Kissing Comfort Read online

  Comfort stared at her companion and saw she was unmoved. Downstairs, the stomping and shouting stopped, the frenzied applause died, and the walls, floor, and window ceased to vibrate. Caught in the eye of the storm, it was Comfort who trembled.

  She bent over and tried to remove her boots. Her fingers were shaking so badly she couldn’t manage the laces. Tears blurred her vision. She turned her hands over helplessly and heard the woman’s annoyed grunt. When she looked up, the woman was heading for the door.

  “Wait!” she called after her. “I’ll do it. I can do it.” She was ignored. She bent quickly and scrabbled at the laces. The door opened anyway. Comfort applied herself more diligently to the task. She didn’t dare look away from her feet, but she heard the men speaking and sensed the woman was gesticulating again. “See! See! I have it!” She held up her hand, one shoe dangling from her fingertips. It was perverse, she thought hazily, that she should feel any sense of accomplishment. She was going to be raped, and here she was raising one of her shoes over her head like a trophy.

  The woman stepped out of the doorway back into the room. The door closed behind her. Comfort saw she was carrying a small glass. More beer? The shoe was taken out of her hand and the glass pressed into it. The woman placed her palm under Comfort’s hand and pushed up, encouraging her to drink.

  She drank. The woman kept the glass against her mouth until she drained it. The liquid was as thick as syrup, sweet at first, but with a bitter aftertaste that lay unpleasantly on her tongue. She swallowed several times trying to get rid of the taste in her mouth. When the glass was taken away, she asked for water. The woman shook her head, tossed the glass into the pile of discarded clothes, and knelt in front of Comfort to remove her other shoe.

  As soon as the woman was in position, Comfort kicked. At least that was her intention. There was no force behind it. It was as if her leg had been shackled to the floor. It came up slowly, with great effort, and was so heavy that it would have fallen back if the woman hadn’t cupped the heel in her hands. She tried again, this time with the foot that was already shoeless. The woman simply batted her foot out of the way, no more annoyed than if she were flicking off a pesky fly.

  Comfort didn’t stir as her stockings were rolled down her calves, nor did she flinch when the woman produced a small knife and cut away her chemise. She made no attempt to cover her nakedness. She watched her ivory chemise, now stained yellow along the neckline with spilled beer, delicately float and flutter before it came to rest on top of everything else she’d worn.

  Soiled Dove.

  She remembered it would be her name now. It’s what they’d called her downstairs. She would answer to it just as she’d always answered to Comfort. No one knew her real name. That was a secret, even from her.

  Comfort closed her eyes as the woman slipped the batiste gown over her head. It lay soft against her shoulders and smelled faintly of rosewater. She allowed the woman to raise her arms to accommodate the garment, because they were simply too heavy to raise herself. The light material drifted over her breasts and stomach and gathered softly around her hips.

  There was no gesturing for her to lie down, so she didn’t. She sat on the edge of the bed while the woman gathered the piled clothes and lifted them close to her chest. The door opened and closed, and then she was alone.

  She sighed. She was tired but not sleepy. She felt enervated. Her pulse beat slowly, and she imagined her blood was as thick as the syrup she’d been forced to drink. That was probably good. It would be better for her if she couldn’t move, couldn’t fight. Perhaps, if she survived, she would regret not fighting, but for the moment, at least, it seemed that not fighting might be the key to surviving.

  Except for the bed, the malodorous pot underneath it, and the lantern hanging beside the door, the room was empty. It had but a single function, and when she heard footsteps on the stairs, she understood it would soon be put to that use.

  The man who entered the room was not what she expected, though she’d tried to shy away from thinking about that. He was neat and trim, shorter than she was, and his clothes looked relatively clean. He smelled rather powerfully of spirits, but he walked toward her in a straight line, suggesting he’d spilled rather more on himself than he’d drunk.

  He hesitated a moment after the door was closed, looking around the room; in fact, looking everywhere but directly at her. Comfort still had wits enough about her to find that behavior odd. She smiled, although she didn’t think she meant to. The smile flickered uncertainly across her face before she felt it freeze in a ghastly parody of welcome and warmth.

  He did an even more surprising thing when his eyes finally alighted on hers. He removed his hat, inclined his head, and introduced himself as properly as any gentleman might who hadn’t just bought the winning ticket in the lottery to molest her.

  “John Farwell,” he said.

  Comfort frowned. The name was tantalizingly familiar, but the face was not. She pressed two fingertips to one corner of her mouth to prop up her faltering smile. Her skin felt as elastic as rising dough. She began to knead it.

  “John Farwell, Miss Kennedy.” He approached the bed. “Mr. DeLong sent me. Mr. Beauregard DeLong.” He added this last in the event she mistook the man who orchestrated her rescue for her fiancé. “We haven’t a great deal of time. Do you understand? They’re selling more tickets. I have twenty minutes, and the Rangers thought that was very generous.”

  Comfort attempted to nod. Her head simply flopped forward and stayed there.

  “Miss Kennedy?” John Farwell took an uneasy breath. Thinking back to what Bode had told them about Miss Kennedy, he was loath to touch her. “You do understand, don’t you? When the time comes, we must move quickly.”

  Comfort’s head lifted a fraction before her chin dropped back to her chest.

  “Oh, dear.” He removed his jacket and flung it around her shoulders. When she made no attempt to put it on, he helped her into it. “Really, Miss Kennedy, you have to look at me.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t blink or acknowledge him in any way.

  John went to the door and removed the lantern from the hook. He crossed to the window, drew back the curtains just enough to set the lantern on the sill, and then went to the bed and sat down beside Comfort.

  “It will be helpful if you can make some noises, though I suppose I can manage for the both of us if I must.” He began to bounce on the bed. The frame rattled. Cornhusks stuffed the mattress, and they crackled and rustled with every bounce. Comfort also bounced, but not by conscious choice. Her movements were a consequence of his enthusiastic springing. He interspersed harsh grunts with high-pitched squeals and moans. Except for softly groaning each time her stomach lurched or her head jerked painfully, she didn’t add to the spirited cacophony.

  He couldn’t use her name, so he called her “baggage” and “bitch” and added the vilest words he knew. They didn’t come naturally to his lips, but he believed he gave a good accounting, because the men on the other side occasionally called out coarse encouragement.

  He was breathing hard by the time the riot started downstairs. As far as he was concerned, it hadn’t happened soon enough. Comfort was as limp as laundry ready for the line. He was barely able to haul her back on the bed once she began to slide forward. Her hair swung like a heavy curtain against her cheek. She swiped at it once, twice, and then let it be.

  “Now, Miss Kennedy, it has to be now.” Farwell stood and pulled Comfort behind him. He knew it would be difficult for her to stand, but he hadn’t anticipated that in her stupor she wouldn’t be able to help him at all. He gave her his back and brought her arms over his shoulders, and supporting her in this fashion, he dragged her to the window. When he tried to raise the sash, he discovered it was nailed shut. Cursing, he yanked one of the curtains down and wrapped it around his arm.

  He was rearing back with his elbow, trying to keep Comfort from falling to the floor and the lantern from
tipping and the shattering glass from blinding him, when fighting broke out in the hallway. The door shivered in its frame as someone was hurled against it. He winced at the soft thud of body blows and shied closer to the window as someone grunted, fending off a punch. Downstairs, the fighting was as ferocious and considerably louder. He repositioned Comfort when she started to slide down his back again. They were already supposed to have made their escape. There was help on the other side of that window. He had to trust that was still true.

  Securing Comfort’s wrists as best he could with one hand, he raised his elbow a second time and prepared to strike the glass. Simultaneous to smashing the window, the door behind him crashed open.

  Bode hurried to the window before John Farwell could hurl himself and Comfort out of it. He appreciated the man’s commitment to seeing his assignment through, but getting himself killed was not part of it.

  The clerk nearly fell through the window anyway when a strong pair of hands landed on his upper arms. He tucked his head between his shoulders like a turtle and tried to jerk away. The hands that frightened him also saved his life.

  “It’s Bode, John.” He slipped one arm around Comfort’s waist and drew her away from his clerk. He kept his other hand on John’s arm and pulled him back from the window.

  “Mr. DeLong.” John straightened, bewildered. The battle that was still raging under their feet made it difficult to think clearly. “I didn’t expect . . . that is, you weren’t . . .”

  “Plans change,” said Bode. “At least mine do.” He turned Comfort so she faced him. She was smiling, and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with him. He wet his thumb and swiped at the flecks of dried blood just under her lip. Her mouth drooped. She was as pliable as wet clay. Bode lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Hold up that lantern so I can better see her face.”

  John Farwell did as he was told. “They drugged her, Mr. DeLong. The three beers they made her drink before she came up here wouldn’t make her numb and dumb.”

  Bode agreed. Her pupils were dilated. Only a sliver of dark chocolate iris was visible in each eye. “All right. It’ll have to be this way.” He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. She didn’t fuss at the indignity of it, and Bode didn’t count himself lucky for it. “This way, John. There’s an exit at the back. We saw it when an old Chinese woman used it to slip outside.” He saw the clerk glance uneasily at the doorway. “All done in, John. Both of them. Let’s go. My men can’t keep fighting forever, no matter how much they’re enjoying themselves.”

  When Comfort awoke, she was deliciously warm and strangely restless. She stretched, turned, and snuggled closer to the source of all that heat. Her body conformed to the shape of the pillow she was hugging. Her knees came up, and her hands slipped neatly between the pillowcase and the mattress. She pressed her face into soft folds of linen. Her nose twitched; the fragrance provoked a pleasant memory. Her mouth softened and parted. She breathed in a sigh. It was like filling her lungs with contentment.

  It didn’t last nearly long enough. The edgy feeling returned. Her skin felt tight and tingly, and the muscles in her legs jumped and jerked unexpectedly. Her nipples had become hard, little buds that she ached to flatten against her palms. She licked her lips. They were extraordinarily sensitive to the sweep of her tongue. The lightest touch tickled her and sent a lovely shiver down her back.

  She stirred again and rubbed against the pillow. The friction momentarily eased the tenderness in her breasts, but it also created a blossom of heat between her thighs. She tightly pressed her legs together and waited for it to subside.

  It didn’t, not until she felt the pillow shift and brush against her just so.

  “Better?”

  Comfort opened her eyes and stared into Bode’s face. That single word, delivered as it was in a voice that was part growl, part chuckle, and all heat, simply took her breath away.

  Chapter Ten

  “You’re here,” she whispered. Comfort slid one of her hands out from under him and laid it against his cheek. “I thought you were a pillow.”

  “That’s not the worst thing you could have said.”

  She flicked a few copper strands of hair back from his temple. “What’s the worst thing?” She waited, stroking his cheek, wondering if he could make himself that vulnerable.

  “You could have said you thought I was Bram.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” She touched her thumb to the corner of his faint smile. A memory stirred. He’d done something like that to her. “I don’t mistake one of you for the other . . . Bode.” His slim smile widened a fraction, and she willed him to believe her. “I never have.”

  “Mm.” Bode caught her wrist as her fingers drifted to his neck. She didn’t resist. Her fingertips brushed his skin as lightly as feathers. “What do you remember about yesterday?”

  “Most of it, I think. Except how you got me out of that horrible place.” Her own smile was a trifle rueful. “And everything after that.”

  “I see.”

  She thought he looked vaguely troubled. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “but I don’t want to be sensible. You make it safe for me not to be sensible.”

  “I’m not sure that’s—”

  She stopped him. “And there’d be so many questions you’d have to answer, beginning with are Newt and Tuck well?”

  “They are. They’re at home, and they know you’re with me.”

  Relieved, she closed her eyes briefly. Her heart wasn’t squeezed so tightly as it had been. “And then you’d have to tell me why we’re on a ship.” She paused. “We are, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see? After that, you’d have to explain why we’re sharing a bed and continue working backward from there. There’d be questions one after the other and perhaps answers I don’t want to hear right now. All of it would simply get in the way of what I want.”

  He thought he shouldn’t ask, and then he did. “And that’s what, exactly?”

  “Exactly this.” She leaned into him, her mouth changing shape from rueful to slightly wicked. Her lips covered his. It was all the encouragement he needed.

  Bode rolled Comfort onto her back and pressed her into the mattress. His mouth was hard, hot, and hungry. He still had one of her wrists in his hand, and now he took the other. He leveled them on either side of her head and ground his lips against hers. She whimpered. He eased the pressure. She opened her mouth wide and took him back. Her tongue speared his mouth.

  Restless, she dug her heels into the mattress and arched her back. Except for her wrists, he didn’t restrict her movement. The press of her tight, lithe body teased him in every way that satisfied. Her small, perfect breasts rubbed his chest, and he could feel the hard points of her nipples through her nightgown and his shirt. Breaking off the kiss, ignoring her guttural cry of displeasure, he bent his head and took one of those sweetly maddening little buds into his mouth.

  “Ah!” Comfort squirmed, pushing ineffectually against the hands holding her down. She closed her eyes. His tongue made her gown damp. The sensation was exquisite. Her nipple was so tender, so achingly tender, that he could only hold it between his lips. The suck of his mouth radiated so much heat that bursting into flame would have been a welcome diversion. The sound that left her throat was something between a gasp and a giggle.

  Bode lifted his head and gave her a narrow look from under heavily lidded eyes, trying to gauge whether or not he had actually wrested laughter from her.

  Pinned back by his blue-violet glance, Comfort said the first thing that came to her mind. “You’re not wearing your eye patch.”

  “That’s what you have to say to me?”

  She bit her lower lip, feeling the full impact of his dangerous look. “Um . . . it’s very nice. Not your eye, although that’s lovely as well. I meant that what you’re doing is very nice. Or what you were doing.”

  “Mm. I can do better than very nice.”

  “Oh. Can you?” She released
a short burst of air to prepare herself. “You won’t mind, then, if I spontaneously combust?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Not only won’t I mind,” he said, bending to her breast again, “I’ll be flattered.”

  “Ooh!” Every muscle in her body contracted as his teeth closed lightly over her nipple and tugged. It happened again when he captured her other breast in exactly the same manner.

  When he released her wrists, her hands flew to his head. Her fingers twisted his hair, threaded together, and kept him exactly where he wanted to be.

  Neither of them paid the least attention to the oil lamp fixed to the shelf above the bed until it guttered. Shadows flickered wildly on the wall for a few moments before the flame was extinguished. Their room was thrown into darkness, not as absolute as Comfort had experienced in the cellar of the concert saloon but near enough that she tensed and clutched Bode’s shoulders.

  He gently removed her hands and propped himself on an elbow. “Give it a minute,” he said. “And then tell me if you want me to light the lamp.”

  She did as he asked. He lifted one of her hands and placed the palm over his heart. He held it there. She felt the steady beat, much calmer than her own. She kept her eyes on his face, and gradually she began to make out his precisely carved features. Moonlight cast his face in silver-blue relief. He’d been twenty-three when she’d first seen him, younger than she was now, but oh, so much older than that. She remembered how he stood at the back of the salon during her coming-out party, remote and unapproachable in his blue custom-made regimental uniform. The party must have seemed so silly to him. A young girl’s introduction to society; his introduction to war. She didn’t know how he bore it. She’d hated it, too, right up until the moment Bram asked her to dance.