Thief of Hearts (7 page)

In the fading sunlight he saw that although she was small and delicate, she was anything but frail and had a lovely, woman's body. Her eyes were fine but odd, the color of coffee with cream. Her face was subtle; he felt he was looking at her but not yet really seeing her. If she was beautiful, it was an eccentric kind of beauty. He kept a safe, respectful distance. But now that he had her, he wasn't sure what to say.

Oh, God, he has Nick's hair, Anna thought disconcertedly. His eyes. The long, hawklike nose, with the same arrogant bump in the middle. High cheekbones, cheeks obscured by a soft beard, one shade lighter than the reddish-brown hair, exactly like Nicholas's. And the same wide mouth, thin-lipped and sensitive, hard without a smile, gentle with one.

The resemblance was unbearable. She felt pain that was deeper and more intense than anything she'd felt before, pain so harsh it frightened her. But she stayed where she was, and somehow she managed not to cry.

Directness always came easiest to Brodie. "I'm sorry for what happened that day on the ship. I know I shouldn't have kissed you. But you took me by surprise and I… " What? "Stopped using my head. I'm sorry." She just kept staring. "I didn't know you were hurt, you see, or I wouldn't have touched you. I'm sorry." Damn it, he would keep saying he was sorry until she said something back, opened her mouth and spoke words to him. So far she hadn't moved a muscle, only peered at him with her strange, startled eyes and held herself away from him as if long, poisonous spikes were sticking out of his body.

His voice. Dear God, his voice! She'd always loved the musical sound of it, the unique and intriguing pronunciation that was Welsh, Irish, and English all at once. She willed herself to keep her eyes open and focused on him, for if she closed them it would be exactly as if Nicholas were standing in front of her, speaking to her. In self-defense, she resurrected her fury toward
this
man, this hateful impostor. "Do you expect me to forgive you? I never will, and you can stew in it, Mr. Brodie. I don't care how sorry you are, it won't change what you did."

He stepped back. The last thing he'd expected was to have his apology thrown back in his face by this stiff-necked, pocket-sized harpy. "It won't change what you did either," he snapped. "Or did you forget that part? If Billy had come two minutes later, you'd have been back on your honeymoon, Mrs. Balfour. And you'd have loved it."

First she went white, then bright pink with embarrassment. Out of habit, he muttered a short, vulgar word, cursing himself, and she went even redder. She shrank back when he lifted a hand toward her, and he dropped it back to his side hopelessly. Without another word, she turned around and ran toward the inn. This time he didn't follow.

"Where's Flowers?" asked O'Dunne.

"Across the hall," said Anna.

"Guarding me," Brodie added helpfully. "That is, if he's awake."

They glared at him. He crossed his ankle over his knee and smiled blandly back across his steepled fingers. His bodyguard's unique ability to fall deeply asleep in seconds anywhere, any time, was a source of amusement to Brodie, of intense irritation to Anna and O'Dunne.

Dinner was over and they were in the deserted public room of the Reillanne
pension
, about to commence their first formal meeting. Which must've been O'Dunne's idea; Brodie couldn't imagine Mrs.
Balfour
suggesting it. She couldn't stand to be in the same room with him. The only thing his apology had accomplished was to limit his freedom of movement even further. O'Dunne had come out of the inn at the very moment she'd bolted toward it. He'd stopped her and they'd exchanged a few hasty words in the doorway. Brodie didn't know what she'd said to him, but he could guess. Because now his hands were chained together again, and Billy, looking sheepish, had told him they would stay that way. At all times. No exceptions.

He folded his arms across his chest as best he could, and his lips tightened as cold iron rubbed against the raw flesh of his wrists. It was a pain he ought to be used to by now, but he wasn't. Maybe because it didn't just hurt him, it made him mad. He narrowed his stare at Anna, and felt spiteful satisfaction when she quickly turned her back on him. He was finished feeling guilty about her. He knew it hurt her to look at him. He was sorry for that, but hell, it wasn't his fault he looked like his twin brother. It didn't give her the right to stare straight through him like he wasn't there, or as if he was a bucket of fish guts she'd stumbled over in her drawing room.

"Let's get this over with, Aiden," she said. She looked stiff as a staysail boom in her lilac dress, all buttoned up like somebody's maiden aunt. He wondered if she was wearing a corset. From the look of her bosom, high and immobile, he thought she probably was. Why did women do that? Especially women like her, whose bodies were small and delicate and already perfect. Now she was blushing again, turning that pretty apricot color. He hoped she was reading his mind, because he was deliberately remembering the day on the ship when she'd let him touch her, and the way she'd sighed, and exactly how her mouth had tasted.

He was through feeling guilty about that too.

She'd started it, after all. If he'd known she was sick he wouldn't have kissed her. Which was what he'd tried to tell her, for all the good it had done him. She'd told him to
stew
in it.

"In just a minute," O'Dunne said without looking up, still scribbling something.

She didn't like that. She wanted this meeting over and done with so she could get the hell out. She was pretending to be absorbed in some book, pretending she wasn't on pins and needles because Brodie was watching her. Oh, he had her rattled, all right. She rose, crossed to the far side of the room, and peered out the window, as if some fascinating phenomenon were going on out there in the pitch dark. He narrowed his stare, and it didn't surprise him at all when the back of her neck got red and she slowly turned around to face him. It was as if he'd willed it. She looked back at him boldly, and he realized she was trying to stare him down. He rubbed a forefinger softly along his upper lip and didn't blink. Her cheeks flamed. He smiled. Her eyes darkened and her face went statue-still. He could practically hear her telling herself not to look away. He had to tell himself not to laugh.

Then O'Dunne ruined it by getting up and signaling to her to join them. The relief on her face was comical as she returned.

"I felt it was time we three had a talk and established our mutual objectives," O'Dunne said in his lawyer's voice, thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, bouncing a little on his toes. "As I see it, our first objective is to establish Mr. Brodie as Nicholas Balfour. Now, in order to—"

"How did you get the name Brodie?" Anna interrupted.

She looked all feisty and brave, ready for battle now that O'Dunne was close by. He glanced at the lawyer. Hadn't he explained that to her yet? "I was born with it."

"You're lying."

His eyes narrowed; a muscle in his jaw jumped. "So you think your name is really Balfour"? he asked slowly, dangerously.

"It is!"

O'Dunne started sputtering about something. Brodie was on the verge of telling her the truth when something stopped him. Her smallness, maybe, or her stubborn chin. He'd already made her cry once. "Balls," he muttered, getting to his feet and going to stand by the empty fireplace.

O'Dunne bristled. "That's the last time I want to hear any cursing out of you, Brodie, is that clear? First, because there's a lady present, and second, because Nick never swore."

Anna frowned, puzzled. All he'd said was balls; was that a curse? "Balls"?

"Now. Our second objective is to—"

"Wait a minute," she broke in again. O'Dunne sighed. "We're not through with the first objective, Aiden. What exactly are you talking about?"

"Just what I said, we have to establish Brodie as Nick."

"Yes, but how? It's going to be a little more complicated than fooling a handful of servants at the villa in Florence. Nicholas and I were going to pursue several introductions in Rome, business contacts of Father's. And we would very probably have run into people we knew there."

"Yes, yes," agreed O'Dunne.

She gestured toward Brodie, who was staring at her sullenly. "How do you expect to pass this
person
off as Nicholas? There's a resemblance, certainly. But anyone who knew Nicholas would know after speaking to this man for two minutes that he is
not Nicholas
."

Brodie flushed. Unclenching one fist, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the tobacco pouch Billy had given him.

"I told you before, Brodie. No smoking."

Expressionless, he rolled a cigarette, licked it shut, struck a match on the brick hearth, and lit it. He inhaled a deep chestful and blew the smoke out with a defiant puff. A small thing, but it meant a lot to him.

"You'll have to stop eventually," O'Dunne said in a mild tone, backing off. "You're only making it harder on yourself." He looked at Anna again. "It's true, compared to Nick he does have a few rough edges" he paused while she let out an unladylike snort, "but we've got more than three weeks before Rome and we'll spend that time sanding them off. I'll need your help with this, Anna."

"You don't need help," she snapped, "you need a miracle." Brodie scowled, smoking steadily. "Can you read, Mr. Brodie?"

He considered not answering. "Aye, I can read. And I can count up to ten if I use my fingers." He watched her lip curl unpleasantly. The air was thick with hostility. He moved to the old-fashioned casement window and flicked out his cigarette. Then he had an idea. He hawked up a big gob of spit and blew it out too, then turned back innocently. Mrs. Balfour went a mottled shade of pink and drew herself up, quivering with indignation.

"Aiden," she choked, "this will never work!"

"Now, now, let's—"

"Three weeks to make a gentleman out of
him
?" She pointed rudely. "Three years wouldn't be enough! It's impossible! He's a barbarian!"

Brodie reached inside his jacket to scratch his armpit. "Could be she's got a point, O'Dunne."

The lawyer drew an exasperated breath, annoyed with both of them. "That may be. But we're here to try, and that's what we're going to do. Anna, you agreed; it's too late to back out. It's not a question, at least for now, of turning Mr. Brodie into a gentleman. The immediate goal is to be ready by the thirtieth of May to convince someone named Greeley that this man is Nick." She started to speak, but he forestalled her with a raised hand. "I know you don't believe any such meeting is planned. I hope you're right, but we have to prepare for it all the same as if it were going to happen. It's the only way to prove or disprove Nick's complicity."

She could see his logic, but the plan still rankled. "Do you know anything at all about shipbuilding, Mr. Brodie?" she asked, her tone rich with sarcastic hopelessness.

"Not a bloody thing, Mrs. Balfour."

"Look here" O'Dunne began.

"I mean a
bleedin
' thing."

Anna colored again. The occasions on which anyone had sworn in her presence were so few as to be beyond recollection. She thought of a dinner party she'd attended not long ago at which one of the guests, in an effort to avoid the forbidden word, had observed that the meat appeared "quite ensanguined."