Corbin's Fancy (25 page)

Adam sighed. He’d been working harder than ever lately and the train trip had been a long one. “We’re going to talk, Jeff, and reasonably. About Papa and why I didn’t tell you he was alive until—”

“Until it was too late,” Jeff broke in, his eyes dark with pain.

The elder brother ignored the interruption. “First, I want to tell you that I think your wife is beautiful.”

A grin tugged at the corner of Jeff’s mouth. “Mud and all?” he drawled.

“Mud, stars, and all,” confirmed Adam, grinning. “I’ve always had confidence in your good taste, brother, but she exceeds all expectation.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” mused Jeff in tender tones that betrayed much. “The odd thing is that Fancy feels inferior to almost everybody. I think the prospect of meeting Mama and the rest of you has her terrified.”

“We’ll try not to be too overwhelming,” Adam promised, with a quick grin. “Though I can’t speak for O’Brien.”

Jeff shook his head. “Still referring to your wife as ‘O’Brien,’ are you? My God, you’re romantic.”

Adam shrugged. “She answers to it,” he said.

There was a softening in Jeff’s face; he sat back in his chair and looked thoughtful. “How is Banner, Adam?”

“Bone mean and breathtakingly beautiful, as always.” Adam paused; despite Jeff’s obvious feelings for his own wife, he couldn’t be sure how he would take the news. “She’s expecting again,” he said, finally.

To Adam’s relief, Jeff grinned. “Congratulations. Do you think you’ll get another set of twins?”

Adam rolled his eyes, though the thought of Danny
and Bridget, his children, filled him with pride and a need to go home. “God forbid,” he said.

Jeff laughed and Adam felt the old closeness to his brother, just briefly. He prayed they could regain it again permanently.

*   *   *

Humiliated almost beyond bearing, Fancy thrust Hershel back into his hutch and firmly locked the door. Trust that miserable rabbit to get her into trouble and just when she would have liked to have made a good impression, too.

Of course, that had probably been a foolish hope in the first place—she had never done anything that could be expected to impress someone like Dr. Adam Corbin. No doubt he would go home to Port Hastings and tell the family that Jeff had married a mud-streaked hoyden.

Because she knew Miriam would be working in the kitchen, Fancy risked going in the front door. The low hum of masculine voices told her that Jeff and Adam were shut away in the study.

Not for a moment did she consider intruding. Determined not to cry, she marched up the stairs and into the master bedroom. What she saw in the bureau mirror nearly dissolved her, however—her hair was falling down, her cheeks were smudged with wet garden dirt, and there was a leaf clinging to the peak of her right breast.

With a sad sort of self-mockery, Fancy stood up very straight and said, “May I present, ladies and gentlemen of the upper classes, Mrs. Jeffrey Corbin?”

A soblike laugh caught in her throat and she turned away before her face could crumble. Resolutely, she prepared for a much-needed bath.

The combination of hot water and scented bath salts was a soothing one, and by the time Fancy had soaked awhile, and then scrubbed, she felt better. She even began to see the humor in chasing a rabbit through the vegetable garden and falling flat on her face in the process.

She got out of the bathtub, opened the drain, and dried herself quickly. Then, dressed only in satiny drawers and a matching lace-trimmed camisole of soft ivory, she chose a fresh dress with great care. Perhaps, if she looked especially nice and behaved with some degree of propriety, she might be able to redeem herself.

An hour later, when Fancy went downstairs again, it appeared that she had done just that. Adam and Jeff were out of the study now, and they both took in her carefully coiffed hair and whispering lavender silk dress with admiring eyes.

“Hello, again,” Adam greeted her, with a brotherly smile that eased a great many of Fancy’s apprehensions. Then, before Jeff could make a move, he offered a gentlemanly arm. “I believe dinner is about to be served. May I?”

Fancy did not even look at Jeff—she returned Adam’s smile and took his arm. “Thank you,” she said.

Miriam had set the table and, after everyone had been seated, she began serving. She was obviously pleased that Adam was there, and she worked with a lilt in her step and a twinkle in her eyes.

Jeff watched her with wounded amusement and then commented, “I do believe Miriam likes you better than me, Adam.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” grinned Adam, lifting his wineglass.

There was an uncomfortable moment in which, Fancy was sure, everyone at the table was thinking of one Banner O’Brien, who had indeed cared more for Adam than Jeff.

“I understand that your mother is active in the Woman Suffrage movement,” Fancy put in quickly, hoping to change the subject.

A flicker in Adam’s deep blue eyes, eyes just the color of Jeff’s, thanked her for the diversion. “Active is not the word. Mama will probably recruit you to the cause.”

“The hell,” growled Jeff with surprising feeling. “No wife of mine is going to go traipsing around making speeches and passing out fliers—”

Adam laughed. “Your innocence is heart-wrenching,” he told his brother.

Fancy was nettled. “If I wanted to make speeches and pass out fliers, Jeff Corbin, I would.”

Adam gave his brother another affectionately mocking glance and again lifted his wineglass. “Don’t try to fight it, Jeff,” he said. “Hell hath no fury like a woman oriented toward politics.”

Jeff gave Fancy one bone-slicing look and turned his full attention to his brother. From then on, the conversation concerned the upcoming wedding in Wenatchee, their sister Melissa’s escapades at college, and whether or not Grover Cleveland belonged in the White House.

*   *   *

Temple Royce settled back in the bathtub, a cheroot clamped between his teeth, an outdated newspaper in his hands. Christ, he was tired, and every muscle in his body ached, and if he didn’t have lice he’d be lucky.

Beyond the hotel window, which was open to the breezy June night, he could hear the clang of trolley car
bells, the nickering of horses, and the voices of street urchins, prostitutes, and drunks. Shutting Spokane out of his mind, he settled down to read.

The territorial legislature was harassing the federal government about statehood and Mrs. Katherine Corbin was harassing them, in turn. Wall Street was predicting another panic and three days ago a man had gone crazy up at Colville and murdered his whole family. Temple was about to close the newspaper and fling it aside when the name
Corbin
caught his eye again. He was used to seeing Katherine’s name, but this was different.

It seemed, according to the brief item on the society page, that the Reverend Keith Corbin meant to marry one Miss Amelie Rogers on the forthcoming Saturday at the First Methodist Church, Wenatchee. Temple grinned and relit his cheroot, which had gone out.

Saturday. Wenatchee. And, like as not, the whole troublesome Corbin family would gather in one handy place. Temple suddenly felt buoyant; the grinding fatigue of tracking Jeff from hell to breakfast was gone.

There was a solid rap at the hotel door. “Boss? You in there, Mr. Royce?”

“Come in,” said Temple, drawing deeply on his cheroot and smiling up at the cracked plaster ceiling.

The rest of Temple’s men had long since gone back to Port Hastings, grousing that they were tired of sleeping on the ground and chasing a man who seemed to have all the substance of a ghost, but Rothstein had always been loyal. He’d have gone into the devil’s privy if Temple ordered it.

“I been watching Corbin’s house,” the massive man said with gruff discouragement.

Temple was still relaxed, though there was a quickening within him. “And?” he prodded idly.

“That crazy doctor is there. Now we ain’t just got Jeff to deal with, we got his brother, too.”

Temple reached for a nearby towel with a wrenching, angry motion of his left hand. There were reasons, and sound ones, why he couldn’t risk a confrontation with Adam Corbin. “Damn it all to hell,” he muttered.

But then, as he stood up and dried himself and reached for his clothes, Temple remembered the convenient wedding and calmed down again. There was no need to fret about the Corbins, and no need to stay in Spokane.

“We’ll get some dinner and maybe some women,” he told a surprised Rothstein. “And then we’ll catch a westbound train.”

“You givin’ up?” Rothstein muttered, slack-jawed and yet a little hopeful, too.

Temple put on his last clean shirt and reached for a string tie. “You know better than that,” he said, smiling into the mirror.

*   *   *

It was too warm for a fire that night and the windows were open, curtains wafting in the lilac-scented breeze. Fancy cuddled closer to Jeff in their bed, taking comfort from the warm strength of him.

Their lovemaking had been especially intense and, in the glowing aftermath, most of Fancy’s doubts and fears were at bay.

“Your brother is very handsome,” she said, her head resting on Jeff’s bare shoulder.

“Yeah,” came the somewhat grudging response.

Surprised, Fancy lifted her head to look into Jeff’s
face. “You’re still angry with him, aren’t you?” she asked, saddened.

Jeff sighed heavily. “No,” he said, at length. “I tried to be, but I couldn’t. Adam did what he had to do—I understand that.”

Fancy knew that he was not talking about the conflict over Banner O’Brien, but the matter he had mentioned once and then refused to discuss further. Something about their father. Resigned to the fact that she would probably never know anything more about that particular secret, she again rested her head on that sturdy shoulder.

Jeff’s fingers tangled themselves gently in her hair. “Adam does have something that I want,” he remarked presently.

Fancy was achingly alert. In the past few days, she had allowed herself to hope that Jeff’s feelings for Banner had settled into brotherly admiration. Was he about to shatter that fragile confidence? “What?” she dared to ask.

“Children,” replied Jeff.

Fancy’s beleaguered spirit soared. Her time of the month was overdue by several days and she cherished a tender hope that Jeff’s child might already be growing within her. It was her one security, knowing that, if Jeff did go away to sea or even die at the hands of Temple Royce, she would yet have a living part of him. For always.

But the time for telling had not come; she couldn’t mention her suspicions until she was certain. “You—you want children?”

Jeff laughed a low, rumbling, cozy laugh. “Dozens.”

“Dozens!” blustered Fancy.

“Well, five or six, at least.”

Now it was Fancy who laughed. “That’s better.”

Jeff rolled over so that he was looking down into Fancy’s face. The expression in his indigo eyes was tender, questioning. “Do you like babies, Mrs. Corbin? I just realized that I’ve never asked you—”

“There are a great many things you have never asked me, Mr. Corbin. But yes, I do like babies. I love babies.”

He traced the outline of her jaw with an index finger, pushed a gossamer tendril of hair away from her face. “Let’s start one, then,” he said in a gruff whisper.

“It isn’t as though we haven’t tried,” Fancy reminded him gently.

He kissed her, his lips searching and warm. “One can’t be too diligent about these things,” he breathed. And then his head was moving downward and his mouth was claiming the peak of Fancy’s left breast.

“One certainly can’t,” gasped Fancy in fevered agreement, arching her back, glorying in the moist, heated demand of his mouth.

Whereas their earlier lovemaking had been languorous, building gradually to an almost intolerable pitch, this joining was quick and fierce. Their two bodies buckled in magnificent unison, met violently in the force of a simultaneous release.

Jeff gave a growling cry, while Fancy sobbed her husband’s name and clutched at him with frantic hands, all the while silently cursing clipperships, the sea, and the man who would separate them forever if he could.

*   *   *

As the time to leave Spokane drew nearer, Fancy found Meredith less of a trial. She had been foolish to
be jealous of this woman because it was clear that, if Jeff had ever wanted Meredith Whittaker, he could have easily taken her.

But he hadn’t.

Meredith frowned at the billows of pretty gowns and hand-embroidered underthings spilling from this trunk and that. “That Evelyn must work like a demon,” she said without admiration.

Fancy smiled, folding a pale green shirtwaist and laying it carefully in the largest of the trunks. The parlor looked, she thought with amusement, like the inside of a pillaged baggage car. “Evelyn has several helpers,” she explained.

Meredith fingered a soft gray skirt trimmed with jet beads and now her frown was thoughtful. “Lovely work,” she said, grudgingly.

“Isn’t it?” chimed Fancy, going on with her folding and arranging. She didn’t have to do it—Miriam would have—but it was a joy to touch such lovely garments and imagine herself wearing them. “You might want to have Evelyn make some things for you.”

“Not likely,” bristled Meredith, but then she summoned up a rather shaky smile. “Miriam told me that Adam is here. Is he?”

Fancy shrugged. “Yes. Why would Miriam lie?”

Meredith didn’t bother to answer, though her smile faltered. “It’s a shame, the way the Corbin men are marrying off all at once.”

“Must be an epidemic,” quipped Fancy, struggling against a spate of unmatronly giggles.

Meredith was scowling, clearly at the end of her patience. “I can’t understand what Jeff sees in you!” she blurted out. “Or what Adam sees in that Banner person, for that matter!”

Fancy was stunned by the outburst and, before she could think of anything fitting to say, Adam appeared.

“Did I hear my wife’s name fall from your lovely lips, Meredith?” he asked, and though he was smiling, there was a glittering chill in his eyes.

Meredith stiffened. Color surged up over her snow-white bosom to pulse in her face. “Adam—hello—”