Read Thief of Hearts for Free Online

him! For God's sake" O'Dunne was beside himself.
    "That's enough!" barked Dietz, and like a well-trained attack dog Billy subsided. "Are you all right, Mrs. Balfour? Did this man hurt you?"
    Anna didn't hear the question. Clutching the sheet to her bosom, trembling, intent, she stared at Brodie. She knew she was close to fainting, but she had to hear his answer. "Who are you?" she got out in a feeble whisper.
    Brodie stumbled to his feet, ignoring Billy's feral warning growl. The chain rattled when he wiped blood from his mouth and pushed the hair out of his face. It was the accusation in her eyes that triggered the defensiveness, that and his own guilty conscience. He made her a shallow, mocking bow. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Balfour. My name's John Brodie. I'm Nick's twin." The shock in her eyes burst through the thin wall of his defiance like a fist.
    Flowers gripped his arm with unexpected gentleness. He moved toward the door at a laggard's pace, unwilling to go. He turned back in the threshold to see her, one last time. O'Dunne hovered over her, patting and murmuring, blocking his view. But he thought he could hear her crying.

Chapter 5

     
    "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