie's sleeve. She was the pinnacle of fashion in a jade green silk walking dress and a black mantle, and she had the usual effect on Anna of making her feel old and eclipsed and boring. Her cousin was so lively and pretty, a shameless flirt, full of energy. Today, though, she seemed almost too gay.

"I don't think we can make it tonight, Jen," Anna began. "There's so much work to catch up on, by the time we finish it'll be—"

"Oh, pooh! It doesn't start till ten o'clock; you could come if you wanted to. Come on, Anna, there'll be people there who haven't seen you in two months. Nick, make her say yes."

Brodie wasn't sure what tack he should take, how Nick would have responded. "Well," he temporized, "I guess if it doesn't start until ten, we could—"

"I've just remembered," Anna cut in. "There's a lecture at Creighton Hall tonight and we were thinking of going. It was in the paper this morning."

"Oh, Anna," Jenny cried, exasperated. She turned to Brodie. "What's it about?"

He hadn't a clue. "Um…"

"It's a professor from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Robert Comstock," Anna said defensively.

"Yes, but what's it about?"

She could feel herself flushing. "A physiographical exploration of the geology of Lancashire."

Brodie bent his head.

Jenny laughed outright. "You can't be serious! This is too boring, even for you."

"Actually it was my idea," Brodie spoke up. "I had to talk her into it. I like rocks. Can't get enough of 'em. Come with us, why don't you? You and Nell. It starts at eight, doesn't it, Anna? You two could meet us there."

Anna had the most ridiculous impulse to weep, and another to go to him and put her arms around his neck.

Much to her surprise, Jenny agreed to accompany them. "Very well," she said with a brittle laugh, "although it won't be easy dragging Neil there. Don't blame me if he sleeps through it. Eight o'clock, did you say?"

"Wasn't it seven-thirty, Nicholas?"

"You're right, my love; I'd forgotten."

She blushed again, and realized that the endearment that used to annoy her so much now intrigued her.

"Then it's settled," said Jenny. "We'll see you this evening." She sailed out of the room, jaunty green parasol over one shoulder.

Anna leaned back against the closed door, pressing light fingertips against the wood panel behind her. She regarded Brodie in silence for a long moment and then said quietly, "Thank you."

Still perched on the edge of the desk, he made a business of pinching the creases in his trousers above each knee. "For what?"

"You know what."

He waved a hand and made a little grimace of dismissal with his lips.

She would be specific, then. "For giving me an office."

"Oh, that was long overdue, I just—"

"And for saving me from Jenny's ridicule. For once. All my life, you see, I've been… a bit of a joke to my cousin." His face softened; she hurried on, afraid he might pity her. "And most of all for writing to this man, Horace Carter. That was so kind of you." He started to shake his head, but she wouldn't be put off; she wanted him to know that she understood what he had done and why he'd done it. "It's nothing to you, but you knew what it would mean to me, how much I've always dreamed of Jourdaine building passenger ships instead of navy cruisers. And of course nothing can come of it, I know that, there's too much opposition to changing directions at this late date, from my father and others in the company besides Stephen. But, John, I'm so grateful to you for trying."

After a moment he stood up and moved toward her. "It's nothing more than Nick would've done," he said evenly.

She didn't have to think about that for long to know it wasn't true. And she owed Brodie the truth. "No, he would not have. It wouldn't have occurred to him. And I could never have asked him."

He fought against a profound need to touch her. Her eyes were their warmest brown, her mouth soft and sweet with gratitude. A man ought not to take advantage of a woman's gratitude. He brought his hand to the side of her face and stroked the cool silkiness of her skin. Bent his head toward her.

There was a knock at the door. They moved in separate directions with identical self-conscious haste, and Martin Dougherty came in. He was full of news of Pieter Olufson and the necessity to speed up construction of the Gander Line's third barkentine. Neither of them heard a word he said.

"From the stratigraphy of the terrestrial crust we can see that, by far, the largest part of the area of dry land is built up of marine formations. From that, of course, we draw the inference that the land today is not an aboriginal portion of the earth's surface after all, but has been overspread by the sea in which its rocks were, by and large, accumulated."

Out of the corner of his eye Brodie saw Anna's jaws quiver as she swallowed an enormous yawn, and he smiled to himself in the darkness. On his other side, cousin Jenny shifted and squirmed, transfixed with boredom. Next to her, Neil snored audibly. So did the woman sitting behind Anna. On the far side of her was nothing but the wall.

The stage was set. Brodie made his move.

At first she thought he was stretching, that the long arm he put around her was temporary, accidental. By the time she realized its true purpose, it had begun to seem natural resting there across her back, the hand draped lightly over her far shoulder. The stroking of his fingers was gentle and gradual, even absentminded; it didn't alarm her. It distracted her, though. Instead of following Professor Comstock's enumeration of the earth's miocene, pliocene, and pleistocene strata, she found herself waiting, when Brodie's fingers stilled, waiting for them to move again.

Time passed. With vague alarm she realized she was going blind to the stout gentleman behind the podium, as every sense concentrated and focused on the engrossingly arbitrary pressure of that one fingertip moving, side to side, across her collarbone. She thought she could hear the velvety sound of skin caressing skin. Her lips slowly parted and her eyelids dropped, as if they had weights on them. It was as though she'd swallowed some narcotic drug. Was she imagining it or had his hand slid ever so slightly downward? Her own hands came unclasped in her lap. No, she had not imagined it. She had on her sherry-colored muslin with the square lace collar; this light-fingered fondling had begun above that collar, and now it was definitely inside it.

"A distinct type of mountain that has come about as a result of direct hypogene action is to be seen in the volcano," the professor intoned, pointing to a chart behind him. Anna's eyes almost closed; she breathed through her mouth. What ought she to do? She could jump up from her seat and hit Brodie over the head with her umbrella.

But to do that she would have to use her legs and arms and the muscles in her back, and at present that all seemed beyond her. "But while these subterranean movements have raised parts of the lithosphere above the level of the ocean, it may be seen that the detailed topographical features of the landscape are not principally attributable to these eruptions."