Kissing Comfort (6 page)

“Nothing. That is, nothing that matters. A stray thought, is all. My mind wanders.”

“Yes, it does,” she said.

Bram heard no accusation in her tone, only acceptance. Was that how she did it? he wondered. Did she make a man better by embracing who he was until he expected something more of himself?

“You're really very lovely, Comfort,” he said, and realized he meant it.

“Pretty compliments?” she asked, her indifferent tone at odds with the creeping color in her cheeks. “Save them for someone who will truly have you, Bram. You know I am not that woman.”

Bode stood back from the mirror and regarded his reflection critically. Travers had done what he could to make the evening clothes presentable, but a thorough brushing had not removed all of the mud spatter from the trousers or erased the dark droplets of blood near the collar of his starched linen shirt. Travers had also drawn a hot bath for him, and while the soak and scrubbing helped revive him to a near human state and eased the stiffness in his back, it couldn't erase the swollen and blackening eye or the scalp wound.

“Get me one of Bram's shirts,” he said. “I can't wear this.” He started to shrug out of his jacket, grimaced, and murmured his thanks when Travers stepped forward to help him. “You don't think I should join the party, do you?”

“It's not for me to say.”

There was no mistaking that it was a tart reply, and Bode noticed that Bram's valet was careful to avoid eye contact. That was answer enough. “I imagine I'll never be forgiven for leaving you behind when I moved out.”

“No, sir.”

Chuckling, Bode began unbuttoning his shirt while Travers placed the jacket over the back of a chair. “That's more like it. I value your opinion, you know.”

A proper valet might have offered a haughty sniff. Travers snorted. He was a small, wiry man who had once moved through the rigging of the majestic Black Crowne clippers with the agility of a monkey. The collapse of a burning mast had crushed his right leg some fifteen years earlier, and while there were those who said he'd been fortunate not to lose it, he still chafed at the brace that helped support his weight and often wondered if he'd have been better off with a peg. He knew men who still worked the ships with a peg. The brace made him ungainly. Worse, it made him rattle. He remembered what it was like to move with the stealth of fog. Now his comings and goings were announced by creaks and clanks, and no amount of oil to the hinges silenced all that racket at once.

Bode's fingers paused on the last button. “You heard Bram's engaged?”

“I heard.”

“What do you think?”

Travers lifted an eyebrow. “I think you might have left it to too late. That's what comes of taking care of everyone but yourself.” He pointed to Bode's swollen eye. “Look at what you have to show for it. Bram's stealing Comfort and you're getting none.”

Bode supposed he deserved the opinion he asked for. “She loves him.”

“Of course she does. Bram wouldn't have it any other way.”

Bode shrugged out of his shirt. “She might even be good for him.”

“No doubt about it. Still, I had it in my mind that you need her more.”

It wasn't a new idea to Bode either. He said nothing.

“And would be better for her, too.” Grinning widely, Travers held out one hand for Bode's shirt. “This is for the rag bin.” He swung around, dragging his leg slightly.

“I have a plan, Sam.”

Samuel Travers paused and rubbed his bony chin with his knuckles. “Never occurred to me that you didn't. You always were a real good thinker, Bode.”

Bode gave him a pointed look and gestured toward the door. “The shirt, Sam.” It wasn't until Travers was gone that Bode allowed himself the indulgence of a sympathetic smile. He'd known when he left home that he was abandoning the man who had mentored him more than his own father, but leaving Sam behind had been done for a purpose. Bram needed mentoring now, although judging by tonight's behavior, Bode had good reason to wonder how much his younger brother was open to influence.

He leaned toward the mirror and examined the cut on his scalp. Ruffling his thick, dark copper hair around the wound, he attempted to hide it. His mother would notice, though perhaps the other guests wouldn't look past his eye.
That
was going to be a shiner. He only remembered having had one like it before, and he'd been about twelve on that occasion. At least he'd been proud of that one, earned as it was for defending Bram from a trio of bullies. That was twenty years and three thousand miles ago. Most often the score of years seemed less distant than the geography. He was still looking out for Bram.

Travers's return brought Bode out of his reverie. He accepted help slipping into the shirt and put up with Travers fussing about the fit of the jacket until the valet began making soft clucking noises. Stepping away from the mirror's unforgiving reflection, Bode put out a hand.

“Enough,” he said. “There's no more that can be done. Certainly no one's going to blame you if I'm turned out like a sow's ear instead of a silk purse.”

“A lot you know. Your mother will say I shouldn't have turned you out at all. Send for the doctor, that's what she'll want to do.”

“Well, there are probably three of them downstairs, so it's more likely I'll be trampled when they rush forward to do her bidding.”

“There is that.” The momentary gleam in his eye said that he approved. Sobering, he looked Bode over, and then tilted his head toward the door. “Go on. Have a care you don't upset your mother more than you can help it.”

As advice went, it was exactly what Bode knew he needed to hear.

 

 

Alexandra DeLong captured Comfort as soon as Bram released her at the end of the waltz. She crooked a finger at her son and kept him from slinking off. “Come with me, both of you. There are still more guests that want to congratulate you, and I won't have you slipping away again either alone or together. Do neither one of you have any sense of what is expected?”

Very much afraid that Bram would be unable to conceal his amusement, Comfort did not hazard a glance in his direction. Alexandra was a formidable presence, a force of nature on the order of earthquakes and tidal waves, and she did not suffer anyone opposing her for long. Determined and forthright, she made her opinions known, and for those who lacked her clarity of purpose or principle, she was entirely capable of making her opinion theirs.

Comfort dutifully allowed herself to be moved through the guests lined six and seven deep close to the ice sculpture and lemonade drinks fountain and deposited next to her uncles. Their expressions told her they'd been swept up in Alexandra's wake as well.

“Apparently we haven't accepted everyone's best wishes,” Tucker whispered as Comfort leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

When she did the same to Newt, he said, “If I die right here, don't let them bury me with this idiotic smile on my face.”

Comfort tamped her own smile as she turned to offer herself for Alexandra's inspection. At her side, she felt Bram's fingers close over two of hers and squeeze gently. Comfort had always suspected that Bram might be a little afraid of his mother, and she accepted that his gesture was as much to steady his own nerves as it was to steady hers. She'd never told him that while she sometimes stood in awe of Alexandra Crowne DeLong, she wasn't afraid of her.

Alexandra looked over her impromptu receiving line with the gimlet eye of a shipmaster examining his crew. Behind her, the ice sculpture at the center of the fountain dripped steadily, but its shape was still recognizable as the flagship of the Black Crowne fleet, the
Artemis Queen
. Alexandra might have been the inspiration for its figurehead. She stood like the immortal huntress, shoulders back, chin up, prepared to challenge anyone who did not meet her approval. At fifty, she was a handsome woman, though in her youth she had never been beautiful or even what passed for pretty. She'd once confided to Comfort that she'd grown into her features, and given the length of her nose, the narrowness of her face, and the bony definition of her jaw, it was the best she could hope for.

Her hair was her vanity. Thick and lustrous, it was a deep shade of red and only beginning to reveal threads of silver. For tonight, it had been arranged in a smooth coil and artfully accented with white rosebuds. More rosebuds, this time in silk, trimmed the tiered flounces of her ball dress.

“You'll do,” she said at last. She speared Newt with a second glance. “Stop fussing with your collar.”

Newt's hand dropped to his side with such alacrity that even Alexandra was moved to smile.

Inclining her head toward him, she said quietly, “Ask Bram for the name of his tailor. A thick-necked man like yourself can benefit from a good fitting.” She straightened, nodded her approval a second time, and moved into position beside her son. Almost immediately there were guests advancing on them.

Comfort, suddenly recalling Bode's description of the young ruffians as a swarm of locusts, had an urge to take a step back. These people were much better dressed, but Comfort believed they were capable of picking her bones clean, even if they'd leave her pockets untouched. A sideways glance at her uncles warned her they felt similarly, and probably weren't as confident that their pockets were safe.

Feeling every bit the pretender she was, Comfort nevertheless managed to accept the kind sentiments expressed by Alexandra's guests. While her response tended to be reserved, she couldn't help noticing that Bram was considerably more at his ease, cheerfully managing the fraud as though it were sport. She was not endeared.

Had she not been so aware of his good humor, Comfort wouldn't have sensed the change in him as quickly as she did. It was not a difference of tone or manner, but one of temperature. Where their fingers touched, his had gone cold. She was still trying to think what to make of it when the orchestra abruptly stopped playing.

Her attention, like everyone else's in the room, was drawn to the cause of the disruption. Bram's fingers threaded in hers, and this time it seemed to Comfort that he wasn't offering what might pass for encouragement. It seemed, rather, that he was clutching her.

Perhaps he was, she thought. His brother looked like hell as he straightened from having the violinist's ear. Whatever efforts Bode took to make himself presentable, they weren't sufficient. On the other side of Bram, Comfort heard Alexandra inhale sharply. This was followed by a similar intake of breath from many of the female guests. To Comfort, it seemed as if the air had been sucked out of the salon. Seeing Arleta Ogden weave unsteadily, she supposed it was a good thing Bode took the time to scrub away the blood. There might have been fainting otherwise.

Comfort was tempted to curl her lip at Miss Ogden's dramatics. Instead, she remained politely fixed on Bode as he prepared to address his mother's guests. She felt certain that she knew what he was about to say. Her lips moved around the word even as he spoke it.

“Surprise.”

And just like that, there was air to breathe. Bode's voice might have been a stone skipping across the glassy surface of a pond. Tension broken, light laughter rippled through the salon. Even Alexandra was able to give up a faint smile. Bram's hand felt warm again.

“I apologize for the lateness of my arrival,” Bode said. He pointed to his swollen eye. “I don't know what explains this except for the lowering truth that I should not go poking around my own warehouse with a walking stick and no lantern when there are boxes and barrels so precariously stacked that a mother cat and a litter of kittens can push them down on my head.”

Comfort blinked. The lowering
truth
? What happened to the Rangers and the ruffians? She watched as Bode scanned the gathering with his good eye. Before she could look away, he found her. He only held her gaze for a moment, but she knew a warning when she was given one. Bode's cautions were as sharp as darts. He'd learned something about a gimlet-eyed stare from his mother and showed he could use it to good effect.

“Please,” he said, gesturing to the musicians to pick up their instruments. “I hope you will forgive the interruption and go on as you have. It seemed prudent to make one explanation rather than dozens.”

“More like a hundred,” Newt said in an aside to Tucker. It came out more loudly than he'd intended, but then again, he was a thick-necked man and had a voice that touched all the bass notes before it left his lips. He smiled unapologetically as Alexandra turned a disapproving eye on him.

“Thank you, Mr. Prescott,” Bode said. “It is easily a hundred.” As though in sympathy, he mirrored Newt's unconscious gesture of tugging on his collar. He was glad for an excuse to do it, because Bram's shirt was an uncomfortably close fit. “And nearing a hundred degrees. Let's open the doors, shall we? Mother? You don't object?”

Alexandra capitulated graciously. “Whatever you like, Bode. It's your birthday.”

“Well then, I do like.” He extended his hand toward her. “Will you take the floor with me?” When she nodded, he stepped forward to go to her. Guests parted for him. He permitted Alexandra a moment to frown and fuss as she examined his face before he took her arm and led her into the clearing made for them. “Everyone,” he called out just as the music began. “Pretend you've wished me happy and go about the important business of enjoying yourself.”

Comfort watched Alexandra as Bode turned her on the floor. Her smile was unrestrained and her skin fairly glowed. She looked a decade younger than her fifty years.