Thief of Hearts (48 page)

Her own tears tasted salty on the skin of his neck. "Love me now," she whispered, embracing him. She stepped back and fumbled at the opening of her dress, taking too long, clumsy with impatience and leftover shyness. He stayed motionless with wonder until she said, "Will you help me?" and then he came out of his trance. His fingers were unsteady too, but he went slowly, folding soft cloth back from softer skin, entranced by the miraculous sight of his own hands against the pale flesh of her shoulders, her throat, her chest. With her eyes closed, Anna kissed his big palm and laid it against her cheek, dreamily slipping buttons out of the buttonholes of his shirt. They shed layers of clothing and reserve and caution; and after they were naked they felt as if they wanted to take more off, to strip away skin and flesh and bone if it could bring their hearts closer.

Oddly, there was no passion at first, only caring and soft touching, giving and receiving. Half-spoken apologies and mumbled forgiveness. They knew now what they had, and understood that it was precious. With quiet sighs and low murmurs, they rested from turmoil in the temporary eye of peace.

But her skin was so warm, his breath so hot. His sleeking hands aroused her in a breathless moment and her whispered words fired him. They sank to the bed in a lover's knot of tangled arms and legs. She gloried in touching him, hearing his breathing change, feeling him tremble. Her innocence was gone but she didn't mourn it; she'd given it to him, and now she knew ways to make him sigh and shudder exactly as she did. His body was so different, hard-muscled and lean, shades darker than hers. His strength amazed her. She touched the sides of his face, caressed his mouth with her thumbs, watching his smile fade and his pale eyes cloud. He took her with a deep and drugging kiss, down, down, until she thought she would drown from it. Murmuring, she buried her fingers in his hair and took him with her, wanting them to perish together.

"Ahh," she said on a long sigh when he filled her, and they watched each other, fascinated, seeing their own sharp and heavy pleasure reflected back. They had known desire before but not like this, never like this. This was blind need, complete abandon, beating in their blood in time with the thoughtless imperative to give each other everything. Anna lost herself, did not know who she was. She felt fear, not of pain but of the unknown, where she could die, could disappear, be consumed and she wanted it. Longed for it.

He was her lifeline and the instrument of her oblivion. At the end of this dire adventure, she knew he would save her.

He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how dearly he loved her, but words weren't possible. For one desolate moment he remembered that he must leave her, and in that flicker of time he touched her almost with violence. But she knew, and soothed him with her mouth, her soft fingertips. Then there was nothing but sensation, hot and exquisite, urgent, climbing. They grew frantic, rising and rising together. He was bursting; she knew she was dying. His fingers slipped over the damp flesh of her arms and they clasped hands, kissing. When the moment came, it was neither a death nor an explosion. It was a gift, a paradox of fury and peace that obliterated separateness and bound them to each other for this time and forever.

Afterward they lay in the dark, touching and whispering, full of thanksgiving, exchanging breathless compliments. Their bodies cooled; Brodie retrieved the rumpled coverlet they'd kicked to the floor and covered them with it. Thoughts of the past gradually filtered through the walls of their intimate cocoon, and then the need to apologize overtook them again. Anna started it. "Forgive me for not believing you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I hate the words I said. If I could take them back—"

"It's my fault, Annie, not yours. I don't know why I was so angry, it doesn't make sense to me now. You made a logical assumption, all I had to do was tell you you were wrong."

"Logical! It was absurd, and stupid and idiotic."

She gave him a little shake. "And you
did
tell me I was wrong, but still I didn't believe you. Anyway, I know why you were angry."

"Why?"

"Because you believed in me, gave me your trust, and I threw it back in your face." She started to cry, and brushed at the tears impatiently. "I betrayed you. I said I loved you and then I called you a thief, on the flimsiest of evidence."

"A signed and dated bank note is not that flimsy," he pointed out, his lips against her temple. "You only believed what you saw."

"But I shouldn't have, I should have known."

"How could—"

"It was my pride."

"
Your
pride?"

"I thought you'd used me, so I was hurt and angry and I couldn't think straight. It's all my—"

"Annie, it was
my
pride that got us into that pit, not yours. I couldn't stand it that you thought I'd steal your money. I
wanted
to hurt you."

For a few more minutes they argued about whose fault everything had been. They indulged in an orgy of magnanimity, outdoing each other in forgiveness and high-minded blame-taking, and felt much better for it afterward.

Brodie lit the candles beside the bed. Golden light flickered on the canopy, the coverlet, Anna's soft skin. They found themselves talking about Aiden. It surprised them to learn that they both grieved for him. Now they could mourn him together, and they were glad; they hadn't known how much they'd needed each other for that.

"I just can't make myself believe he killed Nicholas," Anna said again, resting her cheek on Brodie's shoulder. "They were
friends
. Perhaps everyone has a potential for violence, but Nicholas wasn't killed in anger or fear or out of self-preservation the way Martin Dougherty was. It was murder, John, calculated and cold-blooded." She looked up into his shadowed face. "I saw it, did you know?"

He nodded and gathered her closer, trying to ease the memory away. "I can't find it in me to hate him, either," he admitted. "It's strange. I knew they were using me for bait to lure Nick's killer out, but I didn't care. I wanted to know who it was much more than they did. I wanted to see him punished, maybe kill him myself." He stared intently at the long curl of Anna's hair in his palm. "But Aiden—I didn't want Aiden to die. Or even to suffer." He looked down into her serious brown eyes, hoping for an answer. "I don't understand it."

But she couldn't help him. "I'll miss him," she confessed, as bewildered as he.

Wind blew in the linden tree outside the open window with a dry, tired sound. She shivered, and he stroked the cool, smooth skin of her encircling arm, warming her. Summer was dying. Anna thought of all the smoky late afternoons to come, the perpetual cold gray of winter, the colorless Mersey slapping irritably at the docks. "Where will you go?" she murmured, shuddering, holding tighter. She felt him stiffen, then relax.

"Someplace warm," he said against her hair, trying to smile. "Maybe the tropics. I'll sit under banyan trees and eat figs and coconuts and bananas. Beautiful women with hardly any clothes on to wait on me. No worries, nothing but—Oh, sweetheart, I'm teasing," he said gently, seeing her expression.

"I know, it's not that." She smiled feebly.

"What, then?"

She moved her shoulders. "There's so little time. I have so much to tell you, and no time to say anything except that I love you."

They listened to the sound of that for a while. "I love you," Brodie echoed. They kissed.

It would be so easy to give in to sadness. "What will you miss the most?" she asked. He looked at her, incredulous, and she smiled. "After me."

His answering smile faded slowly. "I was happy here. I wanted this life, even though I stole it. What I regret is that, after a little while, no one will remember me."

"That's not—"

"They'll remember Nick, the man they thought he was. No one will remember John Brodie."

Her throat hurt; she had to swallow hard to speak. "I will. Always, always."

"But I don't want you to," he whispered back, their faces touching, eyes shut tight. "Forget me quick, Annie. Let all of this go, like a dream."

"Oh, no."

"Listen to me. I want you to marry someone else.
Yes
. And have children, lots of them. I want it for you, darling, children running around the docks, getting in the way when you're trying to tell the platers where to weld the new seams on one of Carter's big ships. I want you to have everything, the best. Don't cry. Please don't cry now."

But she couldn't stop. "Take me with you," she begged hopelessly, pressing against him. She felt him shake his head, and despaired. She carried his hand to her lips. "Love me, then. Give me your baby."

He pulled away, stunned. "God, Annie!"

"Did you think it could never happen?" she asked, smiling softly through the tears.

He hadn't thought about it at all. He lay back against the pillow, rubbing his forehead, staring at the shadowy ceiling. "This... we can't" His mind was a jumble. "I don't want... if you" He stopped talking and tried to put his thoughts in order.

She leaned over him and took his hand back, kissed the knuckles, then pressed it to her breast. "Love me," she said again, easing his palm across her jutting nipple, shifting against him. "Let me love you."

"Wait, now" He tried, not very hard, to snatch his hand back, but she held on. "Wait now, Annie. We can't, ah… we'd better… oh sweet Jesus."

Her free hand drifted down his chest, his stomach. She ruffled the hair on his thigh with the soft skin of her inner wrist. "How is the solicitor-general this evening?" she murmured silkily. Two weeks ago he'd taught her all the vulgar synonyms he knew for the male organ eleven in all. "Solicitor-general" was really her second choice; her favorite was "Member for Cockshire," but she couldn't quite bring herself to say that one out loud. Brodie's chuckle turned into a long groan as she began to stroke the warm, thick length of him in the palm of her small hand. It was lovely to watch his face; it told her more clearly than words what pleased him best. An idea came to her. Raising up on one elbow, she put her lips to the satiny tip and gave it a soft kiss. It was a fine idea, she could see that right away. How interesting that they both had these small spots of identical sensitivity on their very different bodies. She thought of a subtle refinement on her original purpose and stroked him with the tip, then the flat of her tongue. The effect was electric.  "Does it hurt?" she asked, pausing, worried.

His pent-up breath came out in an explosive laugh. When he reached for her and pulled her on top of him, she knew a mixture of thwarted curiosity and nervous relief. But when he opened her and eased inside her soft woman's place, she knew nothing at all. She took him deeply, urged him on with sweet, natural skill. It had never been so intimate before. She made a curtain for them with her hair and kissed him under it passionately. She wanted his seed, his last gift, his baby. She held back, held back, then couldn't any longer and shuddered against him, weeping with emotion. And Brodie forgot about doubt and caution and indecision, and gave her what she wanted.

The night slipped by so quickly. It was long past midnight when they tiptoed downstairs to find something to eat, the soul was replete but the flesh was starving. They sat at the big oak kitchen table in lantern light and ate the cold potato soup and lobster salad that the cook had put back in the pantry when they hadn't appeared for dinner. They leaned against each other, still needing to touch, to reassure. Every minute seemed precious, every word extraordinary. They abandoned all pretense that things would be all right, would work out somehow, and freely confessed the anguish they felt. They told each other their dreams, and their bittersweet sadness deepened when they discovered that their dreams were exactly the same, to live together in their own house, to have children, to watch their shipbuilding enterprise grow and prosper. And Brodie wanted to be respectable.

She cried when he told her that. They clung together, not speaking, until the first bird sang and the sky began its treacherous lightening. Then they hurried back to their room, their bed, their island, to hold each other again.

Sleep became the new enemy; they fought it tenaciously, minute by minute, knowing what it would steal if they let it seduce them. They were exhausted from lovemaking, hoarse from speaking, and dizzy with fatigue, but they held on. Until they fell asleep.

Anna awoke a little after noon. When she saw that she was alone, she went sick with dread. In minutes she was dressed. The house was terrifyingly quiet; her hurried footsteps on the staircase sounded too loud. She found the hall empty, and passed into the dining room. Empty. "John?" she called, but softly, not only because it was dangerous to say his name here but because her panic was rising; if she called out loud and there was no answer, she would know that the very worst had happened.

There was no one in the conservatory. She went back to the foyer, across to the drawing room on the other side. Empty. Dear God. She heard a soft noise in the library, through the sliding doors. A servant? Oh please, please!

It was Brodie. He was standing over her father's big desk, scribbling something with a pen. He straightened when he heard her. They met in the middle of the room, and embraced as if they had been separated for weeks. "I thought you'd gone," she cried softly, pressing against him, stroking his back.

"No, no."

"Thank God. Please, don't" She broke off in shock. She'd put her hands inside his coat to touch him; her fingers closed around the warm hilt of a pistol at the small of his back, stuck inside his belt. She drew it out before he could stop her. The heavy black ugliness of it repelled her; she let him snatch it back and put it on the desk behind them. For the first time she noticed his clothes. Nicholas's oldest, shabbiest suit, no tie, no waistcoat. She took a step back. "You were leaving," she accused, wide-eyed. "You would have just written me a note. Not even said goodbye!"

He took her arms. "No." His mouth was a grim line. "I should have, but I couldn't."

"Then—"

"I was writing something to Pearlman. Just a note, thanking him. I couldn't have left without seeing you."