Thief of Hearts (6 page)

"Let me make sure I understand this," Anna said, the helplessness and anger inside turning her voice sarcastic. "You're suggesting that after we land in France, I travel by coach to Italy with Mr. Brodie, pretend to 'honeymoon' with him in Florence, then go to Rome and wait for him and Aiden while they find out in Naples if my husband was a criminal. Do I have that right, sir?"

"Anna" Aiden began placatingly.

"You have it partly right," interrupted Dietz, folding his arms and returning her look of outrage with an impassive stare. "If you do your job well and Brodie turns out to be a good enough actor, we might use him in England too, to find out who at Jourdaine Shipbuilding was working on the scheme with your husband."

Anna shook her head slowly, eyes wide. The man's audacity amazed her. "Mr. Dietz, you take my breath away. What on earth makes you think I would agree to this insane plan?"

"Several things. For—"

"Especially when the solitary shred of 'evidence' of my husband's treachery that you've managed to find consists of a meaningless notation in the back of a book." She stalked to the bed and picked up the "incriminating" guidebook, turning the pages violently to the back cover. "'Greeley, B.N., 30th#12, midnight.'" She gave a contemptuous laugh. "You say this proves Nicholas was to meet a man named Greeley at the Bay of Naples on May 30th at midnight. I say it proves nothing at all and you're grasping at straws."

"Perhaps you're not aware of all the things we've learned about your husband, ma'am."

"Perhaps you should tell me what they are, sir!" Her head throbbed dully. She pulled her robe more tightly around her shoulders, conscious of the impropriety of her situation, alone in a cramped ship's cabin in her nightclothes with two men, but she was past caring about propriety. The outlandishness of her circumstances rendered decorous behavior irrelevant; she felt as far removed from safe, soothing convention as if she were on another planet.

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to do that."

She let out her breath in a disdainful huff. "Why doesn't that surprise me, I wonder?"

"But I can tell you that we're virtually certain Mr. Balfour, or whatever his name was, was responsible for a similar scheme a number of months ago involving another Jourdaine vessel."

"That is absolutely preposterous."

Dietz ran his fingers through his short, graying hair and heaved a decisive-sounding sigh. "Ma'am, the government is determined to get to the bottom of this. I'm sorry to say it, but the alternative to your helping us is to shut your father's company down." She whirled on him and he held up a hand. "Naturally that would invite a scandal," he went on before she could interrupt. "And needless to say, it would also embarrass Queen Victoria, who knighted your father not six months ago for his years of devoted public service to his country. We're as anxious to avoid such a—"

"You can't do that," Anna cried, holding on to the back of the room's only chair for support. "Jourdaine Shipbuilding is a hundred and twenty years old, my great-great-grandfather built it from nothing! There are men who work for us now whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked there all of
their
lives. This is outrageous! Jourdaine is a good company, a principled company, you can't—"

"I'm sorry, but there's more at stake here than that, as I think you know. England's neutrality in the Civil War in America is in a precarious state. There are plenty of men in Parliament just waiting for a chance to enter the conflict on the South's side, and another English merchantman secretly converted to a Confederate warship is all it would take, the North has never believed in our government's claims of ignorance."

Anna flung away from him and began to pace back and forth across the tiny space between the bed and the door. Both men pressed backwards to give her more room; she wouldn't sit down and so they stood, backs against the wall, as uncomfortable with their stifling proximity as she. The storm was over; it had blown itself out in the night. Blue sea met blue sky on the distant horizon, and the light wind blowing in through the open porthole smelled clean and fresh.

"Mrs. Bal—"

"Mr. Dietz." She stopped pacing and faced him. She wanted no more of his well-reasoned arguments; her brain was still too sluggish to counter them. "Answer me this. How can you, or you, Aiden! How can you stand there and ask me, in good conscience, to live on intimate terms for an indefinite length of time with a total stranger, a man you tell me is a murderer? Even assuming that I survived that ordeal, do you have any idea what would become of me if the slightest hint of such an arrangement ever became known? Do you have any conception of what my reputation would be worth? Or how it would hurt my family?"

"As to that, I've been given to understand that yours is not a particularly close or loving family," said Dietz.

Anna flashed a look of astonishment at Aiden; he had the grace to flush with embarrassment and turn away.

"But apart from that, O'Dunne will travel with you, and you'll be guarded at all times. You'll be safe, and so will your secret. No one but the three of us and Mr. Flowers, plus a few well-placed officials high in the Ministry, very high, I might say, will ever know. Anyway," he added, annoyed by her mutinous profile, "it's done. You're halfway to Italy, you're already 'compromised,' if you choose to look at it that way."

"You... you're saying I have no choice?"

"None that I can see." A moment passed and then his voice softened. "Try to look at it from our point of view. Concealing your husband's death is the only way to discover whether he really meant to sell the
Morning Star
to the South, something I should think you'd want to know as much as we do."

"He didn't!"

"In the second place, the government wants to learn who his contacts were among the Confederates so that they can be warned off or otherwise dealt with. Keeping him 'alive' would give us that opportunity."

"Rubbish!"

"And in the third place, since it's inconceivable to us that your husband acted alone, we're interested in finding out who at Jourdaine Shipbuilding might try to get in touch with Brodie while he's pretending to be Nick Balfour."

She made an inarticulate sound of frustration and fury and turned toward O'Dunne. "What have they done with Nicholas's body?" she demanded.

The lawyer looked startled. "They've buried him."

"Where? In an unmarked grave?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Only for a little while, Anna. When this is over they'll arrange for his 'death.' He'll have a real burial then, as your husband."

Rebellion rose in her like bile. "I won't do it. I don't care about any of the consequences. What you're asking is monstrous ghoulish. I won't do it!"

There was a protracted silence. Then Dietz said, "Very well. No one will force you."

"Thank you very much indeed."

"This will come as a bit of a blow to your brother-in-law."

"My—Mr. Brodie, you mean? That man is no relation to Nicholas," she declared illogically. "A man like that, he
deserves
to rot in prison for the rest of his life." She swung away, unwilling to let them see her flaming cheeks.

For the last twenty-four hours she'd been reliving her encounter with the detestable Mr. Brodie, struggling against memories that were graphic, accurate, and inescapable. Even now she flinched inwardly with mortification as she recalled who had initiated that unforgettable embrace, and exactly how it had felt. Squeezing her eyes shut and biting her knuckles did no good, the quick, breath-stealing pleasure she'd taken in his arms was an indelible memory, not to be willed away.

In the long hours before dawn she'd prayed that it had been a dream, a nightmare, but she'd had to face the bitter fact that it had happened. It seemed an unspeakable blasphemy, an obscene betrayal of Nicholas, yet it was real. The one thing she could not bring herself to face was the treachery of that instant when she'd know—d help her, she'd
known
and still she had let him put his hands on her.

"Perhaps he should rot in prison," Dietz was saying; "that's what he would have done if you'd agreed to help us. As it is, he'll hang."

She turned around in slow motion. She had to wet her lips to speak, and even then her voice was only a whisper. "What?"

"I say, as it is."

"You're lying. He agreed to your scheme, he kept his side of the bargain. You can't execute him now. You're saying that to manipulate me. It's despicable."

Dietz pushed away from the wall, preparing to leave. "I'm sorry. I assure you it's no bluff; fair or not, it's the simple truth. If you won't help us, Mr. Brodie will be taken back to Bristol and his original sentence will be carried out." He crossed to the door. "It's a difficult decision; I'm not unsympathetic to your plight, although it may look as if I am. I'll help you in any way I can. I give you my word that none of this will ever be publicly revealed. And your personal safety will be guaranteed at all times." He watched her for another minute, then opened the door and walked out.

She could only stare at the floor, mute and frozen. Her mind was in turmoil. Aiden was saying something, asking if she wanted him to stay. "No! This is your fault, you're the one who told that man Nicholas had a twin,
months
ago, when you were spying on him! If you'd stayed out of it" She jerked away, ashamed. She'd never spoken to her friend like this before; it frightened her.

O'Dunne's voice was bleak and hopeless. "My dear, I wish to God I had."

"Oh, Aiden, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I know none of this is your doing. I don't know what would've happened to me if you hadn't been here."

Awkward, he took her hand and held it. "I tried to talk Dietz out of this, believe me, but he wouldn't listen. I told him he was putting you at risk because of your health."

"My health? Do you mean my head?"

"No, or not only that. I mean your general constitution, your well-being."

She put a hand over her chest unconsciously, then laughed without any humor. "I wish I had thought to tell him that. But there's nothing wrong with me anymore, Aiden, you know that."

"I know everyone hopes it's true." He smiled his gentle smile. "What will you do?"

"I don't know." All of her choices were unthinkable. "But I'll tell you one thing," she said fiercely. "If I agree to take part in this ridiculous plan, it will be to clear Nicholas's name, not prove his guilt!"

"Billy, my boy, what are you doing in there?"

"Well, wot th' bloody 'ell d'you think I'm doin'?"

A fair question, considering Billy was sitting inside the privy. "Hurry it along, will you? We'll miss our supper at this rate."

Billy cursed in colorful cockney and Brodie smiled. The last thing he'd expected to feel was fondness for his bodyguard, but Flowers was a hard man to dislike. That is, once you got over the idea that he could and would if he were told to kill you with one blow from either of his gigantic paws. But he would do it without malice, maybe even with regret, and Brodie wasn't one to hold a man's occupation against him. Live and let live, he always said.

Besides, if he'd wanted to escape he could've done it by now any day, in fact, since they'd landed in France more than a week ago. He could do it now, for that matter, while Billy sat in the jakes and he stood outside, hands free for once, waiting for him. But like a fool, he'd promised that he wouldn't. Up to now he'd never gone back on his word to anyone. His pale blue eyes narrowed in speculation as he considered that there was probably a first time for everything.

"I'm walking around to the front, Bill. Meet you there." Flowers muttered something and Brodie strode off, savoring the unexpected few minutes of freedom. It was a beautiful evening, soft and warm, and the sun was setting beyond a wide, dark valley in front of the
pension
in Reillanne where they would stay tonight. The clouds were that salmon-and-silver color he associated with inland sunsets in Europe, not like the ones in Australia, for instance, which were redder and more—"

He halted, halfway to a rotting wooden fence that separated the inn yard from the adjacent pasture. His brother's widow stood beside the fence, staring at the brilliant sky. For the past nine days he'd seen her only from a distance, and never by herself. They rode in separate hired carriages, he and Billy in one, she and O'Dunne in another. But sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her in a hostel at night, taking her meal alone or with Aiden, he and Billy always ate in the kitchen. On the rare occasions when their eyes would meet, she'd always look away first, usually flushing, as though she found the sight of him indecent or disgusting. The thing she was best at was ignoring him, looking right through him as if he didn't exist. It would pique his temper until he'd consider that it was probably no more than he deserved.

She hadn't seen him yet; he took the opportunity to stare at her, openly for once. Close up, she was even smaller than he'd remembered, and slighter. And her hair wasn't brown at all in the sun's slanted rays, it was red. A pale, soft, pretty shade of red that she was wearing in a sort of bun at the back of her neck. She'd changed from her brown traveling dress to a lilac-colored one, high-necked as usual, and she looked as neat and clean as a new penny. She held her hands behind her back, standing straight and proper in that upper-class-lady's posture he'd never seen her slacken. But what he could see of her face looked sad, not proud; he thought she might even be crying. An edge of sorrow moved through him with no warning. He'd wanted to speak to her for days, and yet, now when the chance was finally here, something held him back.

Then a rook flew up from a fallen log behind her, with a shrill caw and a whir of wings, and she turned. And saw him. She took off instantly, making a wide, rapid detour around him and heading for the inn.

He strode toward her, long legs easily eating up the distance between them, and caught her at the top of her panicky circuit. For a second he thought she would run, lift up her skirts and fly for safety like a scared schoolgirl; but the image of it must have seemed as ridiculous to her as it did to him, for she stopped instead, dead in her tracks, facing away from him. It was an effort to keep his arms at his sides when what he wanted to do was take her by the shoulder and spin her around. But it wasn't necessary; after a silent minute she pivoted in a half-circle to face him, stiff as a soldier on guard duty.