Kissing Comfort (39 page)

Except now. Right now he felt as if his sea legs were failing. In his mind, he was lurching for the table. In reality, he only pivoted forty-five degrees and hitched a hip on it.

“I think you'd better explain that last remark,” he said. He was clutching each end of the towel a little more tightly than before, but his voice carried none of that tension.

“You were very clear that I wouldn't allow you to leave me alone.” She put out a hand, staving him off when he would have interrupted. “I know that's not what you said, but it's what I heard. And really, comparing me to a limpet and you to a rock flatters you rather more than it does me. I told myself I wouldn't dwell on it, but I am doing so. So there you have it. I'd like you to arrange for me to be able to sleep somewhere else.”

Bode nodded slowly. He stopped working the towel back and forth and crossed his arms over his chest instead. “This is really about what Mr. Henry said, isn't it? He called you Mrs. DeLong.”

“That's part of it, but so is the other. I behave differently when I'm around you. Out of character and contrary to the way my uncles raised me. They would be disappointed in me, but no more than I am disappointed in myself.” She set the book aside. “Perhaps if I
were
Mrs. DeLong . . .” She looked away, embarrassed that she'd said it aloud. It was difficult not to think about it since meeting Mr. Henry.

“But you are,” Bode said. “It's why I thought we should talk. Mr. Douglas performed the ceremony as soon as we reached open water.”

Comfort was quiet for so long that Bode wasn't certain she meant to speak at all. When she finally did, he wished the quiet had lasted longer.

“This changes everything,” she said, preternaturally calm.

“Yes,” he said. “It does.”

“You'll have to leave.”

“I don't understand.”

“I'm not sure how I can make it clearer, but let me try again. You must find other accommodations. I'm staying here.”

“I understood what you said,” Bode told her. “I don't understand why.”

“Then perhaps you're the one who should have been clearer.” She picked up her book, riffled the pages to find her place, and pretended to read. A pretense of reading was all that was possible, because she couldn't make out a single word for the red haze clouding her vision.

“Comfort.”

She ignored him.

Bode closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. When he opened his eyes again, she hadn't moved. He wondered if she had breathed. Her concentration was absolute, but it wasn't on the book. She was committed to ignoring him.

He dropped his hands to his side, lightly resting them on the table. “Please look at me.” She didn't, but he saw an almost imperceptible tightening of her fingers on the book and knew she heard him. He didn't ask her a second time to look at him. He went on as if she had. “Only minutes ago you started to say that if you
were
Mrs. DeLong . . . How did you mean to finish that sentence? That if you were my wife, things would be different? That you would no longer be disappointed in yourself? That sharing a bed would be right and proper?”

Bode stretched, reached for his jacket lying over the chair at the head of the table, and dragged it toward him. From an inside pocket, he pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded into thirds. “This is our marriage document. The ceremony was also recorded in the ship's log. It's a legal and binding contract between us, but I will destroy it if that's what you want. I'll remove the page from the log. I'll have the witnesses killed.”

Bode let his offer lie there for a long time, and then, when he was on the verge of speaking again, he decided to let it lie a bit longer. He was rewarded for his patience. Comfort didn't so much as glance in his direction, but she did speak.

“How many witnesses?”

“The entire crew was there.”

“And you'd have them all killed.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Henry?”

“Yes. I might begin with Mr. Henry.”

“Because he called me Missa DeLong.”

“That's right.”

Comfort closed the book and looked up at him. Her features were gravely set, her dark eyes only luminous when she angled her head and they reflected the light from the lamp. “It wasn't a new idea, Bode. Mr. Henry merely said it aloud. Can I assume you told everyone not to mention the ceremony?”

“Yes. This morning, I asked you what you remembered about last night. When I realized you had no recall of anything between leaving the saloon and waking up, I asked Mr. Douglas to tell the men not to say anything.”

“But you planned to tell me.”

It would have been hard to mistake her skepticism for anything but what it was. Bode absently turned the marriage paper over his hands. “Yes.”

“When?”

“I already said that. I was going to tell you tonight.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You were hoping I'd be asleep when you returned. You said as much when you came in.”

Bode couldn't remember what he'd said, but he had certainly thought it. “If you'd been sleeping, I would have told you in the morning.”

“Before or after I displayed my limpet-like qualities?”

“Don't say that, Comfort.”

“I didn't. You did.” She clutched the book hard against her midriff. Bode was eyeing her warily, but she had too much respect for books in general, and Edmond Dantès in particular, to throw it at him. “You are more like your brother than even I suspected.” She saw him flinch and realized she didn't have to throw the book to hit her target. “That paper you're holding means nothing, Bode. My engagement to Bram was more real, and it was a sham. At least he had the decency to make the announcement when I was fully conscious. It didn't seem as if I had any choice except to go along, but I know that's not true. As unpalatable as it was, I
had
a choice. You didn't give me that.” Her short laugh was bitter. “How many men were required to prop me up? Did I speak any vows? Did you?” She held up her left hand and examined it briefly. “There's no ring. I hadn't thought it possible for that paper to mean less than nothing, but without a ring, perhaps it does.”

Bode waited. If she wanted to say more, he would let her. He owed her that. Her hurt was palpable. It came at him in cold, unrelenting waves that he didn't try to avoid. He let the silence yawn again, until finally, quietly, he said, “There's a ring.”

She stared at him blankly. Color receded from her face.

“You took it off before you went to bed. It's where you left it. On the shelf above the bed, behind the lamp.” He made no move to get it, and neither did she. “My offer still stands, Comfort.” He held up the document in his hand. “I'll destroy it. Better yet, I'll let you destroy it. You can also remove the captain's log.”

“And kill the crew? That's for me to do as well?”

“If you like.”

The enormity of it all suddenly overwhelmed her. Comfort thrust the book away and turned her face to the wall. Tears welled. She dashed them with her fingertips, and when that proved inadequate to keep them from spilling over, she used the sleeve of her nightgown to swipe at her cheeks.

“Here.” Bode stood just behind her and offered his handkerchief.

Comfort didn't look back. She just held up her hand and let him press the handkerchief into her palm. Her fingers crumpled it into a ball that she held against each damp eye in turn.

“I don't like crying,” she said.

“I know.”

“I hardly ever do.” It was difficult to move words past the hard, aching lump in her throat. Swallowing only lodged it more deeply. Her voice rasped in a way that made her skin prickle. “But sometimes at night, when I dream, I do.”

Even though she couldn't see him, he nodded.

Comfort took a jerky breath. “Do you have the paper?”

“Yes. Right here.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course.” He wasn't surprised when she still didn't turn away from the wall. She swiped at her eyes again before she tucked the handkerchief under the gathered sleeve of her nightgown. When she reached over her shoulder, he slipped the document between her fingers.

Comfort held it in both hands. Her thumbs passed back and forth over the paper while she stared at it. She felt Bode's presence at her back, but he was quiet. If he wanted her to hurry, or if he was regretting giving it to her, he gave no indication either way.

There was a fine tremor in her fingers as she carefully unfolded the document. The record of her marriage had been made in plain language and neat script.

 

 

 

Below this announcement on the left was Mr. Douglas's copperplate signature. Under the master's name were two more signatures, one by James Jackson and the other a simple X with MR. HENRY neatly printed in parentheses beside it.

On the right side was Bode's bold scrawl, and just beneath, her own signature, written in a fine, precise hand that she could not mistake for anyone's but her own.

Comfort slowly released the breath she'd been holding. “I signed this,” she said.

It wasn't a question, but it seemed to Bode that she wanted confirmation anyway. “Yes, you did.”

“It doesn't look as if my hand was shaking.”

“If it was, you hid it well. You took considerable care with your signature.”

Now she glanced up at him over her shoulder. Her slim smile was rueful. “I don't usually. This is my practice hand. From childhood. You know, the one you use when you're learning to write, when you want every letter to be perfectly formed.”

Bode took a step back from the bench as Comfort turned around. She dropped her legs over the side, awkwardly tugging on her nightgown with one hand because she held their marriage record in the other.

“I think I must have been very drunk,” she said. “What do they say? Three sheets to the wind?”

“That's what they say.” He tore the towel from around his neck, tossed it on the bench, and hunkered down in front of her. “I had to sling you over my shoulder to get you out of the saloon. You couldn't walk, couldn't stand. Do you remember that?”

She shook her head. He might well have been talking about someone else, but in her heart she knew he was telling the truth. “I remember Mr. Farwell smashing the window. He was going to push me out.”

Bode's smile was wry. “I think he might have leaped first.” He sobered. “We had a wagon waiting. Mr. Henry stowed the ladder. I stowed you. You hardly stirred on the way back to the ship. I thought I was going to have to put you over my shoulder again, but by the time we reached the
Demeter
, you told me you were able to walk. You weren't steady—I had to keep a hand under your elbow—but you managed to board the ship without falling into the drink, and once we were on deck, you stopped weaving altogether.”

“How could you tell? The ship was rocking.”

“I know the difference. You had your balance back. The men started arriving, and I took you down to the stateroom. You sat just where you're sitting now, and you let me wash your hands and face, and get you out of John Farwell's jacket and the—”

“And that awful shift,” she said, closing her eyes a moment. “I let you take it off me.”

“You're remembering?”

“No.” She regarded him with sad, solemn eyes. “But I must have let you do it, because I wasn't wearing it this morning. I never thought about that before.”

She was fingering the paper. He wanted to stop her and take her hand. He didn't; he was still feeling his way. “I tried to leave. I wanted to go on deck, help the men, thank them for what they'd done. Only a few of them had seen you come aboard. I wanted to let them know you were recovering.”

“And I wouldn't let you leave?”

This time it was a question. “You wouldn't let me get to the door.” He watched her shoulders rise and fall, but her sigh was inaudible. “I made a decision, Comfort. I suppose we can debate how much it was influenced by what I wanted and how much you were pushing me in that direction.”

“Because I was clinging to you like a wet shirt.”

His brief, slim smile was wry. That sounded better than what either of them had said before. He wished he'd thought of it. “Something like that. If it matters, I didn't want to leave you either.”

It mattered. She pressed her lips together and willed her tears back.

Now Bode did reach for her. He put his hand over the one that was holding the evidence of their ceremony. “I
wanted
to marry you, Comfort. I saw an opportunity, and I took it.”

“You took advantage.”

“Yes. I told myself something different. I wanted to believe you were as aware as you seemed to be, and that what you agreed to was an act of conscience and consciousness, but I knew otherwise. Deep down, I knew. It was a carefully reasoned proposal. I told you that if I was going to stay with you, it had to be as your husband. I explained that the men hadn't rescued you just so I could win the lottery.” Bode watched an uneasy smile flicker across her lips. “I said your reputation would be ruined, and Newton and Tucker would be disappointed in both of us if you didn't marry me.”