Thief of Hearts

PART ONE


• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  

PART TWO


• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  

Patricia Gaffney

Patricia Gaffney is a
Romantic Times
Reviewer's Choice Award winner for her historical romance,
Sweet Treason. Romantic Timex calls Thief of Hearts
"a stunning gem of a book that establishes Patricia Gaffney as a star!" Cassie Edwards, award-winning author of the
Savage
series, calls Patricia Gaffney's
Fortune's Lady
"one of the best historical romances I have read in a decade!"
Rendezvous
says of
Sweet Treason
: "The action is non-stop, the writing at times reminiscent of Kathleen Woodiwiss. One of the better historicals to come out recently."

RAVE REVIEWS FOR PATRICIA GAFFNEY!

THIEF OF HEARTS

"Ms. Gaffney delivers a knockout with the one-two punch of action-packed adventure and heart-pumping romance."

Nora Roberts

"A stunning gem of a book that establishes Patricia Gaffney as Leisure's new star. She takes the ordinary and makes it shine."

Romantic Times

SWEET TREASON

"This poignant, touching love story has enough adventure, romance, history and memorable characters to please readers. I foresee a wonderful future for this bright new star!"

Romantic Times

"The action is non-stop, the writing at times reminiscent of Kathleen Woodiwiss. One of the better historicals to come out recently."

Rendezvous

THE CRITICS LOVE PATRICIA GAFFNEY!

FORTUNE'S LADY

"Like moon-spun magic… one of the best historical romances I have read in a decade!"

Cassie Edwards, bestselling author of the
Savage
Series

"An original, complex, and riveting love story!"

Romantic Times

"A clever tale of intrigue and sexual tension that I couldn't put down and hated to see end."

Rendezvous

LILY

"A masterpiece in the tradition of Laura Kinsale, Katherine Sutcliffe, or Megan McKinney. Ms. Gaffney continually demonstrates that she is one of the finest writers to come along in the past few years.
Lily
is her finest book yet, destined to become a classic!"

Romantic Times

Moment of Truth

"Why should I believe you?" Anna asked.

"Why should you?" Brodie leaned one hand against the rough wooden mantel behind her head, trapping her with his body in front, the fire behind. "How about for old time's sake? Or out of respect for your husband. Nick the upright, Nick the perfect."

He lifted his hand and rested it on top of her shoulder. "If he was so good, Annie, how could his brother be so bad? Hm?" With a little tug, her pulled her chemise down over her arm, baring her shoulder.

Anna held herself statue-still, not breathing, daring him. His hard mouth softened. There was a light in his pale eyes she'd never seen; he looked nothing at all like Nicholas to her in the second before he bent and put his lips on the naked place he'd made on her shoulder. Her eyes dimmed and closed, and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. "Don't," she said, then felt the wetness of his tongue, lightly rasping, his lips softly sucking. "Oh, don't." He raised his head. His mouth glistened and his breathing was uneven. She'd been wrong; the moment of danger wasn't over, it was just starting. It was now.

Other
Leisure
books by Patricia Gaffney:

FORTUNE'S LADY

THIEF OF HEARTS

LILY

ANOTHER EDEN

SWEET TREASON

Thief of Hearts

Patricia Gaffney

This book is for Mike Gaffney: my brother, my friend, my fairest critic.

A LEISURE BOOK®

April 2000

Copyright© 1990 by Patricia Gaffney

ISBN 0-8439-4803-5

PART ONE

April 14, 1862 Bristol

"Don't seem fair, does it, mate? I was so drunk, I don't even remember bashin' the bastard's brains in. Didn't even know his name. What about you? Eh? Oh, I was forgettin' you're
innocent
, you didn't kill
nobody
. Ain't that right?"

Brodie stared back at his cellmate's skeptical leer without smiling, and presently Shooter shrugged and went back to picking lice out of his beard. Through the horizontal slit in the stone wall, Brodie could see a section of cloud drifting past like a slow-moving turret. A thunderstorm was coming.

"Kinda peculiar, though," Shooter resumed after a minute, reaching out with the hand that wasn't shackled to squash a fat, lumbering bug on the damp floor between them. "Ain't it? I mean, you wakin' up next to a stone-dead whore, blood everywhere, and no idea in the world how she got that way. I'd say that was damn peculiar."

"Shut up, Shooter," Brodie said, without much hope. He put his head back against the oozing wall and shut his eyes. The sounds of dripping water and muffled weeping came to him through the grate in the iron door.

"Can't blame a judge for not swallowing that, you ask me. Specially since you knew 'et, and her bein' in the family way and all…Ow!" Shooter grabbed his shin, scooted backward, and commenced to curse.

Brodie always felt bad after kicking Shooter. His cellmate couldn't fight back; his legs were too short to reach across the four and a half feet of straw-covered dirt that separated them. But regret was a cheap price to pay for the relief silence brought, and he'd reconciled himself to paying it as often as he had to.

Which shouldn't be too much longer, things being what they were. He would be dead in three days, and Shooter…Brodie's head jerked up. Oh, Christ, today was the day they were hanging Shooter. His pale eyes widened on the thin, still-whining figure huddled in front of him. How old was Shooter? Forty? Fifty? Hard to tell with that grizzled beard and all the filth on him. Brodie had almost gotten over being angry that he himself would die before he was thirty, but it still rankled that he wasn't going to die at sea. He'd always thought he would die at sea.

"You got any family, Shooter?" he asked, almost gently.

"Nah." He thought for a second. "How the hell do I know?" Then, "Nah," more positively. "You?"

It was on the tip of Brodie's tongue to say no, the answer he'd given for the last fourteen years to anybody who'd bothered to ask. But what was the point? What difference did it make now? "I've got a brother," he said slowly. The words sounded strange, new. "His name's Nick. And I might have a father."

"You
might
have a father?" The small black eyes registered paltry interest.

Brodie rested his chin on one updrawn knee, shifting his left arm slightly to take some weight off the raw flesh of his manacled wrist. "I mean he might still be alive. I don't know. I haven't seen him since I was six."

"Yeah? What's
his
name?"

Brodie smiled. "His name is Regis Gunne. He's the seventh Earl of Battiscombe." He joined in Shooter's harsh laughter until his cellmate's guffaws turned into the wet choking sounds that were coming more frequently these days. "You all right, Shooter?"

"Yeah." He wiped spittle from his chin and rested the side of his sweating face against the wall. "What the hell difference does it make?"

Brodie had no answer. They fell silent, and he began to regret his thoughtless overture to Shooter, however well-meant. It had unlocked a door, one he'd closed a long time ago and sworn never to open again. But he had, of course, from time to time. He'd even seen Nick twice. He hadn't deliberately thought of his father, though, nor said his name out loud in fourteen years.

But Brodie was going to die in three days. He had a sailor's awe of eternity; he'd seen its evidence spread out before him a thousand times in the sea and the sky and in the vastness of time. Still, something earthbound in him worried that this was it, that if he failed now to reconcile himself to the circumstances of his life and his family, his flesh would rot and his bones turn to dust, with no second chance anywhere, anytime, to try again.