Corbin's Fancy (23 page)

She looked up at him and sniffled. “I’ve mussed your new clothes,” she said.

Jeff shrugged and then bent to kiss her forehead. “Rest,” he said hoarsely.

“Will you hold me?” she persisted in a small voice. “Please?”

Slowly, he undid the string tie at his throat, the buttons of his vest, his shirt. When he was finally naked, he slid into bed beside Fancy and drew her into his arms. His body was strong and warm and completely undemanding, and Fancy allowed herself to feel safe, to imagine that he would never leave her. With her head propped on his shoulder, she slept.

The room was shadowy when she awoke, and a fire danced on the hearth. She stretched languidly, feeling rested and composed, and then realized that she was alone. She sat upright, her heart in her throat.

“Jeff?”

He laughed and she heard water splash. “Can’t a man take a bath in private around here?” he teased.

Fancy was so relieved that he was there that swift tears smarted in her eyes. She dashed them away, drew a deep breath, and bounded out of bed. Rounding the folding screen, she put her hands on her hips and assumed a stern look. “Absolutely not!” she answered.

He grinned a sultry, teasing grin and settled back in the huge marble tub, his hands behind his head in an attitude of total relaxation.

Fancy approached intrepidly, shedding her camisole and drawers as she went. This gentleness, this caring—without passion—was a new element in their relationship. Plunging into the bathtub, she kicked water in Jeff’s face and he bellowed with affronted laughter.

They played that night, like happy children, and there was no lovemaking. Or was there? After a spirited water fight and supper in front of the fireplace, after more laughter and quiet talk, Fancy fell asleep in Jeff’s arms feeling exalted.

Chapter Thirteen

F
ANCY STOOD STARING AT THE CLOCK ON THE STUDY WALL,
waiting. During the past week, it had often made odd noises, always just before or just after she entered the room, or as she passed in the hallway. The enigma of it was too much for her; she was determined to learn its secret.

She held her breath as the hands moved into position and a strange whirring sound came from the intricately carved timepiece. It looked like a little house, and the weights hanging beneath it resembled pine cones …

Fancy’s face was now within inches of that of the clock. Suddenly, a tiny door in its upper part creaked open and a little bird leaped out at her, shrilling, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!”

Startled, Fancy jumped back, gasping. “Thunderation!” she choked in amazement.

A masculine chortle sounded behind her, and she
whirled, red in the face. Jeff was standing there, a mug of coffee in one hand, a huge cylinder of rolled paper under his arm. Ink-blue amusement sparkled in his eyes.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me!” she hissed, smoothing the skirts of her new gingham gown to keep from flailing her hands in wild emphasis.

“I won’t,” he promised solemnly, but the tremor in his broad shoulders betrayed him.

“I’ve never seen such a clock!” railed Fancy, embarrassed.

“That’s obvious,” replied Jeff, more soberly. “You almost jumped out of your bustle.”

Fancy reddened again. “What’s that?” she demanded, pointing at the paper under his arm.

There was a sort of closed look in Jeff’s eyes, and within the space of an instant, too. “Just a design,” he answered, turning away, settling at his desk with a dismissive air.

Fancy was having none of that. She hated secrets and there were too many of them in this family—such as whatever it was that had happened between Jeff and his brother Adam. She sidled around to stand behind her husband’s chair.

“Don’t you have something to do?” he asked, in moderate and somewhat distracted irritation. Jeff clearly didn’t intend to unroll that “design” in her presence, and she was annoyed.

“I could take the trolley car downtown,” she suggested, knowing full well that Jeff would not permit that. In some ways, her life was restrictive—she was not allowed to go out alone.

“Wrong,” said Jeff, a muscle knotting in his jaw. “We’ve been over that. The fact that we haven’t heard
from our friend Temple doesn’t mean that he isn’t around.”

Fancy bit her lower lip. Again, her instincts urged her to tell Jeff what she knew. Then Temple could be legally prosecuted for implementing the explosion aboard the
Sea Mistress
and he would undoubtedly go to territorial prison. How could he be a threat if he was jailed?

But she was afraid. If Jeff’s anger should turn in her direction—and there was every likelihood that it would—she would lose him.

“Go feed Hershel or something,” he said, and Fancy was so insulted that she forgot her dilemma again.

She folded her arms, lifted her chin, and glared off into space, demonstrating her defiance. She would stand there all afternoon if she had to.

But Jeff suddenly swiveled in his creaky chair and, in an instant, she found herself in his lap, half reclining, staring into his amused face with wide eyes. “What—”

He was unbuttoning the front of her brand new dress, maddeningly casual as he went about it.

Fancy stiffened, outraged but filled with contradicting needs, too. “Stop that!” she gasped, squirming now, though to no real avail.

A gold cuff link winked up at her as Jeff slid one hand under her satin camisole and brazenly cupped it around a pulsing breast.

Fancy wriggled. “You insufferable—”

He laughed low in his throat, and the side of his thumb stroked the captured nipple to aching obedience.

“This is the study!” Fancy reminded him in a breathless gasp.

“Broad daylight, too,” agreed Jeff, lowering her
camisole so that the breast he had chosen was completely bared. He was turning her, pressing on the small of her back so that her bounty was arched helplessly toward him.

Mischievously, he tongued the nipple into a piercing response.

A shudder of delight went through Fancy, mingled with that familiar rage at her own helplessness. Was there no limit to this man’s insolence? “Jeff Corbin—”

He laughed and then took full and greedy suckle.

Fancy’s face flamed and because words of protest were suddenly beyond her, she kicked her feet. It was a hopeless rebellion.

When he tired of that one breast, Jeff availed himself of the other. He was leisurely with it, unconcerned, it seemed, that the study door was open and Miriam or Walter might wander in at any second.

Desperation gave Fancy strength. She bounded out of his lap and stood at a distance of a few feet, breathing hard and glaring down into that imperious, aristocratic face.

“Shut and lock that door,” he ordered in even tones, and his navy blue eyes darkened with both amusement and desire.

Marveling at herself all the while, Fancy obeyed. She was standing with her back to the door before she realized that her dress was still open and her breasts, moist from their recent tribute, were bared to his gaze.

Damnably handsome in his dove-gray trousers, matching silk vest, and pristine linen shirt, Jeff pushed the chair back from the desk but made no attempt to rise from it. “Come here,” he said.

Fancy hesitated. Everything within her urged her
back to him, but there was such a thing as pride, after all. Such a thing as dignity.

“Frances,” he reiterated firmly.

She closed her eyes and her breasts, warm under his steady gaze, rose and fell with the quickness of her breathing. Her grasp on defiance was a tenuous one, but it was sweet, adding somehow to the splendor of the inevitable.

When Jeff said her name again in a throaty, insistent whisper, she was lost. Like a sleepwalker, she went to him, resigned to her fate. Glorying in it.

Instead of drawing her back onto his lap, however, he stood her between his chair and the desk. His hands rose to caress her breasts, to pluck gently at their peaks, and a piercing fever was born in the depths of her womanhood, gradually spreading to all parts of her.

Presently, he began guiding her heavy skirts upward; they bunched on the surface of the desk behind her. She gasped and braced herself against its edge as his fingers came boldly to the ties of her drawers. “What are you—doing?” she choked out, full of a sweet and familiar misery.

“I think you know,” he replied, and her drawers were going down, smoothly, over her hips and her thighs. Her flesh was cooled by this exposure, but an incomprehensible heat surged beneath.

“Oooh,” Fancy groaned, as he maneuvered her backward. “Jeff—”

She was lying across the desk now, completely vulnerable to him, uplifted for his access by her own skirts, now gathered beneath her bottom like a pillow. “Sweet,” he said, his breath fanning against the tangle
of golden curls. A pulse point hidden within leaped at his approach.

As he took possession, Fancy gave an animal cry, beyond caring who might hear or see, beyond all but the strange, spasmodic passions he had induced. He became greedy and one hand rose to fondle a breast, to ply its nipple. He continued to enjoy her while he attended the other breast in exactly the same way.

Fancy writhed and twisted, whimpering his name, tangling frantic fingers in his hair. When the explosion came, she gave a lusty shout of satisfaction and lay trembling as he led her back to sanity with soothing words and tender strokes of his hands.

“Wretch!” she said, buttoning up her dress with trembling hands.

Jeff laughed and kissed the place he had so thoroughly plundered. “Next time, let me work,” he said.

She sidestepped away from the desk and bent to pull up her drawers, which had been hobble-like around her ankles. “Have you no decency?”

He shrugged. “None.”

Fancy blushed and straightened her skirts. When she hurried toward the locked door, he was unrolling the paper that had so sparked her curiosity. Despite a lingering wonder, she did not dare stay.

Miriam was just turning away from the front door when Fancy entered the main hallway, flushed with satisfaction and shame. The older woman smiled in a way that made her blush that much harder.

“There’s a message for you,” Miriam said, her blue eyes twinkling as she extended an envelope.

Somewhat tremulously, Fancy reached out for the missive. On its front, someone had penned,
MR. AND MRS. J. CORBIN.

Fancy wouldn’t have gone back into the study at that particular moment, for anything. Therefore, she opened the envelope and shook out the folded paper within. It was a telegraph message, sent from Port Hastings.

WE COULDN’T BE HAPPIER AT THE NEWS OF YOUR MARRIAGE. WILL YOU BE IN WENATCHEE FOR KEITH’S WEDDING? PLEASE CONFIRM OR DENY.

LOVE, MOTHER

Fancy blinked rapidly and then refolded the paper with care. Miriam had gone back to the kitchen and she was alone with some very contradictory thoughts. In all the excitement and uproar, she had entirely forgotten about Keith and Amelie and their upcoming wedding. It would be lovely to actually witness the ceremony.

On the other hand, despite Katherine Corbin’s assurance that “we couldn’t be happier,” Fancy had grave doubts about facing the woman. How would such a person truly view a daughter-in-law who had made her living prying a stubborn rabbit out of a hat? Surely, Mrs. Corbin had had higher hopes for her son.

Fancy cast one look back at the closed doors of the study. Warm with passion only moments before, she now felt chilly and hollow. If only she could be sure of acceptance, the way Adam’s Banner had probably been. After all, Banner was a real doctor, with an education.…

Drawing a deep breath, Fancy squared her shoulders and went back to the study, something she would have sworn, only seconds previously, that she would not do. “Jeff?”

He looked up from the huge paper spread out on his
desk, frowning with companionable distraction. “Already?” he teased, after a moment’s recovery. “Frances, you are insatiable.”

Fancy blushed, rooted to the spot, and held out the telegraph message. “This just came,” she said.

Jeff’s brow furrowed into worried lines and Fancy felt a pang as he came to snatch the paper from her hand. Behind him, the mysterious design rolled back into a cylinder with a rhythmic whisper. Again, Fancy’s curiosity was piqued.

She was edging toward the desk when Jeff stopped her cold with a joyful exclamatory sound and a wondering, “Good God, I forgot all about the wedding. Do you want to go?”

Fancy twisted her hands, one within the other, and her smile was a bit shaky. The thought of meeting Jeff’s family en masse suffused her with terror, but she could not ask her husband to miss such an event because of her own fears. “Don’t you?” she hedged.

Jeff’s eyes were distant, filled with pleasant speculation, and Fancy felt oddly shut out. “Yes,” he said, after a long time. “Shall I wire back that we’ll be there?”

Fancy’s throat tightened and tears burned behind her eyes. Still, she smiled. “Yes,” she said, with resolution.

Jeff turned away, calling for Walter, and there was a lilt in his voice and in his step. Fancy bit her lower lip, drew a deep breath, and then remembered the huge, rolled paper on the desk. She scurried over and spread it with her hands. When she did, her heart bulged into her throat, filling it so that she could barely breathe.

On the paper was a carefully drawn plan for a clippership. Tears blinded Fancy as she rolled the paper
up again and turned away. Nothing mattered now—not the prospect of being presented to Jeff’s family and being found wanting, not the ever-present threat of Temple Royce, not the guilt inherent in failing to tell her husband or the authorities who had been responsible for that tragic explosion on the ship.

Jeff was going back to sea. He’d designed a ship for that purpose, and he hadn’t even bothered to confide the fact to his own wife!

Little wonder, she reflected, despairing. He probably expected a scene, complete with tears, recriminations, and foot-stomping. Fancy lifted her chin. He’d be surprised, then, because she meant to take the news with unfaltering dignity, even though the very prospect was devastating.