Thief of Hearts (10 page)

"It's a curious thing, that. Llanuwchllyn is as inland as can be, but we both found work near the sea. I can't explain it. It wasn't something we talked about as children."

"They say… " she swallowed painfully, "… they say there's a special bond between twins." There, she'd admitted it. It was a beginning.

Brodie had an inkling how much the admission had cost her. He wanted to touch her, put his hand over her small one gripping the edge of the writing case, but he didn't dare. It would scare her to death. Instead he said, "Annie," very softly, the name coming to him quite naturally. "I'm sorry you're so sad."

Anna straightened her shoulders, composing herself, and made another concession. "It is possible my name is not really Balfour, that Nicholas… made it up. If it's hard for you to call me that, then I suppose you may call me Miss Jourdaine for the time being. It's what I'm used to, after all. But I have not given you permission to call me by my Christian name, and certainly not by a silly nickname no one else has ever called me." In the middle of this speech she realized they were both speaking in low, nearly intimate tones, almost as though they were trying not to waken Aiden. The idea shocked her. She raised her voice to a more conversational level, but the lawyer slept on.

"No one?" asked Brodie, still in a murmur. "No sweetheart ever called you Annie? And it's such a pretty name."

"I've had no 'sweethearts,'" she said frostily, "except my husband."

And he probably called you "Miss Jourdaine" in bed on your wedding night, thought Brodie. He clucked his tongue in pretended surprise and sympathy. "None at all? Not even one?"

"None." His pitying tone annoyed her.

"Why do you spell Jourdaine with all those extra letters if you're just going to pronounce it 'Jordan'?" he wondered unexpectedly. "Why not spell it the way it sounds?"

For the first time since he'd met her, she laughed. It transformed her pale, solemn face in the most wonderful way, and the throaty, gurgling sound of it brought an instant smile to his lips. "That's a ridiculous question," she answered good-naturedly, "coming from a Welshman, a man who pronounces Clwyd as 'Cloo-id' and Rhuddlan as 'Rithlan.'"

Brodie grinned appreciatively, enjoying her game attempt at a Welsh accent. "You've been to Wales, I see."

"Oh yes, or to Llandudno, anyway. It's beautiful, and becoming quite a popular resort." She drew a quick breath. She was actually speaking to this man as if they were social acquaintances! She felt a sudden flash of disloyalty to her husband, and a hint of something else even more treacherous. She began to stopper her ink bottle and remove the nib from her pen.

"I've not been back since I left," Brodie said quietly, as though he hadn't noticed her withdrawal. "Llandudno's pretty, but someday you should see the valley of the Clwyd, with the hills of Flint rising up in the east and the gentle land all around you flecked with sheep and different-colored fields. I always meant to go back and see my mother's grave, but I never did." He left unspoken the thought that now he never would.

He didn't need to speak it. Anna's fingers halted in the act of folding her papers. With a shock, she realized she was beginning to see Mr. Brodie as a man, someone separate from Nicholas, not just his mirror image or an impostor pretending to be him. The thought both relieved and disturbed her. Living for several weeks in close quarters with this man would be less painful if his every word and gesture didn't remind her with such agonizing vividness of his brother. Yet she shrank from the inevitable humanizing that would also occur as she learned to know him, even understand him. Something warned her it would be safer to remain strangers.

"Lesson over?"

She started at the sound of Aiden's voice, and looked up with a tiny, inexplicable twinge of guilt. But how absurd; what had she to feel guilty about? "Yes, we've just finished. We accomplished quite a lot, I think," she said as she busied her hands with putting the rest of her things away in her case. "For the first day."

"Good timing. We seem to have arrived at our
pensione
."

"Oh. So we have."

So they had. With a small, appreciative smile for the irony of it, Anna watched Mr. Brodie shake his bodyguard awake. Aiden put the
diligence
step down and jumped out, turning back to help her, arms raised. She had to step past Brodie to get to the door. She gave Aiden her writing case, leaving him with only one hand to help her. There was an awkward moment when she felt gingerly for the step with her foot, one hand extended, the other clutching the door frame. All at once she felt Mr. Brodie's two big hands on either side of her waist, holding her steady. She found the step, took Aiden's arm, and made it to the ground without incident. The whole undertaking was over in seconds. And yet for long minutes afterward she was preoccupied with recollections of sensation, half-thoughts of how those ten fingers had felt, splayed wide against her ribcage, holding her still, pressing her tightly. With kindness, with consideration. And then she thought of something else, something that embittered the odd sweetness of the memory. She remembered that although she hadn't felt or heard it, between those two strong hands that had held her so securely was an ugly black chain.

At least it wasn't raining. Not pouring, anyway; not those black, nearly solid sheets of slanted water that had undermined the road and washed earth and stones down its steep face like coal down a chute. Rain fell almost gently now, and thunder was only a distant grumble beyond the farthest range of the Tuscan Apennines. But the damage was done: the rough track that had been the road was now a slick and dripping morass of churned-up mud and rocks, and the
diligence
was stuck in the middle of it.

"Ho!" shouted the driver, cracking his whip over the rumps of the two enormous oxen he'd hired to pull them out. The farmer who owned the beasts strained in front, hauling on their harnesses, feet braced in the mud. At the rear, Brodie and Billy Flowers heaved and groaned and pushed at the coach with all their strength. And at the side of the road, safely out of the way on a clean patch of damp moss, Anna and Aiden O'Dunne stood and watched from under their umbrellas.

Billy was a bigger man, a muscle-bound giant of a man, but Anna barely noticed him. Her attention was riveted on Brodie's leaner, neater physique. His hair was plastered to his head, his white shirt to his body. She responded to Aiden's comments in absent-minded monosyllables as she contemplated Brodie's long, handsome legs, the bunched muscles in his bare forearms, the powerful but elegant curve of his back. She could admit that it was a pleasure to watch him, openly for once, but told herself the enjoyment was merely aesthetic, the sort one takes when looking at sculptures in a museum. She had spent her life around men whose idea of strenuous physical exertion was riding to hounds, or perhaps batting in a spirited cricket match. Refined people who yet must make a living did so sitting behind desks, so she'd been taught. Mr. Brodie had made his living by sailing ships. That made him, by definition, the reverse of a gentleman.

For a few seconds she tried to imagine Nicholas helping to push a coach out of the mud. Impossible. He wouldn't have done it, he'd have stood there with her, like Aiden, and watched. Being a gentleman, he'd have thought it beneath him.

The coachman cracked his whip again and again; the sound was sharp over the shouts of the men and the harsh snorts of the tired animals. All at once one of the oxen stumbled. It fell to its knees and slid with greasy speed a foot backward in the mud, pulling its companion with it. The coach lurched. Brodie jumped back in time, but the wooden fender caught Billy Flowers with a sharp crack to the top of his bent head. He collapsed on his face in the dirt.

Anna cried out from behind her hands, positive that the carriage would roll back again and crush them both. The fallen ox was still on its knees despite the driver's lashing whip and the frantic shouts of the farmer. Brodie had Billy under the arms and was dragging his heavy, dead weight with excruciating slowness from under the coach. Anna cried, "Help him!" clutching Aiden's coat, pushing at him. The lawyer moved forward but then stopped, uncertain. Anna threw her soaked, pearl-colored parasol into a puddle and took two steps toward the struggling pair on the ground. But Brodie got one of Billy's lifeless arms around his shoulder at that moment. With a groan and three mighty strides he lugged him out of the ditch and up the shallow bank and then collapsed, at Anna's feet, on top of Billy's unconscious body.

Brodie rolled away and sat in the dirt, head bent, panting, arms dangling between his bent knees. Aiden and Anna hovered over Billy. "He's all right," Brodie managed to say, "just a bump on the canister." Finally he staggered to his feet. As he towered over them, large and wet and tired, all three came simultaneously to the same unsettling realization: Brodie's hands were free and his guard was unconscious.

He smiled, grinned, savoring their discomfort while he pondered what he could do to heighten it. O'Dunne was a tall man, but he was taller. The lawyer carried a pistol, but he could take it away from him. He put his hands on his hips, preparing to gloat then whirled around toward the wet, crashing noise that sounded suddenly from behind them. Before any of them could react, three riders burst out of the trees and surrounded them.

"
Banditti
!" shouted the coachman as he sprang from the carriage seat to the mud and scampered into the woods on the other side, the farmer close behind.

Brodie and O'Dunne closed ranks, with Anna in the middle. The three men jumped from their mangy horses and called out in rapid Italian, waving pistols. They were rough, shabby, and mean-looking.

"What do they want?" asked O'Dunne, his hands high in the air.

"What the hell do you think they want?" Brodie growled. "Give 'em your money."

One of the robbers climbed agilely to the top of the coach and began hurling baggage to the ground. Another one opened it and stuffed what he wanted, jewelry, some of Alden's clothes, Anna's shoes into a sack. The third jabbered at them, pointing his gun.

"Money and jewelry," Anna translated, trying not to tremble. Without hesitating, she took off her jet earrings and brooch, her onyx ring, while the bandit made a search of Billy's inert form for valuables. O'Dunne handed over his wallet and pocket watch.

The robber shouted at Brodie. He held up his empty hands and said conversationally, "Sorry, you ugly son of a bitch. Nothing.
Niente
." He remembered a phrase. "
E molto seccante
."

The bandit cursed and shoved him in the chest. The one on the ground called to him, "Paulo!" and he went, but he kept his gun trained on Brodie.

"What did you say to him?" muttered O'Dunne. He looked terrified.

"I said, 'It is very annoying.'" Anna stared at him incredulously. "You still have that pea shooter in your pocket, O'Dunne?"

"I've got it."

"Well, when do you think you might take it out and start potting at these bastards?"

"There are three of them! I think it's best if we—"

Paulo came back then, and O'Dunne closed his mouth. Anna noticed he was sweating. Unconsciously she moved closer to Brodie. Paulo called out to his friends and they remounted their horses, their bulging bags of loot slung across the saddles. She gasped when he reached out and pulled her to him by a handful of the front of her dress.