Corbin's Fancy (13 page)

Now, unfortunately, one of those two choices had been eliminated.

Temple looked at the top line of the telegraph message and saw that it had been sent from a town called Colterville. He knew it was a small place, not far from Wenatchee. And he knew he was going there.

Grimly, because he’d never felt any desire to hurt Fancy, he went out to summon his men.

*   *   *

It turned out that the farm girl’s name was Jewel Stroble, the daughter of the man who had been overseeing the Colterville Fair.

“You’ll want to watch that one, Fancy,” observed Phineas cryptically after Jewel had paid for her third ride in the balloon. Obviously, he had been through these parts before.

While Fancy certainly felt no affection for that bovine creature in the tight calico dress, she was nettled that all the responsibility for morality should rest on Jewel. After all, Jeff was a grown man and he had to know the significance of the wedding vows—didn’t he? “I don’t see why you’re letting him operate the balloon anyway,” she pouted.

“We have an arrangement,” said Phineas, and though his regard was as friendly as ever, he was watching Fancy with a measure of curiosity.

Jeff flashed a perfect white smile at Jewel as the balloon ascended into the skies again and Fancy, standing forgotten on the ground, was jarred anew. Her husband had been gone all night. Had he spent that time, perchance, with Miss Jewel Stroble? She had assumed, until now, that he’d slept beside Phineas’s wagon.

She cast one look at Phineas and found that she was too proud to ask whether or not she had assumed rightly. If Jeff had been elsewhere, her friend would instantly guess what had happened. He would pity Fancy then and that would be too dreadful to bear.

“I’ve got work to do,” she said, with false brightness, turning away in a rustle of star-speckled skirts.

Phineas said nothing at all.

At noon, Mr. Stroble appeared with another two dollars in wages. As he handed the money to Fancy, he reddened and repeatedly cleared his throat. Again, he seemed reluctant to meet her eyes.

Fancy tucked the coins into her dress pocket, and bit her lower lip to keep from demanding his daughter be kept under proper restraint.

The afternoon dragged by with hellish slowness, and Fancy’s performance, while without incident, was lackluster. She had not once looked in the direction of the balloon, fearing what she would see. When it was time to tuck Hershel back into his cage and gather up her other props, she was grateful.

Phineas would be preparing supper at the fire, she knew, but food held no appeal for Fancy that evening. Despondently, she tended to Hershel’s needs, put her things away in the back of the wagon, and went off to the stream bed to be alone.

Kneeling on the blankets there, which were now littered with twigs and leaves and much in need of a good shaking, she assessed the wrapped parcel through blurred eyes. Despair twisted in her throat. How could things change so much in so short a time?

She reached for the package with shaking hands and then drew back.

“Why don’t you open it?”

Fancy stiffened. She had not laid eyes on Jeff since morning and now, suddenly, he was standing directly behind her. She didn’t think she could bear to look at him and see the mockery in his eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather give it to Jewel Stroble?” she retorted, in a small, tight voice.

The reply was a throaty chuckle. “If I’d wanted to do that, I would have.”

Fancy dashed away the tears that were streaking down her dust-smudged face. How could such a tender lover as Jeff be so cruel and unfeeling? “Thank you very much, but I don’t need anything from you.”

“I see. Don’t you want your supper?”

Supper. Fancy squeezed her eyes shut and swayed slightly, praying that he would go away, yet yearning for him to stay. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

She heard twigs snapping beneath his boots as he approached. When she opened her eyes, he was crouching before her. He dropped to his knees, took up the package, and silently held it out.

Fancy didn’t want to accept it, but she did. As her fingers awkwardly undid the string and folded back the paper, she sniffled once.

“I’m sorry, Frances,” Jeff said softly.

A deceptive shrug bunched Fancy’s shoulders. Unable to think of anything to say, she fixed all her attention on the presents inside the package.

There was an ivory nightgown of elegant, embroidered silk, a small bottle of perfume, and a dress of the softest blue lawn. Fancy had never owned such fine things and she was overwhelmed.

Jeff captured her chin in his hand, forced her to look at him with her tear-stained, swollen face. “Don’t you like them?”

It was too much; the sobs Fancy had been holding back solidified into one echoing wail. “They’re beautiful!” she cried.

Jeff shook his head, marveling. “Then why are you crying?”

Fancy couldn’t answer that, so she shook her head and sniffled again, and then scrambled to her feet, holding the glorious blue dress up in front of her. “Do you think it will fit?” she stammered out.

“It will fit,” he answered, with gruff certainty and a measure of tenderness.

Suddenly, Fancy had to know. Forgetting that there was a man present, she shed her old dress and shimmied into the new one. Jeff did up the row of tiny buttons at the back with swift, warm fingers.

“You look wonderful,” he said, turning her around to face him.

Fancy did look wonderful, she knew it. The dress fit and it was beautiful and she wasn’t afraid of strumpets like Jewel Stroble.

Jeff smiled, a little sadly, Fancy thought, and his hands came to rest on the sides of her face. She saw a pulse leap in the muscular column of his throat.

“Fancy,” he said, and while he’d only uttered one word, it was as though he had given some long and poetic avowal of love.

She stepped back and swirled about, suddenly merry. He laughed and drew her close again, planting a brief, noisy kiss on her mouth.

Fancy’s heart quickened and she stepped back from him, solemn again. “Were you with Jewel Stroble last night?” she whispered.

“No,” he replied flatly.

Fancy searched his face and knew in that instant that he was telling the truth. He was a blunt man, woundingly so at times, and if he had spent the night with Jewel he would have said so. Probably without apology. “Y–You’ll never take a mistress?”

“I can’t promise you that, Fancy. Right now, though, I can’t imagine needing anyone else but you.”

“Not even Banner?”

“Banner is my brother’s wife!” he spat, apparently appalled by the suggestion.

“But you don’t get along with your brother, do you? Keith told me that there was a rift between you and—and—”

“Adam,” supplied Jeff sharply. “His name is Adam.” He looked away, toward the shadowy sky, and Fancy saw his jawline grow taut and then relax again. “My brother kept something from me,” he said finally. “Something I had a right to know. I was and am angry. But Adam is still my brother and I love him.”

“What did he keep from you, Jeff?”

His hands were resting on her shoulders now, squeezing in reaction to some emotion that Fancy knew had nothing whatsoever to do with herself. “I can’t tell you, not now.”

“It concerned Banner, didn’t it?”

“No. It concerned my father. Now let’s go back to camp and get something to eat—I’m starving.”

Fancy knew that there was no point in arguing and, now that matters had smoothed out a little between Jeff and her, she was ravenously hungry. She smoothed her hair and the soft skirts of her dress and then bent for the perfume bottle. “I’ll be along in a minute,” she said. “I want to freshen up a little.”

He laughed and hugged her, his strange mood of moments before wafting away on a spring breeze. “So you plan to make an entrance, do you?”

“If I’m going to be a lady,” responded Fancy in airy tones, “I’d best start acting like one.”

Jeff frowned with mock disapproval and swatted her lawn-covered bottom with possessive hands. “Not too much of a lady,” he warned.

“My good sir, are you implying that I am ever otherwise?”

“Yes. You’re a hellion in bed, and I want you to stay that way.”

Fancy blushed, not knowing whether to rejoice or be insulted. “You are no gentleman!”

He kissed her in a way that could only be called suggestive. “We’ve already established that, haven’t we?” he muttered, and then he left Fancy alone to wash her face, redress her hair, and dab on a few drops of the frightfully expensive perfume.

She was just starting up the path toward the camp when an enormous man stepped in front of her. Fancy’s light heart grew heavy with fear as she recognized Rafe, the farmer Jeff had battered senseless the day before.

Fancy’s fear was equal only to her outrage. She knew that it would be sensible to scream, but her throat had drawn shut and she was momentarily incapable of sounding any sort of alarm.

“Don’t you look fine, now?” murmured Rafe, staring at Fancy as though he couldn’t quite believe she was real. “Don’t you look right fine?”

Fancy thrust out her chin, but she had stopped breathing. Just stopped. Still unable to speak, she retreated a step.

Rafe’s meaty hands closed over her shoulders; she could feel their heavy warmth through the delicate fabric of her dress. His moist mouth was moving toward Fancy’s, and she realized with jolting horror that he planned to kiss her.

She gave a strangled cry and squirmed out of his arms. Her breath burned in and out of her lungs, so hot and harsh that she could hardly bear it. But she was vocal now. “If you touch me again,” she managed, “my husband will kill you.”

“All I want is a little kiss,” complained Rafe petulantly.

Fancy closed her eyes and a scream swelled up into her throat, pressed its way past her lips. Rafe turned and lumbered into the bushes like a retreating bear.

Jeff appeared only moments later, followed by a pale and frightened Phineas.

“What happened?” demanded the former, clasping Fancy’s shoulders in hard hands.

“Rafe,” she choked out. “He was—he wanted me to k–kiss him—”

Jeff muttered a lethal word and released his wife, his fierce indigo eyes scanning the trees and bushes.

“No harm done, now,” soothed Phineas quickly. “No harm done.”

Jeff sighed and a quiver of suppressed anger moved through his frame. “Is that right, Fancy? Are you hurt?”

Fancy shook her head. She’d been frightened, but, as Phineas said, no actual harm had been done. In fact, she felt rather foolish now. “H–He startled me, that’s all. Wh–when I screamed, he ran away.”

Phineas seemed determined to brighten the situation. “Aren’t you a page from
Godey’s Lady’s Book?”
he sang out, admiring Fancy’s new dress and carefully styled hair.

Fancy smiled, understanding. Phineas wanted no more trouble and she was in hearty agreement. “Thank you very much,” she said, in the ladylike way she’d
been mentally practicing almost from the moment Jeff had given her the dress. “Will you please be so kind as to offer your arm, sir?”

Phineas complied with a doffing of his hat, a dashing bow, and a suave extension of his elbow. “Shall we dine?” he said.

“Christ,” muttered Jeff, his eyes still fixed on the bushes that had swallowed the amorous Rafe.

Fancy took Phineas’s arm and lifted her skirts in her other hand, the very picture of feminine deportment. “Leave us leave,” she said.

Phineas laughed and so, however reluctantly, did Jeff.

*   *   *

“Please?” pleaded Jeff, all the more appealing because the bright morning sun was shimmering behind his wheat-gold head.

Fancy looked at the balloon and crinkled her nose. “Suppose the ropes came unfastened?” she ventured doubtfully.

“Would that be so terrible?” Jeff retorted with a good-natured shrug. “We would soar—”

“Or crash to the ground,” Fancy broke in, brow furrowed.

“The ropes are secure, Fancy.”

Fancy gave the ropes a careful scrutiny. While the idea of flying was singularly terrifying, it also had a certain dashing appeal. And Jewel Stroble hadn’t been afraid to go up in the balloon, had she?

“All right,” blurted Fancy.

Jeff lifted her inside the wicker gondola and then sprang in to stand beside her. He reached above his head to pull at the handle of a valve and there followed an unnerving, hissing sound.

“Oh, God,” whispered Fancy as the gondola toppled slightly and began to lurch heavenward. If Jewel Stroble hadn’t been standing less than a dozen feet away, she would have slid down to her knees and closed her eyes.

Up and up the balloon went—when would those damnable ropes reach their limits?

Fancy looked at the ground—Phineas and the others and the wagons looked so small—and then swung her gaze to Jeff’s face. He was smiling at her.

“You are very brave, Mrs. Corbin.”

“B–Brave?”

“Yes. Courage isn’t an absence of fear, you know—it’s going ahead and doing whatever you’re afraid of.”

Fancy’s shoulders squared and her chin came up. She’d never thought of herself as courageous, but Jeff was right—she was. She’d gained something by meeting this challenge, however small, something lasting and good. And she could see for an incredible distance. “Look—there’s the river. And there’s Colterville.”

Jeff laughed. “This is better than sailing,” he said to himself and Fancy and the blue, blue sky.

Fancy looked down, without a qualm this time, and waved at Jewel Stroble. Even from that height, she could see the guarded rancor in the woman’s round face.

A sudden and stiff wind struck the balloon, making a crackling, silky sound, and the gondola rocked precariously. Fancy paled, her courage waning a little. But Jeff’s arm was quick to encircle her shoulders and it seemed that some of his fathomless strength flowed into her.

“How do you make this thing go down?” she demanded, through a clenched and rigid smile.

Jeff chuckled, letting go of her to pull a cord near the valve that had made them rise. The strange vessel wafted slowly to earth. Phineas secured it as Jeff leaped out, lifting Fancy after him.

Jewel sidled over, her hands coquettishly caught behind her back so that her ample bosom was thrust forward. The way she smiled at Jeff made Fancy feel as though she’d suddenly turned transparent, and she was having none of that.