Thief of Hearts (24 page)

"Villain?" he repeated, exasperated. "Is that the best you can do? Can't you even say 'bastard'?"

"Get out."

"What about 'son of a bitch'? Can you say that?"

"Out!"

"Try. Honestly, you'd feel a lot better. That's one of your biggest problems, you know, not being able to
say
so many things. You use all these, what's the word? Euphemisms. Just now is a good example, when you said 'the marriage act.'" He grinned, then laughed. "Come on, Annie, let's call it by its name. We weren't engaged in the
marriage act
. What we were doing was—"

"Stop it! Get out! Now, you" She ground her teeth with fury. He waited, his brows raised encouragingly. "Bastard!" Her hand went to her throat; tears swam in her eyes. "There," she whispered, "you've finally brought me down to your level. Are you satisfied?"

He closed the distance between them in two strides. She wouldn't allow herself to cringe, not even when he put his big hand on the side of her face and held it there so gently. "No, I'm not satisfied," he murmured, blue eyes blazing into hers. "But I will be. And so will you, sweet Annie. That's a promise I mean to keep." She sagged when he dropped his hand and moved to the door. "Hurry and put your clothes on," he said in his normal voice, his hand on the doorknob. "Remember? Aiden wants you to be there when he tells me the good news."

PART TWO

June 27, 1862 Liverpool

"I don't understand it. It makes no sense."

"What's that, my love?"

Anna ground her teeth, but kept her gaze focused through the carriage window on the gold stripe in the distance that was the Mersey at sunset. Brodie had hardly missed an opportunity to call her "my love" all day, not since they'd left Aiden at Southampton. "I don't understand," she enunciated, "why no one met us at the railway station."

"Maybe they didn't get the message. Or maybe they didn't feel like waiting after the train was two hours late."

Her shoulders moved in an irritable shrug. The Channel crossing last night had been rough and sleepless, they'd sat in a hot, noisy, overcrowded railway car all day, and she was in no mood for reasonable explanations about anything. She was exhausted and keyed up, and Brodie's unwavering chipperness had begun to get on her nerves. "Perhaps," she conceded tersely.

"'Perhaps,'" he repeated. "I always say 'maybe.' Which did Nick say?"

She considered. "'Perhaps,' I think. But probably both."

"'Perhaps,'" he said again, practicing.

"This is the street I live on." She began to straighten her flowered hat, patting the upswept hair at the back of her head.

Brodie whistled and craned his neck to see the tops of the four-story mansions lining both sides of the wide, tree-draped avenue. "Lucky girl, Mrs. Balfour. I've been to Liverpool plenty of times, but I was never this far inland."

Inland? She lived a mile up the hill from the river. But to a sailor, she supposed that might seem inland. Suddenly she sat up straight. "Oh, dear heaven."

"What?"

"Look."

"What?"

"All the carriages…that's my house! Aunt Charlotte's having a party! For us!"

Brodie cursed colorfully.

"Oh
, blast
!" Anna had begun to discover the satisfactions of swearing herself. They were tired, hungry, not at their best; she'd hoped to arrive in as low-key a manner as possible, attracting the least amount of attention, and confront the perils of impersonation in the morning. Oh, she could shake Aunt Charlotte for this! No doubt she'd thought of some social advantage, Anna guessed cynically; it wouldn't surprise her if some visiting duchess or viscount were in town.

"Well, love, it's too late to turn around and find a hotel, so we might as well" Brodie's eyes narrowed, his head jutted farther out the carriage window, and he lost his train of thought. "
That's
your
house
?"

"Yes. Now listen—"

His laugh cut her off. "No, seriously. That's the public library, isn't it?"

Distracted, Anna focused on the enormous red brick mansion she'd lived in for the last three years, taking note of the arched stone entrance-way, dramatic peaked gables, functionless concrete pilasters. It hadn't struck her in precisely that way before, but now that he mentioned it its resemblance to a municipal building was undeniable, although she would deny it to Mr. Brodie with her dying breath. "How would you know what a public library looks like?" she snapped. "Now, listen to me. I don't know who my aunt may have invited, but most of them are sure to be people you're supposed to know. I've told you about most of them, but not all. Stay close to me and listen carefully; I'll try to say everyone's name before you have to speak. And for heaven's sake, say as little as possible. Pretend you're tired." Unconsciously she began to twist her fingers as her palms grew damp inside her gloves. She reminded herself that the Middaughs had had no trouble believing he was Nicholas; that ought to give her heart. Oh, but now he would be meeting dozens of people who had known Nicholas much better than they! The more she thought of it, the more nervous she grew. "Try to remember that a great deal depends on your credibility tonight," she told him. A very great deal; Mr. Brodie had no idea how much. Which was no doubt a very good thing.

The carriage came to a halt in front of Rosewood. Brodie knew it was "Rosewood" because the name was chiseled discreetly in one of the huge stone columns flanking a flagstone walk to the front steps. "Oh, I'll stay close to you, Annie," he said cheerfully as he helped her down to the curb, then kept his hands on her long after it was necessary. She reacted with inner violence, although her face remained a mask of composure. It was the first time he'd touched her since that horrible morning in Rome three weeks ago. The fact that the simple pressure of his fingers on her sides could take her breath away confirmed an awful, fatalistic suspicion she'd harbored in secret for twenty-one days. But she would not think about it now.

She spoke quietly, fearful that they were already being watched. "For the hundredth time,
Nicholas did not call me that
."

"He started to on the honeymoon. He started doing lots of new things on the honeymoon. Say, Annie, would you like me to carry you across the threshold?"

"Would you like me to kick you in the shins?" With a lurch of horror, she realized she had almost said "groin." She twisted out of his grip and started up the walk without him, not caring at the moment who saw what. Oh, he was impossible!

The front door swung open and the imposing figure of Aunt Charlotte stood four-square in the threshold. "You're late! We expected you hours ago."

"The train was late, Aunt Charlotte," Anna explained breathlessly, kissing her. "I see you invited a few friends in." She glanced over her aunt's shoulder at the people milling in the foyer and, behind them, the large drawing room.

"To welcome you home, dear. It's a surprise. Is your baggage still at the station? Nicholas," she exclaimed, allowing him to plant a peck on her florid cheek, "what did you do to your face? I would hardly have known you! Come in, come into the drawing room. I'd thought of an informal receiving line, just the two of you, but now it's so late—"

"Oh, no, please let's not," begged Anna. She took Brodie's hand and began to follow her aunt down the wide hall. Friends crowded around immediately, slowing their progress. "Edward, how are you? Mrs. Griffin, it's lovely to see you. Why, Esther Perkins, hello!" She named them all relentlessly, feeling foolish, and Brodie dutifully echoed her. Everyone exclaimed over his beardlessness, his fading scar, how much marriage seemed to agree with him.

Finally they reached the drawing room, where there were more guests and more greetings. A surprise wedding reception was the worst thing in the world that could have happened, but she'd have felt churlish saying so to Aunt Charlotte. By eloping she had, after all, cheated her aunt out of the opportunity to host one for her at the more conventional time, immediately after the ceremony. But what horrible timing for it now! She stole a glance at Brodie, and relaxed ever so slightly. She loathed admitting it, but when he wanted to he could be as charming as his brother. Still, it astonished her that people were accepting him so readily as Nicholas, for to her they hardly resembled each other at all anymore. Guests commented on his suntanned skin, and guessed that he'd spent much of his trip to Italy out of doors.

More than one observed that they hardly recognized him without his beard. It was working. Dear God, it was working! She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It was as if a balloon were inflating in her chest, filling her with a nerve-wracking combination of dread and euphoria.

Brodie felt the pressure of her hand in his and suppressed his own shiver of excitement. Christ almighty, it was working. At least for now. But what a powerful relief it was to know that, as long as all he had to do was grin like a fool and shake hands, everybody thought he was Nick. But God! what he wouldn't give right now for a cigarette.

"Jenny!" cried Anna.

But Brodie didn't need the name to know who this flame-haired girl hurling herself into Anna's arms was. He'd heard so much about Jenny, he felt as if she were
his
cousin. To him she gave a sisterly kiss on the cheek, and said what everyone else was saying "Gracious, Nicholas, I hardly knew you!" She was lively and talkative and very pretty. She wore her shiny, reddish-orange hair loose and rather short, in a style that wasn't fashionable but was definitely attractive. Her pale yellow dress had a low, off-the-shoulder décolletage. She liked to shake her head flirtatiously, calling attention to her drop earrings. He watched her as she chattered excitedly to Anna, and soon he made a further observation, one he'd have bet money on: Jenny was the kind of girl who would let a man examine her brooch without taking it off first.

She backed up a step and slid her arm through that of the young man who'd been standing behind her. "Welcome home, newlyweds," he said in a bored voice and held a hand out to Brodie. He was tall, gaunt, and dissipated, and he smelled of drink.

"Hello, Neil," said Anna hurriedly.

Neil Vaughn, Brodie remembered, Nick's new friend. Anna didn't like him, though she'd never come straight out and said so. He had light, peculiar eyes that might've been blue once but now seemed bleached, perhaps from drink, to a cold, lifeless gray.

Is Jenny seeing Neil now? wondered Anna, eyeing their clasped arms. How odd, if so. Jenny was so vivacious, and Neil was, she didn't really know what Neil was. She wondered what Aunt Charlotte made of it. Neil was rich, she'd heard, but her aunt would require Jenny's successful suitor to have family connections as well as money. No one knew much about Neil Vaughn's family.

"So you finally came home."

She started at the sound of that stern, familiar voice, unsure as always whether the gruffness in it was feigned or not. "Papa," she said softly, rushing to him. Sir Thomas Jourdaine sat hunched in a wheeled chair, hands open limply on the blanket across his knees. She put her arms around his neck and gave him a long, gentle hug. Before it was over he batted her away, with a mixture of irritation and affection, and peered up at his new son-in-law. "Got tired of looking at statues, did you?" he said querulously, with a slight slur.