Thief of Hearts (35 page)

"Go limp!" she shrieked into his ear from behind, away from his flailing arms. Somehow she got a grip around his chest. Hauling on him, she forced him to lie back on top of her. "Stop moving!" she yelled, just before his weight forced her under. She fought back, sputtering and spitting, her legs jackknifing to keep them afloat. She heard him choking as she dragged him sideways toward the ladder, her own breath coming in jagged, watery gasps. With the ladder an arm's length away, her strength gave out and she felt herself sinking. Brodie grabbed her shoulder and gave it a hard shove through the sluggish water. The effort pushed his own body back, away from her. Her fingers scrabbled against solid wood. She wrenched around and stretched her arm out to him, but he was too far away now to reach it. She watched him go under, and knew a bottomless despair.

Sobbing, crying his name, she hooked her feet around the rung of the ladder just below water level and extended her whole body toward him, arms and legs straining, muscles beginning to cramp from exhaustion. His head broke the surface, just out of reach. She felt something and gripped it hard. His wrist. She tugged and he flailed toward her, nearly sinking her. They reached for the ladder at the same second.

They collapsed against each other, gasping and coughing, holding as tightly as if the danger hadn't yet passed. They tried to speak, but weren't capable of anything beyond half-curses and choked-off whispers. Their heads rested against each other's wet shoulders, and when the ability to breathe normally returned, they remained as they were. The water calmed, grew still. Anna told herself she was still clinging to Mr. Brodie because she was too exhausted to move a muscle, even as she rubbed his back with the flat of her palm in long, slow, ardent strokes. He had his hand tangled in her dripping hair, holding the side of her face to the side of his. Minutes passed, and finally she felt called upon to speak.

"What the devil were you thinking of?"

Brodie smiled, and gave her hair a silent, secret kiss. He'd never heard her say "What the devil" before. "I was thinking of making an ass of myself. You're not going to rub it in, are you?"

She closed her eyes and remembered the hard, desperate feel of his hands pushing her, away from him, toward safety. "No," she whispered. "I'm not going to rub it in."

They rested against each other until the compelling peace between them began to feel dangerous. Anna knew the way to break it, but first she had to struggle through a profound unwillingness. "It wasn't an accident. Someone cut holes in the plank. It split when I got to the center."

Brodie pushed her back to look at her. She watched his face harden and his eyes turn opaque with fury. His hand on the back of her neck tightened painfully. As quickly as it came, his anger disappeared. "For me," he said as he realized it. "Not you, they meant to kill
me
."

Her mind swirled. Out of all the questions, one finally surfaced. "Why?"

He shook his head.

"Who knew you were coming here?"

"Half the yard."

She tried to think. "Who knew you couldn't swim?" He didn't answer immediately. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn't have believed it. He was blushing.

"Half the yard," he said again, but looking away and mumbling. "I mentioned it to Dougherty once and he went and told everybody. It was a big joke, the shipbuilder who couldn't swim. Well, Nick couldn't either," he noted defensively.

Anna said nothing, too tactful to point out that the
sailor
who couldn't swim was an even bigger joke.

"How is it you can swim?" he asked, somewhat accusingly, she thought.

"I had a doctor, years ago, who thought it might help me. He called it 'therapeutic.'"

He felt relieved that she'd brought it up. Since that night on the hill she had never discussed her old illness; he wanted to respect her reticence, but he had to ask. "How do you feel, Annie?"

"I'm fine now."

"I mean, how are you… " He felt awkward saying the words.

She realized what he was asking and hesitated, appraising herself, concentrating on how she felt. Then she laughed. "I'm cold and wet and tired, but otherwise I'm in perfect health. My lungs are as strong as yours. Which is just what I've been telling everyone for the last five years."

He wanted to kiss her. His relief was so strong, he couldn't hide it. He drew her into a soft hug, loving her smallness and warmth. "Let's go home," he murmured against her neck.

She pulled back, misty-eyed. "But we have to tell Aiden what's happened. He thinks whoever killed Nicholas and attacked you in Naples were Union agents, trying to prevent the transfer of the
Morning Star
. This proves it wasn't! It's someone in the company, John, it has to be. We have to tell Mr. Dietz."

"Tomorrow's soon enough to tell Dietz and Aiden. Tonight we have to get you home and get dry."

"But they'll see us, ask a million questions, Aunt Charlotte won't let—"

"We'll sneak in the back door. We'll get cleaned up. Then we'll talk."

Brodie couldn't concentrate on his book or his newspaper. At every imagined sound in the silent, sleeping house, he looked up to see if Anna had finally come. Wet and chilled, they'd stolen into the house unobserved more than an hour ago. She'd offered him first use of the lavatory, because he would be quicker. He'd invited her to come to his room afterward so they could talk. She'd frowned and pursed her lips, and told him to meet her in the library.

He touched tentative fingers to his throat. It didn't burn anymore, and the ache in his lungs was gone. It was as if almost drowning had happened to someone else. Clean and dry and warm, he might find the whole incident incredible except for one thing: the clear memory of his panic when he'd heard Anna's scream and seen her struggling in the black hold beneath his feet. And when the dank water had seemed to bury them and he'd known with a terrible, hopeless certainty that his life was ending.

He put his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. Who had tried to murder him? Murder Nick, he corrected. Who was the masked man who had killed Nick on his wedding night, and who must believe now that he'd somehow survived the attack? Anna was right: this second attempt, third, if you counted Naples, proved that Aiden's theory of Union agents was preposterous. The
Morning Star
's fate had been sealed weeks ago: she was either a cruiser called the
Atlanta
fighting in the American war or she was at the bottom of the sea, the victim of Dietz's superiors having taken the matter "under advisement." Brodie didn't know, nor did he much care. What mattered was who had killed Nick. Greeley had spoken of an accomplice at Jourdaine. Was the murderer that man? Had they fallen out over money or had the accomplice feared exposure, and stabbed Nick to death to insure his own safety?

He heard a soft sound behind him and looked around. Anna stood in the library door, poised in diffident silence. He wondered how long she'd been standing there. She'd put on a loose-fitting gown the color of new ivory. And truly he was bewitched, for in the dim glow cast by the lamp beside him she looked both warm and insubstantial, a small and lovely ghost, beautiful but in danger of disappearing.

She clasped her hands and rested her temple lightly against the door post. She'd never seen the rust velvet smoking jacket he was wearing over his collarless white shirt. How handsome he looked in it. It contrasted with the color of his hair, which glowed like fiery dark copper in the lamp light. And on his feet he wore gray carpet slippers. That made her smile. The newspaper on his lap, the glass of brandy on the table beside him, there was no other word for it: he looked
husbandly
.

"Come in where I can see you, Annie."

After a second's hesitation, she took a few silent steps into the room, self-conscious, hands behind her back. She had to move carefully to avoid trampling the miniature model engine he had been building for the last week or so. It leaked alcohol on the carpet, and yesterday one of its numerous prototypes had caught fire. Aunt Charlotte had been furious. "What are you reading?" she asked, to break the intimate, returning silence.

"The
Daily Post
."

"Nicholas always read the
Courier
."

He smiled and wrinkled his nose. "Too stuffy."

She came closer, smiling too. "I suppose he was stuffy."

They both went still. There was no need to acknowledge it out loud: each knew these were the first unkind words about Nicholas she had ever uttered.

Anna looked away first. "And this... what's this you're reading?" She put one finger on the cover of a thick book lying beside him on the table.

"Marx.
The Communist Manifesto
."

She turned her head and fixed him with a long, penetrating stare. He returned it equably. "I remember asking you once if you could read." Her voice was steady but very quiet. "I don't believe I know you at all, Mr. Brodie."

His only response was to focus his light blue gaze on her more narrowly and run the fingers of one hand across his bottom lip, over and over.

Something fluttered in her stomach. She turned her back on him and did something she'd never done before. She went to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a brandy.

Brodie stood up and walked toward her slowly. "You were wonderful today, Annie. Carter couldn't stop talking about you all afternoon. I think he's in love with you."

She turned around, and suppressed a start when she saw how close he was. She took a sip of the brandy and closed her eyes as it burned all the way down. When she opened them, she saw that he was watching her throat. If she'd been naked, she couldn't have felt more exposed to him. "You're the one who was wonderful. I know what you're doing, and I know why."

He tilted his head. "What am I doing?"

"Pushing me forward. Making me take the initiative. You wanted Stephen to see me in that role. Because of later, when… " Her voice trailed off.

"When I'm gone."

She reached behind her and set the glass down somehow without spilling any brandy. Then she clasped her hands again, to keep him from noticing that they had started to tremble. "It went well with Mr. Carter, don't you think?"

"Very well," he answered automatically. "I think a partnership with him can work. He's an honest man. An excellent businessman."

"Yes, I like him very much."

He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. Something told him she was paying no more attention to what they were saying than he was. And even though it was what they had come down for, neither of them wanted to talk about what had happened tonight on the
Alexandra
. "Annie."

"Yes?"

He took a breath, held it, and let it out in a rush. "I'm sorry about your father."

That wasn't what he'd been going to say, she was sure of it. "Never mind."

"It's not the way I wanted you to hear about it, the power of attorney. Aiden said it would be a good thing to do before the meeting with Carter, and I didn't—"

"It's all right, honestly, it's better this way. It had to happen sooner or later."