Thief of Hearts (41 page)

"And God forbid that we should ever entertain a serious thought in our silly female heads," Milly said as Anna watered a fern in the conservatory. "They want us sweet and soft, tremulous, submissive. Dependent on them. Ignorant of anything requiring intelligence, politics above all. It's no wonder they flee to their clubs, to get away from the very women they've gone to such pains to create!"

"I beg your pardon." It was an unexpected male voice.

Milly stopped her agitated pacing, and Anna peered through the fronds of the potted fern. Her cousin stood in the doorway. "Hello, Stephen," she said amiably. "You're home early. I left a little early myself because—"

"I have to speak with you."

She straightened. "I wonder if it could wait. Milly and I were—"

"It can't wait."

"Oh, I see." She sent Milly a private look, a mixture of puzzlement and humorous apology.

Her friend returned a quick smile. "It's all right. I didn't realize how late it was getting. I must go, or Putnam's will close before I can get there. You needn't see me out, I'll just—"

"Don't be silly." Anna came around the long planting bench, wiping her hands on her apron. "Will you wait for me here, Stephen?"

He nodded shortly, moving away from the door so that the ladies could pass. "Mrs. Pollinax," he said, barely moving his lips.

"Mr. Meredith," said Milly, in a tone only Anna recognized as ever so slightly mocking.

"Don't mind Stephen," Anna murmured in the open front door; "he's not very nice to anyone these days." She took Milly's hands. "I'm glad you came to see me. I wish you would come more often."

"Perhaps I will... you cheer me up so. It's obvious that you're happy, and I've never seen you looking so wonderful. You're beautiful, Anna, there's no other word for it. I mean it," she insisted, laughing, when Anna made a silly face. "You positively glow. If I didn't love you so much, I'd be jealous."

"I love
you
. I only wish there were something I could do to help you to be happy."

"But you do help me. I can't imagine what I'd have done in these last weeks without you." They embraced, a little misty-eyed. "Now run inside, or your cousin will bark at you." Milly tied the huge bow of her spoon-shaped bonnet under her chin and strode off clown the walk.

Stephen didn't bark at her. One look at his tense face told Anna that for once he was more upset than annoyed. "Shall we go into the drawing room?" she asked tentatively, aware of his preference for formality on almost any occasion.

But to her surprise, he went behind her to the glass conservatory doors and closed them. "No, I don't want us to be overheard."

She stepped away, an instinct warning her that what he had to say was something she did not want to hear. "Is anything wrong?"

"Yes, you could say that."

He was silent, and after a moment she tried a little laugh. "Well, am I to guess or are you—"

"It's Nicholas."

She took hold of both sides of a wrought-iron planter, but kept her face empty of everything but polite interest. "Oh?"

"I tried to tell Uncle Thomas, but it was like talking to myself. Now I've come to you. Perhaps I should have spoken to Aiden, but above all I want to avoid a scandal."

"A scandal? Stephen, what are you talking about?"

He came closer. She saw that he held something in his hand, a piece of paper. "This will upset you," he said uncomfortably; "I don't know any other way to tell you."

"Tell me what?" She'd never seen him so ill at ease. She wasn't frightened any longer; she was terrified.

"Nicholas… " He looked away uncertainly.

She put her hands to her cheeks.
Dear God
, she thought,
he knows
.

"I'm afraid Nicholas is embezzling money from the company."

Her first impulse was to laugh; the feeling of reprieve was so strong, she felt giddy. "Oh, Stephen," she gushed, her hand over her heart, "you gave me such a fright."

His cool brown eyes measured her in surprise. "I'm in earnest, Anna; this is a deadly serious matter."

"Oh, but it's a mistake. You've misinterpreted something, that's all. Tell me about it." She folded her arms and smiled, masking her relief behind a look of exaggerated tolerance.

His lips thinned. "I've misunderstood nothing, except perhaps the full extent of your blindness. I'm sorry," he said, waving his hand, "that was unfair. Naturally you feel loyalty toward him."

"Naturally. Now will you please tell me what it is you think he's done?"

"He's stolen fifty thousand pounds."

"That is absolute nonsense." She got the words out in a long, unnatural interval between heartbeats. Stephen didn't respond, and for half a minute they stared at each other. To her dismay, Anna had to look away first. In the swift passing of an instant, her mind played out a scenario in which it was all true; she saw everything in detail how he'd done it, why, and what would happen next. Then a curtain descended and the scene was blacked out. Denial set in.

"I found out by chance yesterday. Mr. Cannon at the bank mentioned in passing that Nick had withdrawn a sizeable amount of cash from one of the corporate accounts; he suggested we speak to his colleagues in the investment division about our plans for such a large sum. I pretended I knew what he was talking about."

"And then?"

"I went to Nick and demanded an explanation."

"And?"

"He denied it."

Her breath came out in a rush. "Well, then," she laughed shakily. "It's a mistake."

Stephen made an impatient sound. "The money is gone, Anna. It hasn't moved to another account, it hasn't been invested, it hasn't been used for any capital purchase. It's
gone
. And all Nick will say is that he knows nothing about it."

"Then he knows nothing about it! Stephen, it's a mistake. Why do you think he would lie?"

"Because of this."

He held out the piece of paper she'd seen before. She put both hands behind her back; fear returned as a fluttering in the chest. After a pause she forced herself to ask, "What is it?" her voice a ludicrous attempt at casualness.

"A bank note. Nick signed it. It's his handwriting."

Hope resurfaced.
Nicholas
had signed it, not John! One hand reached out, slowly, as if toward a sleeping snake. With unusual care, she unfolded the paper. The words went out of focus for a few seconds, then swam inexorably back. She read the date: July 20. A week ago.

This was Brodie's painstakingly practiced forgery. She remembered the day in Italy when she'd helped him master it.

She felt for the small wooden stool behind her and sank down on it. The humid air was stifling. She picked up a trowel and began to stab at the soil in a clay pot, dirtying her hands and sleeves and the front of her apron. The smell of rich, wet earth sickened her. Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled down her sides. "There must be a reason. It's something he's done on his own. He'll tell me."

"I don't think so."

"Why?"

"When I confronted him with the note, he told me not to say anything to you about it."

Her hands went limp. She should say something defensive, belligerent, but no words would come. She was breaking up inside, and the pain was almost intolerable. Nicholas's betrayal had hurt, had cut her to the heart, but this was worse. This was like dying.

"It's a mistake!" she said again, all she could seem to focus on. "There's some reason he doesn't want us to know." But the only reason she could think of stared back at her with a monster's face, mocking her. She shook herself, like someone trying to wake up from a nightmare.

"You do know something about this, don't you? This isn't a complete surprise to you, I think."

Stephen's suspicion sent her a warning and forced her to think. She stood up. "I know nothing of it. You were right to come to me," she said, sounding confident. "Of course there's an explanation, but for now we won't speak of it to anyone, not even Aiden." Especially not Aiden. "Leave this to me, Stephen; I'll take care of it."

When she tried to move past him, he stepped in front of her. "Because it's a family matter, I'll give you a few days."

She stared. "What?"

"After that, I'll fight you. I want Thomas's power of attorney, and now I have something I can use to get it."

She felt the blood drain from her cheeks and knew that, unless she got out quickly, she was going to faint.  "You'll never get it, there is nothing to use!" She brushed past him and made it as far as the door.

"Be careful, Anna."

Holding on to the handle, she turned back. "I don't need to be careful. My husband has done nothing wrong!"

Stephen shook his head slowly, ominously. "Your father was a fool. He should have left Jourdaine to the Jourdaines."

In spite of everything, her chin rose. Her voice lost its note of weak bravado and turned resolute. "I am a Jourdaine." Behind a film of grief, her eyes flashed defiance.

Brodie hoisted his feet to the top of his desk and leaned back in his leather chair, fingers steepled over the gold watch chain across his stomach. Out of habit, his eyes came to rest on the photograph of Anna in the center of his desk, its oval frame and sober sepia tones somehow civilizing the chaos of papers and letters and reports strewn across it. She had on her schoolteacher's face, solemn eyes, serious mouth, no-nonsense chin, but now it swamped him with a wave of affection, pulled at his heart, and made him smile.

Next to the photograph was the glass paperweight she'd given him a few days ago. It was big and heavy, it took up a lot of room on his desk, but he would never consider moving it. The magnified figure inside was that of a sailor in full storm regalia gumboots, oilskins, rain bonnet, his big hands gripping the spokes of a ship's wheel. When you turned the paperweight upside down, thick snow swirled. The sailor had a fierce, chiseled face, black hair plastered over his forehead, a pipe clenched between strong teeth and pale blue eyes. It was the eyes, Anna had said, that made him look like Brodie.

He smiled. He gave the glass ball a little tap with his shoe and closed his eyes. She'd be pleased when he told her what had just happened, as pleased as he was, although the precise source of his pleasure would probably mystify her. Harry Stark and Will Random, mould and sail loft supervisors respectively, had just offered to sponsor him for membership in the Liverpudlian Men's Choral and Fellowship Society. If they had come with a citizens' committee to present him with a bucket of gold, he couldn't have been any happier.

The depth of his satisfaction intrigued him, taught him something about himself. He was a poor Welsh sailor, an undereducated, familyless bastard; social respectability for a man like him was a goal so far out of reach that he'd never set it, never even considered it. Before Mary died and he'd gotten himself arrested, he'd thought he was reasonably content sailing ships. Now he could admit that he'd hated the loneliness. A sailor made friends easily but not for long; whenever a voyage ended, he moved on to a new ship, a new skipper, new mates. And for Brodie, even among the friends he'd kept, a piece of him had always felt alien. He could see clearly now what he'd hidden from himself before, that the life he'd chosen didn't really suit him.

His new life did. He liked the men he worked with and they liked him
, him
, not Nick Balfour; time and again of late, he forgot he was playing a part and simply played himself. And the work challenged him, fascinated him. The better he understood it, the more he realized it was what he'd been born to do. Now to be asked by these men, these stalwart pillars of middle-class Liverpool society, to join their close-knit, masculine community except for permanency, truly he was a man who had everything.

Permanency was an illusion anyway. Brodie would settle for today because he had no choice-it was all that had been given to him. In his heart he knew Anna's detectives would turn up nothing, and soon he would have to go away. He was no closer now than he'd been two months ago to learning the name of Nick's accomplice at Jourdaine; if someone hadn't tried to drown him a fortnight ago, Dietz might already have sent him back to prison.

But he wasn't going. No matter what happened, he wasn't going back to prison. It had taken a while, but he understood himself well enough now to know that he would rather hang than spend the rest of his life in a cell. And now he didn't think of his promise not to try to escape as binding. Dietz and the men who had forced him to give it believed they were extracting it from a murderer. But he was innocent; his promise had been coerced. He had no intention of honoring it.

Not that a lifetime in exile was very much better. What was it but another kind of prison? And now there were things for him to miss a home, friends, work he loved. Anna.

Ah, Annie, Annie. He ought to feel despair, but it was impossible. He was too happy.

He didn't hear the soft opening of the door. A minute passed, and then something made him open his eyes and raise his head.

"You look… satisfied."

He smiled a slow, contented smile. "I am. Especially now." He held out his hand. She must not have seen it; she closed the door very deliberately and walked across the room to the window overlooking the yard. He watched her in silence, beguiled by the geometric slants of light and shadow on her face through the blinds. But gradually the stillness began to feel strained and unnatural. "Is anything wrong?"

She faced him slowly. "I see you're wearing your brother's watch."

He glanced down at the handsome chain under his folded hands. O'Dunne had given it to him. He'd worn it before today; hadn't she noticed it until now? "What's wrong, Annie?"

She didn't answer.

He got up and started toward her. Her eyes seemed to widen with each step he took. She was beautiful to him, a feast for his eyes, but now he noticed how pale she was. When he was beside her, he reached for her hand. It was cold, but it gripped his with a ferocity that amazed him. Then she pulled away.

He frowned, watching her poker-straight back as she stood beside his desk and stirred the papers on it jerkily. "I talked to Dougherty about that ballast problem you were telling me about," he told her, for the sake of something to say. "They were using shingle dredged up from the bay at Callao. That stuff breaks out of any box you can build for it and then rolls with the ship. Dougherty said—"