Corbin's Fancy (12 page)

By the time Jeff produced the cold ham, biscuits, and cider that he’d brought back from town, she was ready to scratch his eyes out. She was hungry, though, having eaten nothing since the oatmeal at breakfast, so she sat down to share in the meal.

Looking a little less wan than he had that morning, Phineas was clearly enjoying the food. It occurred to
Fancy that his cider and Jeff’s contained some element that hers lacked, but she dismissed the thought. She was just feeling fitful, that was all—it had been a hard, confusing day.

Still, Jeff and Phineas seemed to get merrier with every cupful of cider they drank. They laughed uproariously and Phineas told outrageous stories about his travels in that cursed balloon.

“Can’t we talk about something else?” Fancy snapped, feeling left out.

Jeff slanted an unreadable look at her and asked Phineas an involved question about air currents. Phineas replied with a lengthy discourse and Fancy felt as though she’d been slapped. She set her plate down and scrambled to her feet, marching off toward the balloon.

Its hugeness shifted and whispered against the twilight skies, as if to taunt her. Drawing back one foot, she muttered an oath and kicked the wicker gondola soundly.

“You’re acting like a child,” observed a familiar voice from behind her.

Fancy whirled, the unaccountable tears that had been pressing toward the surface all day stinging in her eyes. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!” she cried.

Jeff smiled evilly and folded his arms across his broad chest. “You know what you need, Mrs. Corbin? A good, sound spanking.”

Fancy turned her back on him, too angry to speak. Then, after one look up at the balloon, with its mysterious valves and ropes, she kicked the gondola again.

Steel arms immediately closed around her waist, startling her and then stinging her to fury. Jeff lifted her
off the ground and carried her against one hip, as though she were no heavier than a valise.

Outraged and wildly embarrassed, she kicked and struggled against him. “You put me down—don’t you dare—”

He strode on, chuckling. “It’s time we had a little talk about who runs this family—darling.”

Fancy squirmed as the woods bounced nearer and nearer. She could hear a nightowl calling, hear the silky rustle of the stream. If he really chose to spank her, there wouldn’t be one wretched thing she could do about it, and the thought made her dizzy with fury. “If you lay one hand on me,” she warned, in jerky tones, “I’ll cut your liver out and feed it to Hershel!”

“Now, now, dearest,” Jeff chimed in retort, “don’t be vulgar.”

Vulgar! Fancy was screaming mad now—what right had he to call her vulgar!
He
was the one that was making a scene! “You b–bastard—”

Jeff walked faster, deliberately making Fancy’s unwilling ride that much rougher. Bushes snatched at her hair and clothes as they went closer to the stream. “I can see I’m going to have to take a firm hand with you,” he said, with mock ruefulness. “I like spirit in a woman, but disrespect is another matter entirely.”

He wasn’t even winded, damn him, and Fancy could barely catch her breath. She gave a strangled cry of helpless rage and then was summarily flung down onto the blankets where they had loved so ferociously the night before.

Jeff dropped to his haunches and uttered a thoughtful “Hmmm,” rubbing his chin with one hand.

Fancy half sat and half lay on the blankets, her breath tearing its way in and out of her lungs, scalded in her
own fury. Had she the necessary power, she would have attacked him with both feet and both fists, but she was too undone even to move.

Meanwhile, Jeff went on considering her punishment. “I could give you a paddling you’d never forget,” he speculated, his eyes on the trees and the pale, waning moon. Even though he was addressing his words to Fancy, she felt as though she’d suddenly become invisible. “Yes,” he ruminated, “I could sit down on that stump over there, throw up your skirts and pull down your drawers and give you to understand who is the husband around here—”

Fancy’s rage was settling into a heavy, delicious sort of terror. For all her brave words, she knew that his threat was not an idle one. “You w–wouldn’t—” she struggled to say.

The indigo eyes met hers with cordial warning. “Oh, but I would. It runs in my family, you know. And I’ve done it for much less reason than you just gave me.”

Fancy’s eyes rounded. “You have?”

“Oh, yes. Of course, I was never actually married to the women concerned, and that sheds a new light on the situation.”

Fancy hoped that light was merciful. “It does?” she choked out.

“It certainly does.”

“Oh,” said Fancy.

And suddenly he laughed.

Fancy knew then that he’d never intended to strike her, that he’d been teasing her all along, deliberately trying to scare her. The fact that he’d succeeded made her angrier than the threat itself. With a strength she’d never suspected she possessed, she bolted to her knees and thrust both her hands into Jeff’s chest, catching him
off guard and sending him rolling down the bank and into the stream. Of course the water wasn’t very deep there, but he came up sputtering and wet all the same.

Fancy inched backward on the blankets as he strode toward her, his face hidden in the lavender shadows of deepening twilight.

“On second thought—” he rumbled, capturing her shoulders and halting her crablike escape in virtually one motion.

“No!” Fancy howled.

But Jeff wrenched her to her feet and in a twinkling, it seemed, he was sitting on the aforementioned stump and hauling a stunned Fancy across his lap. She felt a chilly breeze as he flung up her skirts, an aching vulnerability as her drawers came down.

“No,” she said again, whimpering this time and squeezing her eyes shut in preparation.

But the stinging blow she’d expected never came. Instead, Jeff closed his hands around her waist and stood her upright. She stared at him for a moment and then reached down to pull up her drawers, her face flaming.

Jeff laughed at the inelegant little dance of the effort, and it was all she could do not to pull his hair out of his head. Only the realization that he might reconsider and spank her after all stayed her from doing just that.

She was tying her drawer strings in angry, jerking motions when his hands reached out to close over hers and stopped them.

“You didn’t think you were going to get off as lightly as that, did you?” he asked.

Fancy dropped her hands to her sides in a defiant sort of obedience, oddly powerless to do otherwise. She shivered helplessly as he undid the frayed strings again
and slowly slid her drawers down over her hips and thighs. They came to rest around her ankles; Jeff ordered her to step out of them and she did.

One of his hands bunched her skirts at her waist, while the other stroked the inside of her thigh. “Spread your legs, Fancy,” he commanded gruffly.

“I—oh—”

Jeff chuckled and his fingers parted her. The pad of his thumb was administering a sweet punishment, making her heart leap inside her while her groin ached in grinding submission. “I am the husband,” he reminded her, and she could feel the warmth of his breath as well as his marauding thumb. “And you are …?”

Fancy shuddered and a whimpering sound rattled its way out of her constricted throat.

He nipped at her, sending rivers of fire raging through every part, every hidden place. “Fancy,” he prompted.

“The w–wife!” she managed, in splendid defeat.

Jeff burrowed deeper into her moistness and warmth, groaning softly as he plundered her. And between forays calculated to drive her insane, he lectured her.

She tangled her hands in his hair and whimpered as the breathless climb began. His name came repeatedly from her lips, making pleas, confessing defeat, vowing rebellion. He chuckled and punished her with a series of soft kisses. As he rolled the captured treasure between his tongue and his teeth, Fancy’s control shattered.

Suddenly, she was caught in an inner inferno, battered and shaken by its burning force. She shuddered and cried out in throaty, glorious despair.

Jeff stroked the bare, glowing flesh of her bottom until she was inside herself again. When she was, he
gave her a patronizing pat and pushed her gently away, as though she were a good meal and he’d had his fill.

“I brought you some things from town,” he said, indicating a parcel resting a few feet away, on their blanket-bed.

Fancy was still trembling, and her eyes were wide and questioning as she watched him run one hand through his hair and glance in the direction of the camp. Wasn’t he going to stay? Wasn’t he going to make love to her, to finish what he’d started?

“Sleep well,” he said affably, dashing all her hopes.

“Wh–where are you going?” Fancy managed, hating herself for letting him know she cared.

The powerful shoulders lifted and fell again in an off-handed shrug. “Just go to sleep,” he said, in a dismissive tone.

Fancy felt a flood of crimson pass her erect nipples and flow into her face. “Sleep?” she echoed in a small and stricken voice.

He was leaving her, actually walking away. “Good night, Fancy,” he said.

Fancy boiled and then went chill. She wanted to lunge after him, wanted to batter him with her fists. This urge was rivaled by yet another—the impulse to plead for the fulfillment he was withholding.

She hugged herself and bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from doing any of those things. When he was completely out of sight, however, she stumbled back to the blankets, fell down on them, and alternately cursed and cried until she slept.

Jeff did not return at all that night and, when Fancy woke up, she scowled at the still-wrapped parcel he’d mentioned the night before and kicked it away with one bare foot.

Still, her eyes went back to the packet several times as she dressed and groomed herself for another day. She hadn’t had a gift since she was a child, and resisting that one was almost more than she could manage.

All the same, Fancy did not tear away the brown paper and the tightly drawn string, even though her fingers ached to do it. He could keep his geegaws and his—well, he could just keep everything.

The first thing Fancy noticed when she reached the carnival camp was that hateful balloon. It was aloft, doing its colorful sky dance, straining arrogantly at its ropes.

And inside the gondola was Jeff, one arm draped reassuringly around the shoulders of a buxom farm girl. She was laughing up at him, that trollop, and even from the ground Fancy could see the glow in her plump cheeks. No doubt there was a corresponding invitation in her eyes.

Fancy looked darts at that balloon, but it didn’t pop as she hoped. On the contrary, it seemed to stay up in the air far longer than the ten-cent fee would have justified.

Chapter Seven

T
HEY WERE ALL GATHERED AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE,
Melissa, her mother Katherine, and Banner, prattling with delight. Dr. Adam Corbin, just back from his morning rounds, paused in the doorway for a moment, letting the sound soothe away some of the tension aching in his neck and shoulders.

Banner looked up and saw him a fraction of a second later, her shamrock eyes sparkling. “Darling, look—read this!” she cried, waving a yellow sheet of paper.

“Jeff’s married!” blurted Melissa, his young sister, before he could take the telegraph message from his wife’s hand.

Adam muttered an exclamation and snatched the paper from Banner’s fingers to see for himself. Sure as
hell, Jeff had wed a young woman by the name of Frances Gordon and even though they had been reduced to print, there was a lilt of happiness in his words.

Adam closed his eyes, relieved. Like the rest of the family, he had despaired over Jeff’s decline into emotional withdrawal, railed inwardly at his own helplessness to reach his brother. Ever since last December’s holocaust aboard the
Sea Mistress,
there had been pain, not just for Jeff but for everyone who loved him.

“Hallelujah,” Adam breathed, and his arms went naturally around Banner’s waist, pulling her close.

“Yes,” she agreed, and there were tears of joy in her voice.

*   *   *

In another Port Hastings house, not so far away, a man with caramel hair and eyes of exactly the same color read a similar message from a telegraph communiqué of his own.

LAST NIGHT I MARRIED FANCY JORDAN. YOU OVERLOOKED ONE SLIGHT DETAIL, TEMPLE, BUT DON’T WORRY—I TOOK CARE OF IT FOR YOU.

REGARDS, JEFF CORBIN

Temple Royce crumpled the crackly yellow paper in one hand, seething. He’d known Jeff was alive, of course—everyone in Port Hastings had rushed to the scene the night of the explosion, including Adam and Banner Corbin. Adam had spotted Jeff in the water and brought him ashore, near dead. Somehow in that
crummy little hospital of theirs, the Doctors Corbin had managed to keep the patient alive.

Temple hadn’t a hope of getting to Jeff then; with the finger of suspicion pointing in his direction he didn’t dare try. Later, when Jeff was well enough to travel to the central territory and languish away in his younger brother’s house, he hadn’t found it necessary to strike again. Everyone knew that Jeff Corbin was willing himself to die and, knowing the will of that man as well or better than anyone else, Temple had been content to let nature take its course.

A sick rage swept through him, swirling in his stomach, pounding in his head. He grasped the mantelpiece over his study fireplace in white-knuckled hands. Things were different now—very different.

Obviously, Jeff had recovered. And damn the luck, he’d married the one chit in the world who knew for a positive fact that Temple had been behind the attack. If Fancy chose to testify, he could hang in payment for the deaths of the dozen or so crewmen who had not been so fortunate as their captain.

Temple drew deep, ragged breaths, trying to steady himself, trying to think. He’d had men looking for Fancy all this time, but to no avail. Had they brought her back, as ordered, he would have had to kill her or marry her, in order to keep her from going to the authorities.