Corbin's Fancy (10 page)

She lowered her head, ashamed and miserable and, now that she had permitted herself to think about it, scared. “W–When I was with Mr. Shibble’s show, I had to hide sometimes. Men would come around, asking questions about me.”

Jeff’s hands closed over her shoulders, hurtful in
their strength. “You left without telling Temple?” he hissed.

Fancy nodded. There was more, of course—Temple wanted to silence her, so that she couldn’t go to the authorities and tell them who had ordered the explosions onboard the
Sea Mistress—
but she couldn’t very well explain that to Jeff. Not when he himself had been the captain of that ship, the object of the attack. “M–Maybe he’s tired of looking for me—maybe he’s forgotten—”

Jeff laughed and this time the sound was bitter, void of humor or warmth. “Temple? Woman, he’ll dog you until it rains in hell! And I hope to God he finds you!”

Fancy blanched. “What?”

The reply was a raucous shout of triumph. “In fact, I intend to make
sure
he finds you!”

“No!” gasped Fancy, terrified at the prospect. Temple was not a man who took kindly to betrayal, and she would sooner have faced the devil than that man.

Jeff didn’t seem to be listening; he was on his feet, wrenching Fancy after him. “We’re getting married tonight,” he announced.

“We most certainly are not!” sputtered Fancy, shivering inside her blanket despite the strange heat fostered by the idea.

It was then that Jeff caught the blanket in his hands and slowly parted it. It slithered off Fancy’s naked shoulders and pooled around her feet.

Brazenly, Jeff cupped both her breasts in his palms, deliberately chafing the nipples to a state of throbbing response. Fancy groaned, helpless to escape, her mind swirling through a kaleidoscope universe.

“You belong in my bed,” Jeff reminded her, in a soft, firm voice that seemed to deepen the treacherous
trance. “And you will be there, tonight and every night, as my wife or my mistress—the choice is yours.”

Some shred of dignity made Fancy whisper, “But we don’t love—each other—”

“Maybe we have something better,” he breathed, and his fingers were plucking at Fancy’s nipples now, making them stand erect.

Fancy hadn’t thought it possible to feel both misery and reckless joy, all of a piece, but it was happening to her then. Still, she argued. “Th–There isn’t anything better than l–love—”

He made his counterpoint by bending his head to sip languidly at her right breast. “Ummm—so true—” he conceded, as shards of raw, jagged pleasure pierced every part of Fancy’s trembling body.

As best she could, considering that Jeff was making a feast of her, Fancy thought about her predicament. She could not resist this man and there was no pretending differently. She loved him. If she married him, there was at least some chance that he might come to love her in return one day. And suppose she was pregnant? Suppose, even now, his seed was growing inside her? If she agreed to take his name, their child would have it, too, and a Corbin child would lack for nothing.

Jeff left her breast to stand straight again, though his hand still cupped the spoils of a gentle battle long since won. He seemed to be following the train of her thoughts with uncanny accuracy. “Think of your family, Frances,” he urged quietly, deliberately. “Your father wouldn’t have to work anymore. Your mother could have nice clothes, good food—”

“Stop!” Fancy cried frantically. “That isn’t fair! Ever since I left home I’ve been giving and giving—”

He squeezed her breast and smiled at the obvious
electrical response that jolted through her. “Isn’t it time that someone gave something back to you, Fancy? I have a lot to give.”

Fancy blushed and swatted at his hand but it didn’t move from her breast—it kept caressing, urging, stroking. “Jeff—” she protested in a distracted whimper.

“You could have everything, Fancy. Everything.”

Reality descended on Fancy like a boxcar full of bricks. Temple Royce had said the same thing to her and for essentially the same reasons—he hadn’t loved her, anymore than Jeff did. He had wanted her in his bed.

She leaned down, caught the blanket in her hands, and wrenched it around her like a woolen shield. “No, I couldn’t!” she sobbed out. “I couldn’t have a husband who didn’t love me!”

Jeff was unruffled. He reached out and took the blanket and spread it on the grass. “All right, then,” he said airily, “have it your way. Lie down, mistress, because I want you. Here and now.”

“No!”

He arched an eyebrow and folded his arms. “No?”

Fancy looked with yearning at her underthings, which would be cold and clammy and wet should she put them on again. Her dress was out of reach and if she moved to fetch it, Jeff would get there first. She shivered and hugged herself and sobbed out, “I hate you, Jeff Corbin!”

He only gestured toward the blanket.

“Suppose I scream?” ventured Fancy, distractedly.

Jeff chuckled. “Everyone would come rushing to your aid and find you gloriously naked,” he answered, in blithe tones.

Fancy gnawed at her lower lip, which, like the rest of her body, was blue with cold. “I—If I did agree to this—this proposal—where would we live?”

Jeff shrugged as though the conversation were perfectly normal. “We have a house in Spokane. We could go there until we decided on something more permanent.”

He sounded so reasonable, so calm. As though he weren’t forcing a freezing, naked woman to choose between marrying him and being ravished on a stream bank. Fancy wanted to tear his eyes out of his head. “I will never, never forgive you for this, Jeff Corbin.”

“We’ll see about that,” he replied, with happy skepticism. “You’ve made your choice, I presume?”

Fancy nodded. “I’ll marry you,” she said, with a sort of broken elation.

“I have your word? No more running off in the night?”

Again, Fancy nodded. And, twenty minutes later, wearing a star-spangled dress with no underwear beneath it, she was wed to Jeff Corbin by a man who draped crawly snakes around his neck during the day. The ceremony cost one dollar and the bride and groom were assured by a pleased Phineas T. Pryor that it had been a legal proceeding.

It was just her luck, Fancy reflected, as her new husband’s lips descended to claim hers, that the snake-man had to be a justice of the peace in the bargain.

*   *   *

They made their marriage bed along the banks of the stream, with blankets borrowed from Phineas. And despite a bittersweet ache in the shadowed regions of her heart, Fancy was happy. Sitting on the improvised
bed, the light of real stars catching on those affixed to her dress, she tilted her head to one side and admired this magnificent man who was now her husband.

“You’ll have to take a bath if you expect to sleep with me,” she announced mischievously, as he shed his shirt with amusing haste.

“That water is cold!” Jeff protested, taken aback.

Fancy nodded, then shrugged. “All the same—”

Jeff opened his trousers and removed them, irritation visible in the swift motions of his hands. He looked so splendid in the moonlight, with muscles rolling under his taut flesh and the fine matting of golden hair covering him, that Fancy almost relented.

He cast one imploring look at her, his manhood rising slowly to power as if to bolster his case. “I’m clean, you know,” he half wailed.

Fancy shrugged again, looking pained as she removed her dress.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Jeff hissed, striding into the water and swearing again as its chill enveloped him. He splashed around, muttering, for all of a minute, then came storming up the bank toward Fancy.

There was a disturbingly evil leer on his face.

“Oh, no!” Fancy cried, suddenly understanding, but it was too late. He flung his icy, droplet-covered body down upon her warm one. His sodden hair dripped in her face and across her breasts.

She struggled, giggling, and, for a time, they were like children allowed to play outside after dark. They rolled off the blanket and into the grass, and then back onto the blanket again.

Suddenly, though, Jeff drew back from her, kneeling astraddle of her hips, and even in the darkness she could see the stricken look of wonder on his face. “You
are so beautiful,” he marveled, running just the tips of his fingers over her shoulders, her collarbone, her breasts.

Fancy’s playful mood was instantly replaced with a passion of such measure that it staggered her senses. What was it about this man that enabled him to ignite such brutal needs in her with only a word, a look, a touch?

He lay down on his back beside her in a smooth motion. “Touch me, Fancy,” he said quietly.

She sat up and felt enthralled by the stark, wholly masculine beauty of him. She touched his nipples, cosseted in their golden down, and reveled in the soft, strangled groan this brought from him. Strictly as an experiment, she bent and tasted one with just the tip of her tongue. He gasped and caught her still-damp hair in his hands and held her close and she felt a certain sweet triumph go through her. She suckled him, first at one delicious nubbin and then at the other.

It was sheer joy to know that he could be pleasured in much the same way that she had been when he’d enjoyed her breasts. As other parallels came to mind, Fancy began to kiss her way softly down over his hard stomach.

He choked her name as she reached the straining objective of her travels and flicked it delicately with her tongue.

Fairly bursting with the swell of this one small victory over him, she became greedy. His back arched and he gave a raucous gasp.

She nipped at Jeff with her teeth and rejoiced inwardly at his moaned, “God—Fancy—Fancy! Don’t—”

“Don’t?” Fancy teased, nibbling.

He writhed, groaning as if in delirium. “Don’t—stop—my God—”

“Ummmm,” boasted Fancy.

And Jeff laughed at her delicious audacity. “You’ll pay for this,” he moaned raggedly. “You’ll pay.”

Still she tormented him.

“W–Witch!” he gasped, after several feverish attempts at the word.

Fancy was a witch in those wild, unrestrained moments—she was all that was magic, all that was powerful, all that was triumphant. And his shuddering shout of glorified defeat echoed in the walls of her heart and became a part of it forever.

Still, Jeff had promised revenge and he extracted it with expertise, hurling Fancy past the moon itself on the wings of an exquisite frenzy, before wrenching her back to earth in dizzying spins. Finally, he fulfilled her, making the fevered journey in her arms.

Fancy lay dazed when it was over, her breath coming in short gasps, her eyes just beginning to focus on the moon and stars, on the shifting branches of trees that made a canopy for them. Making a low, growling sound of appeasement deep in his throat, Jeff sank to her breast, the moistness of his flesh mingling with hers.

They were still for a long time, listening to the nightcalls of an owl, the whispering song of the stream, the distant, settling sounds of the carnival camp.

“Do you suppose they heard us?” Fancy fretted when she could speak again.

“Who?”

“Phineas—the snake man—the fat lady—”

Jeff laughed against her breast and then licked teasingly at its rounded side with the tip of his tongue. “What a wedding party,” he said.

Fancy was stung; suddenly, she was thinking of Amelie and Keith and the wonderful, elegant wedding they would have. Amelie would have a long white dress, a churchful of well-wishers, a bouquet to toss. There would be a tiered cake.…

“Fancy?”

She turned her head to one side, not wanting him to see her tears. But the effort came too late apparently, for he caught her chin in his hand and made her look at him.

“What is it?” he demanded gently—very gently, for a husband who did not love his wife.

Fancy permitted herself to imagine what this man’s wealthy family was going to say when they found out that he’d married someone so far beneath him, and she was filled with horror. “You’ll be ashamed of me!” she sobbed.

He kissed her, slowly, tenderly, his lips nibbling and drawing at her own. “Never.”

Fancy was overwhelmed, and she lifted her hands to her face to cover it. Jeff immediately drew them away and held them, stroking her fingers with his own.

“Fancy, I—”

Her heart quickened, almost stopped. But Jeff’s sentence fell away unfinished and the words that would have made everything all right never came.

The silence was unbearable, an aching void where there had been soaring passion only moments before. Fancy began to cry softly, in wretched misery.

“Don’t,” Jeff groaned, and she wept harder because he had used that word so differently during their lovemaking. “Please don’t cry.”

Fancy sniffled, honestly trying to cooperate. It wasn’t often that she gave in to her emotions that way, but the
events of the past few days were catching up with her and she simply couldn’t be strong anymore.

Unexpectedly, with a tender, broken look in his eyes, Jeff stood up and then pulled Fancy up after him. He gave her a painless swat on the backside and then started toward the water.

Fancy dug in her heels. “No!” she protested.

Jeff wrenched at her hand and she was tumbling after him, into that chilly creek. She gave a shrill little cry at the insult to her passion-warmed body and tried to break free of her husband’s grasp and scramble back to shore.

But Jeff held her. He kissed her and then began to wash her, his hands making slow, tender circles on her back, her breasts, her thighs. Soon, the cold didn’t matter anymore.

Chapter Six

B
IRDS CHIRPED HAPPY SONGS IN THE TREES AND THE
stream hummed as it went on its merry way. Even before she opened her eyes, Fancy knew that Jeff was gone.

She sat up on the rumpled blankets and their grassy underbed, and smiled as she reached out for the drawers and camisole that had been carefully spread out, dry now, at her feet. She put them on and then the dress with its bedraggled stars.

Her hairbrush was where she had left it the night before, and she took it up and began the arduous task of working a night’s tangles from her hair.