Kissing Comfort Read online

  Her eyes widened a little. “Thank you, then, for letting me do it myself.” She arranged the sheet so she could sit comfortably. She thought Bode looked as if he was holding his breath waiting for the knot to slip. She patted the back of his hand as she sat. “I made a decent hitch. It’s not going to come undone.”

  “You’re telling me not to hope.”

  Comfort pulled the plate with the sliced biscuit on it toward her. “I’m telling you the knot is going to stay precisely where it is. Whether you continue to hope for a different outcome is up to you.” She picked up the honey pot and used the stick to drizzle some over the face of both biscuit halves. She heard Bode chuckle and smiled to herself as she lifted a biscuit to her mouth. She tasted honey first, and then the rich, flaky dough of the biscuit melted on her tongue. “Exquisite.”

  “Mr. Henry will be pleased to hear it,” Bode told her. He poured a mug of coffee for her and set the cup beside her plate. “He’s in charge of the galley on the Demeter Queen.”

  “Was he at the saloon?”

  “Yes. Outside, though. With the ladder.”

  Comfort nodded. With credible calm, she said, “Then I have reason to thank him twice.” She took a second bite of biscuit before she set it down and picked up the mug. “Tell me how you won the lottery.”

  Bode raised his knee again and rested his mug on top of it. “At the outset, I thought there might be a demand for ransom, and I told Newton and Tucker they would have to put together money sufficient to meet it. None of us could guess what the Rangers would ask for, and your uncles couldn’t set a limit on what they were willing to pay, so I finally set the figure myself at ten thousand, but told them to be prepared to pay more.”

  Comfort gaped at him.

  “When no demand came in those early hours after you were abducted, I sent the crew out at dusk. The first rumors the men heard were about an auction. They knew that it involved a white woman, not a China girl or a Negress. No one was certain it was you, but the speed with which the event was being organized made all of us think it must be. The men learned the location quickly enough, but there was no information about you being held in the same place. We had to wait. All of the plans involved Mr. Farwell making the winning bid. No one knew it would be a lottery until the announcement was made. John carried in money sufficient for his bid.”

  “Surely not ten thousand dollars.”

  “No. No single person could have taken in that much money and kept the Rangers in the crowd from seeing it. It was divided among the men. When they realized it was a lottery, they all bought tickets.”

  Comfort swallowed. “So any one of them could have won.”

  “Anyone could have won, but Newton told me later that given the number of my men in the crowd and the amount of money they had to spend, the odds were almost seventeen to one in favor of someone from Black Crowne holding the winning ticket.”

  It still made her shudder. What if it had been the one?

  “Think of something else,” Bode said, guessing that the thing that occupied her mind was the same as what occupied his. There was no question that she was sitting beside him now because they’d gotten lucky.

  “All right,” she said, nodding slowly. “Tell me how I came to be in bed with you.”

  “That’s easier to explain. You insisted.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Comfort decided she would always be suspicious of Bode’s answer, so the only sensible thing to do was not dwell on it. She had no memory of asking—demanding, according to him—that he stay with her. It might have been easier to accept if he’d led her to believe she wanted him there because she was afraid to be left alone. That would have been difficult to hear, but she’d have understood it better than being told she clung to him like a Barbary Coast whore to a sailor with five dollars in his pocket.

  Of course, he’d said, “like a limpet to a rock,” but she knew what he meant. He reminded her that she’d been drugged, as if that was supposed to ease her mind. That was why she concluded the better course was to remain suspicious. Otherwise, she had to accept that the responsibility for all that followed sat squarely on her shoulders. It was a considerable burden.

  After she ate, she dressed in the apple green walking dress that Suey Tsin had carefully packed for her, fixed her hair in a simple plait that she tied off with a matching grosgrain ribbon, and presented herself to Bode for inspection before she met the shipmaster and crew.

  “Very nice.” He watched the way her hand fluttered to the nape of her neck. If she’d wound her hair in a chignon, there would already be several curling tendrils slipping out of it. “You don’t have to be nervous.”

  “I know I don’t have to be,” she said, annoyed. “I just am. Bode, the last time these men saw me, I was—” She stopped. She didn’t want to think about it, let alone say it aloud. When he opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head, holding him off. “It’s all right. I’m ready to go.”

  He took her arm. “You’ll meet Mr. Douglas first. The men will come by as they’re able after that. You can stand between Nathan and me and greet them.”

  “A receiving line. I can do that.”

  There’d never been a question in Bode’s mind.

  Nathan Douglas made Comfort feel at ease almost at once. He reminded her a little of Uncle Newton, with his broad brow and silver-flecked black hair. His eyes were blue, not green, but they were kind, and they looked at her directly. If he was recalling anything he’d seen from the evening before, it wasn’t showing on his face. He didn’t regard her with pity, or worse, embarrassment. He took her hand, bowed his head over it, and then enthusiastically welcomed her aboard the Demeter Queen.

  “She’s the goddess of the harvest, Demeter is. And that’s what this queen carries, plenty of bounty. We’ve got rum and other fine spirits, machine parts, steel, and finished hard and soft goods, all of it going to Hong Kong or Shanghai.”

  Comfort’s head snapped around to Bode. “We’re going to China?”

  “No. Demeter Queen is. The Artemis Queen was supposed to have reached San Francisco by now, but we know from a report by a master on one of the Barclay merchants that the Artemis came across high seas and took on some water and damage that put her behind schedule. She’s limping in, but as long as she’s true to her course, we’ll meet her in a week, three at the most. Demeter will pull alongside and we’ll board her.”

  He saw that Comfort was still skeptical. It seemed to be in her nature today, because she hadn’t believed what he’d told her about not allowing him to leave her bed either. He crossed his heart. “You’re not being shanghaied. It will be fine.”

  “Does boarding her involve walking a plank between two rolling ships?”

  Mr. Douglas inserted himself into the discussion. “Now, Miss Kennedy, I’m going to keep the Demeter riding the water as smoothly as a lily pad floating on a pond.”

  For his benefit, she smiled. “May I depend on it, Mr. Douglas?”

  Following Bode’s example, the shipmaster crossed his heart.

  Comfort appreciated the gesture. The simplicity of it calmed her and made her introduction to the crew less difficult than she’d imagined it would be. It’s only difficult if you decide it is. She had just finished thanking Mr. Tapper Stewart when those words came back to her. They prompted her to firmly press her elbow into Bode’s side.

  “What was that for?” he asked out of the side of his mouth as Tapper moved on.

  “For being right.”

  “Then I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.”

  “Unlikely.” She turned politely to the next man who stepped up to meet her and thanked him warmly.

  And so it went.

  There was a long bench upholstered in dark emerald velvet beneath a bank of windows in the stateroom. Comfort pushed several plush pillows with gold tassels into one corner of the bench and sat down with her back against them. She opened the book Mr. Douglas had given her, an impossibly romantic adventure of treachery
and revenge that she’d read several times but never tired of, and ran her fingers across the frontispiece. The illustration showed Edmond Dantès surrounded by his newfound treasure, in deep contemplation of how to make it best serve his purpose.

  She was well into the first chapter when Bode returned. She motioned him over and flipped back to the frontispiece, holding up the illustration for him to see.

  “Yes?” he asked after looking it over.

  “It made me think of you.”

  He studied it again but could see no similarities between him and the soon-to-be Count of Monte Cristo. “Do you believe I’m that wealthy?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that isn’t it regardless. I thought you might have looked like this, sitting on piles of my uncles’ money and plotting my rescue and our revenge.” His shout of laughter made her flinch. With some dignity, she said, “I guess not.”

  Although the bench was long enough that they could have sat at either end and extended their legs toward the middle and still not tapped toes, Bode nevertheless made her draw up her knees so he could sit where her feet had been. He plucked the book from her hands and put it on the other side of him.

  “Your uncles brought the money to the ship in three large black leather valises. No chests. And we didn’t take it out until we were ready to distribute it. As for your rescue, that was already plotted, and this is the first I’m hearing about revenge.”

  “Isn’t there going to be any?”

  “We recovered you and almost all of the money during the brawl. There’s a certain amount of revenge in that, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I suppose, especially about the money since that’s what the Rangers wanted all along.” She expected Bode to nod his head or say something that encouraged her to think along those lines. What he did was wince. It was barely perceptible, but not for a moment did she think she’d imagined it. “That’s right, isn’t it? They wanted money.”

  “Yes, they wanted money.”

  Comfort regarded him through eyes that had narrowed. “But?”

  “Hm?”

  Now he was being evasive. She wondered how he was able to meet her eyes so candidly and still be cagey. “Tell me,” she said. “There’s something else. What is it?”

  Bode set a hand on her knee. He used his other hand to run four furrows through his hair. “It’s almost unheard of for the Rangers to be active outside of the Barbary Coast, and while they can commit crimes with impunity on Pacific Street, they typically don’t begin their reign of terror until nightfall. So, you see, they went out of their way, well beyond their usual sphere of influence, and in broad daylight, to attack your carriage. They wanted money, yes, but you were their specific target. Their only target. Ransom should have been enough; there must have been a reason they didn’t ask for it.”

  He gave Comfort’s knee a gentle squeeze. She was frowning deeply, more confused than concerned. She needed to understand before she could begin to worry.

  “I can’t be certain, Comfort, but I believe the Rangers were acting on someone else’s behalf. Carrying out orders, if you will. It explains why they were willing to go outside of the Coast. Someone was making good on a threat, but he couldn’t do it alone. He used the Rangers. They would have been paid well for abducting you, and that money would likely have changed hands the moment they closed the cellar door on you.”

  “But the lottery. They were trying to raise money.”

  “I don’t think the lottery was meant to make money for them. That was someone else’s idea. The Rangers deal in auctions, and no auction in the Barbary Coast could have reasonably been expected to bring more than a few hundred dollars.”

  “Your men had one hundred times that.”

  “No one knew that. If there’d been an auction, Mr. Farwell could have probably won you for as little as seventy dollars. But the lottery, and the number of times they would have run it that night, would have raised thousands as word spread and men with all of twenty dollars to their name came calling. The crew didn’t spend every dollar on the first round of tickets.” He paused, pained to have to say it. “They couldn’t.”

  Comfort thought she understood. “I suppose if none of them had their ticket pulled in the first round, they needed to have money for the second.”

  Bode nodded faintly. Just the possibility that that could have been the outcome made his stomach clench.

  Comfort realized she was able to put it behind her more easily than he was. He looked as if he’d been gut-punched. She caught his eye. “You said someone was carrying out a threat. Do you have any idea who that is?”

  “No. Not one.”

  “Do you know who was being threatened? If you’re right, and I was used to make a point that threats would be carried out, then it must be very personal. It’s a short list of people that would be affected by my abduction.”

  “I know.”

  “You must have considered it. You’ve speculated about everything else.”

  “I have, but I’d rather not say.”

  She rubbed her temple. The seeds of a headache were being sown. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Unmoved, Bode shrugged.

  “It’s not my uncles,” she said. “If that’s what you’re thinking and don’t want to say, you can put it from your mind. It’s a ridiculous idea. They don’t have the sort of enemies that would resort to heinous threats, and if they did, they would do whatever was necessary to keep me safe, even if that meant paying a blackmailer. When you asked them for money, did they hesitate?”

  “No, there was no hesitation.”

  “See?”

  Bode stood and went to the small drinks cabinet that Mr. Douglas always kept well stocked. He poured himself two fingers of scotch.

  Comfort recognized the delaying tactic for what it was. She let him go. Even if pressuring him didn’t go against her grain, responding to it went deep against his.

  “They were together,” Bode said.

  “What?”

  “Newton and Tucker. They were together when I asked for the money.”

  She stared at him blankly. “So?”

  “What if only one of them was threatened?”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible. They’re partners. They share an office. They do almost everything together. They always have.” Comfort couldn’t imagine it. “Goodness, Bode, sometimes they finish each other’s sentences.”

  He went on doggedly. “If only one of them was threatened, and didn’t tell the other, he couldn’t very well decline to give me the money without having to explain himself.”

  “You don’t know them. It wouldn’t matter if the threat were meant for only one or both of them; somehow it involved me, and that would have changed everything. I’m telling you, either of them would do anything to protect me.”

  “What if the threat wasn’t believed?”

  She put up her hands in surrender. “This has become ridiculous. For someone who didn’t want to share his speculations, you’re working very hard to convince me they’re right.”

  “You mentioned your uncles. I didn’t. And I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m still speculating, only this time out loud. Every possibility should be considered, even the ones that seem far-fetched. Ridiculous ideas can always be put to the side, but not entertaining them is reckless. Sometimes they’re the genesis of a better idea.”

  Quite suddenly, Comfort found herself recalling his drawing for the iron paddle steamer. It took her a moment to realize it was what he said that had sparked that memory, one notion igniting another. How many times had he reworked those plans, scratching out or erasing the ridiculous in favor of the better idea? It was in his nature to think in that fashion. Why would he try to look for answers to this problem in any other way?

  “Very well,” she said at last. “My uncles aren’t always together. Uncle Newton has a friend that he visits from time to time.”

  “I take it the fri
end is female.”

  “Mrs. Terry. She’s not his mistress. His visits are occasional, not regular. She’s a widow, a customer of the bank. She makes an appointment to see him, and sometimes they leave together. They’re discreet.”

  “Yet you know about it.”

  “Discreet is not the same as secretive. Uncle Newt never tried to pretend it was anything but what it was. My uncles enjoy the company of women. I’ve always understood that. They’re simply cautious about attaching themselves to a particular female.”

  “Except you.”

  Her smile was rueful. “Yes, you can say that. I think they could never decide what would become of me if one of them married. They’ve been together since the war with Mexico. If Uncle Newt married, it would have been as if he were divorcing Uncle Tuck. Who would then take responsibility for raising me?”

  “I don’t suppose they thought they could invite the new wife to live with you and them under one roof.”

  “I don’t know. It was never a discussion they had within my hearing.”

  Bode accepted that was true, and very unlike his mother and father, who’d had candid discussions at operatic levels that could not be ignored. When it came to their marriage and his father’s proclivity for stepping outside of it, Alexandra and Branford were neither discreet nor secretive for the benefit of their children.

  “What about Tucker Jones?”

  “There’s no woman friend now. He is even more wary of attachment than Newt. I think he favors a paid arrangement.” She added quickly, “Not anywhere in the Barbary Coast. There’s a house on Pine Street west of Powell that—”

  Bode nodded, interrupting. “Maggie Drummond’s establishment.”