Kissing Comfort (52 page)

Bode's eyes traveled to the foot of the bed, where an extra quilt lay teetering on the edge in a rumpled mound. He stretched his leg, pushed, and it slid out of view. He stared at the door, listening. When a long minute passed and he heard nothing, he lowered his elbow, and finally his head.

Comfort was turned on her side away from him. He edged close and matched her position. Once they were spooned, he slipped an arm around her waist. She didn't stir.

His nostrils caught the subtle fragrance of mint in her hair. He brushed the back of her head with his mouth, pressing the lightest of kisses against her. Only a few hours had passed since she'd done the same to him. Every time she touched him with her lips, it was as if a bumblebee alighted. He could almost feel the vibration of delicate wings. He never knew if she'd sip his skin like nectar or sting him just a little with her teeth. He anticipated both and found acute pleasure in either.

She'd moved slowly over his chest, teasing and tormenting him on her way across his abdomen, past his navel, and then following the coppery arrow of hair all the way to his groin. Every part of him contracted now as he remembered how she'd taken him in her mouth. He could still feel her there, hot and humid, her tongue sweeping around his erection, the suck of her mouth drawing him in. He'd had to revise his opinion of what constituted carnal torture, because whatever she'd done before hadn't been that. Not really.

He smiled his guarded, secretive smile and touched it to Comfort's hair again. It was her smile anyway, the one she owned because she knew how to ease it out of him. He closed his eyes and saw her again as she had been so many years ago at her coming-out, her fingers fluttering against her nape, twisting and tugging on the loose strands, anchoring them back into place with her comb. He wondered if she'd glimpsed his smile on that occasion. It had been hers even then.

Bode sat up suddenly. Squinting, he stared at the nightstand, looking for the one thing he hadn't seen earlier: the red-and-white tin. It was gone. He gently searched out Comfort's hands and made certain she wasn't holding it. When he couldn't find it, he patted the area around her. He finally risked waking her by leaning far over her so he could see the floor beside the table. He couldn't make out the familiar shape anywhere.

“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily, batting him away.

Bode didn't answer. He rolled out of bed on his side and went around to hers. Kneeling, he slipped a hand under the table and began searching. A moment later, he did the same under the bed.

Comfort moved closer to the edge of the mattress and watched him from under heavily lidded eyes. “Bode?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you lose something?”

“I don't know.” The sweep of his hand brought him nothing. He lay on the floor and peered under the bed. Except for Comfort's slippers, which he lifted and shook out, there was nothing there. He sat up and raised himself to his haunches. He was eye to sleepy eye with Comfort. “Did you do something with your tin?”

“No. It's right there.” She glanced at the bedside table. “There.” She raised a hand and patted the tabletop. Her fingers found the cuticle stick and nudged the lamp. They did not touch the tin. Comfort's sleep-worn expression faded in advance of her troubled one. “I put it there. I had it earlier today, but I put it back. It was there when I—”

“I know. I saw it when I came in.”

“What happened to it?”

“I don't know. It's what I'm looking for.”

She pushed herself up and opened the drawer in the table. She took out a box of matches. Bode lifted the glass globe so she could light the lamp. They both blinked rapidly against the burst of fire from the match head. He replaced the globe, and she blew out the match.

Bode stood, raised the lamp, and looked around. Comfort also surveyed the room. After a few minutes spent in this fruitless activity, he returned the lamp to the table and glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes after three.

Comfort had followed his eyes to the clock. It made no sense to her that he was awake. Certainly the missing tin wasn't responsible for that. “What woke you?”

“I don't know. Something . . . a sound, I think.” He walked to the window, knelt on the bench, and parted the curtains. It was raining lightly. The nightscape darkened as the fingernail moon slipped behind a cloud. “It might have been the rain.” He let the curtains fall back into place and walked to the door. He was still several feet away when he stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?” asked Comfort.

“I'm not sure.” He lifted one bare foot and touched the bottom of it. His sole was damp. “Will you bring the lamp?”

She threw back the covers and quickly joined him, holding the light where he directed. He pointed to the hardwood floor beyond the edge of the rug. Beads of water trapped the lamplight. “Are those footprints?” she asked.

“Yes.” He turned and studied the patterned area rug, but evidence that someone had crossed it in shoes wet with rain was impossible to see. It didn't matter. The best evidence that someone had been in their room was the missing tin. Bode went to the door, opened it, and stepped into the hallway. He held out his hand for the lamp.

Comfort shook her head. “I'm going with you.”

He didn't absolutely need the lamp. The hallway had several gaslights that he could have turned up. She realized it as well but stood there anyway, feet firmly planted until he decided to move. Once he did, she'd follow. “Very well,” he said quietly. “But stay behind me.”

“As long as you stay ahead of me.” She pretended she didn't hear his exasperated sigh and held the lamp out to the side so it would benefit both of them.

Droplets of water were scattered at odd intervals on the floor as though they'd been shaken off the sleeve of a jacket or the hemmed edge of a trouser leg. There was only the occasional stamp of a shoe. The prints they saw were heading in the direction they were coming from. There were none that revealed the return trip. Bode realized the rug had absorbed the last bit of water from the shoes. They could learn where the person had entered the house but not how he left.

Or even if he had.

Bode traced the intruder's steps all the way to an open window in the conservatory. He removed the rod that kept the window in the raised position and closed it. “I think it's safe to assume he came in this way. I doubt anyone could have heard him.”

“Do you think he's gone?”

He chose honesty over false reassurance. “I can't answer that until we search the house. We need to rouse the staff and your uncles. Get everyone to start looking.”

She nodded. “I'll wake Newt and Tuck. You can—” She stopped because he was shaking his head.

“We'll go together,” he said. “I'm not letting you out of my sight.”

Comfort didn't argue. She touched the sleeve of his nightshirt. “Do you think it was Crocker?”

“Possibly.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking. “Probably. Him, or someone working for him. Rangers. Maybe Pinks.” He could see that she was prepared to ask more questions. “I don't know the purpose behind it, and I don't know why he'd lift your tin except that he carries the same kind of lozenges. That's what you wanted to know, isn't it?”

“Yes.” She released his sleeve. “We should go.”

“Now you're reading
my
mind.”

In ten minutes the house was filled with activity. Bode organized the servants to search in pairs, and every pair had a specific part of the house to walk through. Newt and Tuck carried guns they cleaned regularly since the war with Mexico but hadn't fired in more than a decade, and the cook had her meat cleaver, but everyone else was unarmed. With people tiptoeing around the house and then jumping at shadows, Bode would have preferred that Newt and Tuck and Mrs. Hilliard had never picked up their weapons. He kept Comfort at his side with Suey Tsin and Samuel Travers hovering nearby.

The search went on for more than a half hour. When the clock in the entrance hall struck four, everyone moved to the front parlor to report that they'd found nothing and no one. Tuck dismissed the servants. They were reluctant to return to their quarters until Newt barked at them. They scattered like rabbits after that.

Tuck set his gun on the mantelpiece and quietly urged Newt to do the same. Newt didn't realize he was holding his .44 caliber Walker Colt aloft until Tucker stared pointedly at it. He slowly lowered his arm, and his grimace transformed into something approximating sheepishness. He put his weapon on an end table and dropped on the sofa.

“I don't know about the rest of you,” Newt said, “but I could use a drink.”

Comfort started to move to the sideboard, but Tuck put out his hand and forestalled her. “I'll get it,” he said. “Anyone else?”

Bode declined. So did Comfort.

Tuck nodded. “We've done everything we can for now. There's no point in the two of you staying here and watching Newt and me drink our nerves steady. Go on back to bed.”

Comfort saw that Bode was trying to gauge Tuck's sincerity. She took him by the arm. “He means it,” she said. “He wants us to go.” She released him long enough to kiss her uncles good night and then led him out the door. “They'll have one drink, and then they'll take turns standing guard until morning. It's what they did when we lived in the mining camp. It's how they looked out for me. Some things don't change.”

Bode glanced back just before he closed the door. “Thank God.”

Tuck waited until he heard Comfort and Bode on the stairs before he spoke. “Did we do right by not telling them where we went after dinner? Could be that what we did provoked someone.”

“You mean Crocker,” Newt said. “I thought of that. Figured we'd talk about it and then decide if we should tell Bode tonight or let him find out in the morning like we planned.”

Tuck perched on the wide arm of an overstuffed chair. He took a swallow of his drink. “I'm inclined that it will go better if Bode learns we made an offer on Black Crowne from Mr. Bancroft. Bode's not likely to be grateful for our interference. Mostly he'll see us as the lesser of two evils. He might not accept what we're offering. The man's prideful.”

“I suppose we have to hope that doesn't get in the way of his good sense. We don't exactly employ men like Crocker when there's a debt outstanding.”

“Maybe we should. Bram DeLong makes a powerful case for it. Or am I the only one tempted to go after the leg that's not broken?”

“Thought about it myself, and I wouldn't be surprised if Bode did.” Smiling narrowly, Tuck raised his drink in a mocking salute. “Do you suppose Bancroft might have told Crocker that he got a better offer? Try to sweeten the pot?”

“After we asked him to keep it confidential?” Newt snorted derisively. “Sure he might've. I always figured there was less honor among bankers than among thieves. There'd be plenty of folks that'd fail to make a distinction between the two.”

Tucker didn't disagree. He glanced toward the window. Rain drummed steadily against the glass, streaking it like acid etchings. “What do you make of Comfort's tin disappearing?”

“Don't know. That's a puzzle. It'll probably turn up when she's on her way to looking for something else.”

“I've been thinking that she did all right without it while she was with Bode, but did you notice this afternoon when he wasn't around how she kept twisting it in her hands? I'm surprised she ever put it down, and I can't recall that she's ever misplaced it.”

Newt couldn't remember that happening either. “Well, Bode's with her. That should help if she gets all pins and needles about not having it.”

Tuck nodded. “So. Are we going to tell Bode or—” He stopped, his attention arrested by something he heard outside the window. He caught Newt's eye. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Tuck set his drink down and got to his feet. He motioned to Newt to stay where he was. He took his Walker Colt from the mantel on his way to the window. If someone was out there looking in, he wanted it known that he had a gun.

Newt inched forward on the sofa. He put his tumbler on the table and let his hand hover over his military revolver. “I hear thunder,” Newt said quietly.

“I hear it, too. This was different.” He approached the window from the side and tried to peer out. Most of what he could see at first was a reflection of the room. He stood perfectly still and tried to look beyond it. There was a disturbance in the rhododendrons. The rain beat the oblong, leathery leaves hard enough to make them scrape against the granite sill and the lowest panes of glass.

Tuck waited. The bush shifted suddenly; the leaves rattled against the side of the house like bony fingers. Tuck jumped back as the ginger kitchen cat leapt out of the bush and onto the sill. The tom let out a cry that alerted every feline on Nob Hill that he was on the prowl.

“Damnation!” Tuck lowered his gun. He tapped the window with the nose of the gun and startled the cat. “Serves you right,” he said when the cat hurtled off the sill and over the bush. “I could've shot you.”

Newt let his gun stay where it lay and picked up his drink. He didn't try to pretend he wasn't amused when Tucker turned around. “Seems like you've got another reason to want to kill that cat.”

Tucker merely grunted. He returned his gun to the mantel and took up his perch on the chair. He picked up his drink and knocked back what remained in the glass. “At least I know my hearing's as sharp as it ever was.”