Thief of Hearts (47 page)

She stroked the cat absently as she let her mind wander back over the familiar thought-path it had been pacing ceaselessly for three days. She'd known Aiden O'Dunne since she was ten years old. Fourteen years, no, fifteen. He'd been the age she was now when they had first met. She'd liked his quiet manner, the way he took her seriously, his unfailing kindness. Over the years she'd learned to love him, and to value his friendship above anyone's except Milly's. How could she reconcile the sober, generous friend she'd known with the man who had murdered Nicholas, and Billy, and Martin Dougherty? The man in a mask who had swung a poker and nearly killed her, too?

She couldn't. And yet it was true. But how was it possible, then, for human beings ever to understand one another at all? And why did she still grieve for him?

She raised her head, listening. Was that a sound, a thump, from somewhere in the house? Ambrose slept on; Anna must have imagined it. She lifted the gangly kitten down to the flagstones and went back to her work. But a moment later she paused again to listen. Again, nothing. She was being a fool. Brodie was somewhere in the house, carefully shut away from her, not by anything so crude as a locked door, but only because that wouldn't be necessary; he knew a closed one would serve the same purpose.

She was in a state of suspended animation, frozen in time, waiting for something to happen that would start her life again. She suffered from the painful and persistent feeling that she was being punished. Deservedly. But Brodie's careful politeness was worse than punishment, it was torture. It flayed her skin and cut to the bone. He would speak when spoken to, even agreeably; he would not fight. He was remote, courteous, almost courtly. She'd submitted to his treatment at first after all, she thought humbly, it was only what she deserved. But she hurt so deeply, ached so wretchedly. When would it be enough? When would the debt be paid? And lately the rebellious thought had begun to intrude that the chasm dividing them was partly
...partly
his fault. He could, after all, have told her the truth about the money at any time and ended the quarrel. But he was too proud. They didn't have time for his pride!

She had wronged him, she knew it, she had no will to deny it. He was an honorable man. The murder of Mary Sloane had called his honor into question, and she'd always thought that it injured him as much to be believed guilty of her death as it did to face the consequences of his conviction. She remembered his words when she'd told him, all those weeks ago in Rome, that she knew he could never have killed anyone. "Annie, you can't know what that means to me." But then she had accused him of stealing. She'd called him a thief, a seducer, a hypocrite no better than his brother. For a man like Brodie, such words would be all but unforgivable. Now she was paying for them.

And there was so little time. Mr. Dietz had wanted to take him back to Bristol immediately after Aiden's death, saying the job was done, the bargain was finished. By what amounted to browbeating, she'd persuaded him to let Brodie remain until the man investigating Mary's death sent her his last report. He had written that he needed one more week to track down his final lead, a boy, who might or might not be the same boy who had handed a bottle of drugged wine to Brodie and Mary in the street. His letter was businesslike, straightforward, but between the lines Anna feared she could read an absence of enthusiasm. She suspected he wanted to be able to say he had tried everything before he gave up.

The time remaining, a day? a week was an illusion anyway. She knew Brodie had no intention of passively allowing himself to be incarcerated for the rest of his life for a crime he had never committed. He would try to escape. But when? He would not tell her, not even admit he intended it, when she asked. Why, for that matter, was he still here at all?

Brodie had asked himself the same question one time too many. Now he was through stalling, dithering, dreaming up half-baked excuses to stay another day, one more night. With an oath, he turned away from his bedroom window, where he'd been staring at yellow leaves flickering down from a pair of willow trees, and stalked to the eight-foot-high mahogany wardrobe. Behind its decorative cornice was a traveling bag. He took it down, standing on a chair, and threw it on the bed. He would not take much; but then, a sailor didn't need much. It troubled him that he was obliged to take anything at all from this house, but in that he had no choice: he owned nothing. He would take a few of Nick's things, then, but by God, nothing Jourdaine money had paid for.

He ought to have left before, days ago, as soon as Dietz had stopped asking him questions. It was crazy to stay; they could come for him any time, without warning, and haul him off to prison. At least he'd laid his plans. He owned papers now that identified him, under another name, as an A.B., or able-bodied seaman it had seemed too risky to try for a fake mate's certificate and he'd found out the departure dates of deepwater ships leaving the Liverpool docks in the next few days for Australia, South America, and the South Pacific. Now all he had to do was walk away. The time had come for the death of Nicholas Balfour, and with it the permanent disappearance of John Brodie.

What form would Nick's fatal accident take? he wondered. Maybe a sudden illness while he was away on some unexpected business trip. Or a shooting mishap on an impromptu hunting expedition. Or better, a quiet calamity at home, while there was no one about but a few servants. A fall down the steps. No, that might suggest Nick was drunk, and they'd want to keep his sterling reputation shining and spotless for Anna's benefit. He muttered another curse, flinging a shirt into the case. What did it matter how they killed him off?

He went to the high bureau and rummaged in the top drawer for his tobacco. He wished he had something to give Pearlman; if not money, then a memento, something to express his gratitude because he'd been a good and reliable "man." But there was nothing. He'd write him a note, then.

He caught sight of his reflection in the glass. As usual it arrested him, gave him pause. Who in the hell was this respectable-looking fellow in a standing collar and a silk tie? Christ, he hardly knew himself anymore. It wasn't just the clothes, either, or the careful haircut, the professional shave. It was everything. He had to give Anna credit for that, anyway: by God, he
looked
like a gentleman. But he'd changed inside, too, and that was where the trouble lay. The basics were probably still intact, but quite a few things on the side weren't the same anymore. Things like expectations, and notions about how he ought to be living his one short life. Things that could get a man to thinking too hard and ruin his peace of mind. It was time to go back to being John Brodie, but he didn't know exactly who that was anymore. He'd lost himself.

Beside him the door to the hall opened slowly. He subdued a violent start when he saw that it was Anna. They surveyed each other, wordless and wary, for a moment before her edgy gaze shifted to scan the room. Her face paled, changed, and he knew she'd spotted the traveling case on the bed. He closed the bureau drawer with more force than he'd intended and moved away, putting distance between them. "Was there something you wanted?" He thought her hair looked like a soft cloud around her quiet, lovely face. He saw tension in the carriage of her shoulders, and determination in the set of her fragile mouth.

"You're packing," she observed with a stiff little wave.

He looked at the bed and smiled a bland, ironic smile, false in every way.

She made herself drop her twisting hands to her sides. The effort at control had drained most of the color from her cheeks. She raised her eyes to Brodie's blue ones, although the sight of him hurt her, and spoke from her breaking heart without weeping. "Don't go, John. 'Let me love you for as long as we have' that's what you said to me once. That's what I'm asking of you now." Her voice deepened, but she didn't cry. "Don't go. You're the only man I'll ever love. I'm begging you not to leave me yet. Stay until it's time. Mr. Dietz said a week—"

The violent slicing gesture of Brodie's palm through the air finally forced her to stop. He pivoted away from her just for a moment; when he turned back, his jaws were clenched and his eyes were fierce. "Anna," he said, his voice a parody of calm.

She shivered with dread. He had never called her that before. She felt behind her for the door, bracing herself.

"It's time to tell you. I was lying when I said I loved you. I don't."

Her chin rose, but she could barely whisper. "That's not true."

He anchored his eyes to a spot behind her left shoulder. "It is true. I'm not the kind of man for you anyway. You need someone different, better. A woman like you—"

"Stop it, it's you I want! I'll go with you!" She swallowed and made an attempt to speak quietly. "You're still angry because I didn't believe you, didn't trust you. I don't blame—"

"No," he said truthfully this time. "I was before, but not anymore."

"You are," she insisted. "And you should be. I was wrong, but I swear I'll make it up to you. Take me with you! I don't care where. America, Canada. You have a place in mind, I know it. I'll go with you!"

He wore a stiff, peculiar smile, but his eyes were burning. "But I don't love you. I don't want you now. I only said it before because I wanted to take you to bed."

Everything went dark. She sounded hoarse when she tried to force her voice past the thick clot of misery in her throat. "If you're trying to hurt me, you're succeeding."

"No, I don't want to hurt you. I want you to know the truth."

His truth was going to kill her. "But—I love you." She would say it anyway. Then tears overflowed; she didn't see his face blanch. Her hand found the doorknob at her back. She wasn't a coward: she'd have gone down on her knees to him if it would have changed anything. A paper-thin veneer of pride let her get the door open and squeeze through it before she started sobbing.

Eyes unfocused, Brodie listened to her hurried, shuffling footsteps. He waited to hear her door, next to his, open or close. It never did; she must have gone downstairs. He went to the bed and sat, holding onto the post. Silence rushed back, muffling everything except the pitiful bleat of a mourning dove in the garden and the sound of his own careful breathing. His skin felt fragile and too thin, too frail even to hold the hollowness inside him. He fought back a vivid fantasy of himself leaping from the bed and charging out after her. His mind played it over and over despite everything he could do, and he had to set his teeth and curl his fingers around the smooth wood to withstand it.

He'd done the right thing. She hurt now, but it wouldn't last as long if she thought he'd used her. It was better this way. She would remember this day and the lies he'd told, and they would finally erase everything else, blot out all the sweetness that had ever been between them. Soon she would hate him, and after that she wouldn't think of him at all. He rested his forehead against the bedpost and waited, bleeding, for the will to get up.

A movement caught his eye. He looked up and saw her. Without a sound, she had come back. So she was going to torture him some more. All the same, his heart felt lighter just because she was there.

She hadn't bothered to disguise the ravages of her tears; her face was flushed and her voice came out gruff and sore from crying. She stood in the center of the room, eyeing him confidently, fearfully. "You're lying. You love me."

"No." He stood up.

"Yes, you do." She moved toward him steadily, and when she reached him she put her arms around him. "Don't go. Don't go."

If he could only hold her. It would just be for a minute. He lifted his hands to her shoulder blades. She murmured his name against his throat and he started shaking. "I'm not good for you, Annie, don't do this."

"There's nothing, else I can do. Be honest. It's hard, I know, harder than running away. Stay with me."

He couldn't move, wanted no part of leaving her. "I love you," he sighed, defeated, into the subdued shine of her sweet-smelling hair.