Corbin's Fancy (28 page)

A downpour hammered and dashed at the roof and Katherine shuddered. Amelie and Keith came bounding into the kitchen, sopping wet and laughing.

Katherine drummed up a smile, which immediately faltered. Why was she so frightened? Why?

“I suppose you’re going to go upstairs and take naps, just like everybody else!” cried Melissa, glaring at her brother and his dripping bride-to-be.

With a wet hand, Keith ruffled his sister’s carefully coiffed hair, a gesture he knew she hated. “Naps, is it? Brat, you’re younger than I thought.”

“Keith,” Katherine reprimanded softly, but she wanted to gather him in her arms, hold him, protect him. From what, though? From the sweet, innocent-eyed Amelie, who so obviously loved him?

By then, Melissa was squealing with glee and Keith was stomping around after her, making monster sounds. Amelie hung back, watching with wide, shy eyes.

Katherine watched a tenuous daring building within her future daughter-in-law. “You’ll wake the others!” the child nearly strangled to say.

At this, Keith threw back his head and roared with laughter. Poor Amelie looked so confused that Katherine ached for her.

“Let’s get you something dry to wear,” she said kindly, extending a hand to Amelie.

They were halfway up the back stairs when Amelie burst out, “Why did he laugh that way, Mrs. Corbin? I didn’t say anything funny!”

As if on cue, a lusty masculine groan came from behind one of the doors on the second floor. Katherine cleared her throat in a belated effort to cover it.
Perhaps she should have come up alone for the dress she meant to loan Amelie, rather than dragging the poor child along. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said soothingly. “Men do laugh at the strangest things.”

Amelie’s bright green eyes widened as though she might be brewing a fever. “They’re not s–sleeping at all!” she cried in revelation.

Katherine wanted to drag both her elder sons from their beds and beat them. She refrained from comment and staunchly led the way to her own room.

Looking almost haunted, Amelie went behind a folding damask screen to strip off her wet clothes. “Is—is the whole family so—well, so ardent?” she wanted to know.

Katherine rolled her eyes heavenward and fetched a blue cambric gown from her trunk for Amelie to put on. If this dear little innocent thought Keith was any different from his brothers, just because he was a minister, she had a dreadful shock coming. “Ardent?” she echoed, feigning confusion.

The blue cambric, draped over the top of the screen, slithered to the other side. “I did see Adam swat Banner right on the—right on the bottom!”

Katherine bit down hard on her lower lip. Living in the same house with Adam and Banner, she had seen, quite inadvertently of course, much worse. “My husband and I,” she began gently, diplomatically, “were always very affectionate with each other. It’s natural that our children are that way, too.”

A snow-white face peered around one end of the screen. “All of your children? Keith, too?”

Katherine willed herself to evaporate and, of course, failed. “I think you should ask him that, Amelie. After all, it is a rather personal matter.”

Amelie looked terrified and Katherine remembered that she didn’t have a mother. “I couldn’t do that!”

“But he will be your husband.”

Amelie groped her way to the bed and sat down. The moment she did, she bounded up again, and the significance of that was not lost on a sympathetic Katherine. “Does it hurt?” the woman-child whispered.

Katherine sat down on the edge of the bed, prompting Amelie to sit beside her. “It does hurt a little the first time,” she said quietly. “Then, if you truly love your husband and he loves you, making love can be very pleasurable indeed.”

“I do love Keith,” said the bride-to-be.

Katherine took Amelie’s hand and squeezed it. “Then you needn’t worry because he certainly loves you in return.”

“I’m scared!” confessed Amelie in a feverish rush. “B–But when Keith kisses me—”

Katherine smiled and at this silent urging, Amelie went on.

“When he kisses me, I feel all these strange things! Even if I’m wearing a summer dress I get terribly warm, and my heart beats faster and faster until I think it will explode!”

“Those things are normal, Amelie.” It was time to brave the hallway again and Katherine hoped that her sons and their wives were resting now. Quietly. “Let’s go downstairs and have some tea with lemon and honey.”

The sky beyond Katherine’s window was now dark and furious and split with faraway lightning. Again, she felt that creeping, helpless dread.

And Amelie seemed to feel it, too. She stood up and
went to the window like a sleepwalker, her gaze fixed on the rain. “We wanted to be married outside,” she said, “in the churchyard.”

A chill, inexplicable and fierce, went through Katherine. Then she took herself firmly in hand. Why, if Daniel were here he’d say that she was being fanciful and silly. “Perhaps the sun will shine after all,” she said brightly. “Come now, dear—let’s go and have that tea.”

Amelie turned and nodded, but there was a worried look in her eyes. Katherine wondered sadly if this lovely child was not too timid for all that lay ahead. Was it wrong to wish that she could have been more like Banner or like Jeff’s Fancy?

Downstairs, in the big, cozy kitchen, Melissa and Keith were lighting lamps and stoking up the fire in the cookstove. Alva, overwhelmed by the episode with Fancy’s rabbit, had retired to her room to nurse a headache.

Keith looked up and his blue eyes caressed Amelie with a tenderness Katherine had never seen the likes of, even in him. She knew then that she would not have to warn him to be gentle when the time came.

By the time the tea had been brewed and a rousing, rainy day game of whist had been struck up, Katherine had almost forgotten that she was afraid.

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE PREVIOUS NIGHT’S RAINSTORM HAD PASSED, THOUGH
the sky was still dark and cloudy. Feeling oddly oppressed, Fancy turned away from the bedroom window and began searching for something suitable to wear to a wedding from the one trunk Adam had taken off the train for her. Her other new clothes had remained in the baggage car, to be shipped on to Port Hastings.

Jeff, sprawled across the big bed in such a fashion that Fancy wondered how there had been room for both of them on that one mattress, stirred in his sleep. “No—” he said gruffly. “No—”

Fearing that he was dreaming of the explosion aboard the
Sea Mistress,
as he often did, Fancy hurried to the bedside. Guilt mingled with the sweeping tenderness she felt as she gently smoothed tarnished-gold hair back from his forehead and whispered, “It’s all right, Jeff. It’s all right.”

He settled down again, without waking, and Fancy bent to kiss his forehead softly. At this he muttered some nonsensical endearment and rolled over onto his stomach.

Fancy was confronted with the dreadful scar slashing across his back. In some places, it was as wide as her hand. A lump rose in her throat. What if she awakened him and told him that he had Temple Royce to thank for that scar, that she could swear to it in a court of law?

But Jeff probably knew, or at least suspected that Temple was responsible for that disaster. And if that were true, why risk incurring his wrath by bringing the subject up again?

Fancy stepped back from the bed and turned away resolutely. This was to be a happy day, complete with a wedding. She would not spoil it with thoughts of Temple Royce.

She washed and dressed in a black sateen skirt and a white shirtwaist. Later, when it was time, she would change into something less prim. Maybe Banner, Melissa, or Mrs. Corbin could help her select just the right gown.

The house was very quiet as Fancy made her way down the stairs leading to the kitchen. There, Alva was busy building a fire in the cookstove. She glanced at Fancy and then looked away again without a word of greeting.

“I’m sorry about what happened yesterday with Hershel,” Fancy ventured, stung. As briefly as they had known each other, she thought of Alva as a friend.

“No matter,” replied Alva, slamming down a stove lid, then reaching up to adjust the damper.

Fancy sat down at the kitchen table, feeling weary
despite a good night’s sleep. Distant thunder grumbled in the sky. “What is it, Alva? Why are you so angry with me?”

Alva whirled. “You left here without sayin’ so much as a fare-thee-well, that’s why!”

Fancy was startled out of her doldrums and she sat up very straight in her chair. “At the time I felt I had to get away,” she said evenly. “You would have tried to make me stay.”

Alva was busy again, pumping water into a coffee-pot, measuring grounds into its basket. “I would have at that,” she said with grudging agreement. “It was lonesome here after you went.”

“I’m sorry,” Fancy said sincerely.

“You going on to Port Hastings, you and your husband?”

Fancy dreaded the prospect. In Port Hastings, Jeff would order his ship built. How long did it take to construct such a vessel, anyway? How long did she have before he sailed away and left her? “Yes,” she said, trying to shift her thoughts to more pleasant matters. “But you won’t be lonely anymore, Alva—not after today. Amelie will be here.”

“Amelie!” hooted the housekeeper, rattling stove lids again.

“Don’t you like her?”

Alva sighed and began taking mixing bowls from shelves, whisks and spatulas from drawers. “It isn’t that,” she said quietly. “Miss Amelie is a nice enough lady, but—well—I don’t know that she’s strong. Any woman married to a Corbin has got to be that and more.”

Fancy was circumspectly amused. No doubt, Alva regarded Keith as her chick and felt protective toward
him. “Do you have those same reservations about me, Alva?”

“No,” said Alva firmly. “You’re like Dr. Banner—you can look after yourself if need be, and it would be my guess that you can handle your man. These Corbin men need wives who are just as ornery as they are.”

When it came to Adam and Jeff, Fancy could believe that Alva’s assessment was correct. They both tended to be tyrants and dealing with them was a job, however rewarding. But Keith seemed a different sort; gentler, more pliable. “Keith is hardly the Ornery’ sort, Alva,” she observed.

The coffee was brewed and Alva took it off the stove and filled two cups from its spout. Then she sat down at the table, facing Fancy. “You think he isn’t a man, just because he preaches the gospel?”

“Of course not, but—”

“But nothing. That poor little Amelie child won’t make him happy.”

Fancy took a cautious sip of her steaming coffee. “He loves her!”

“Maybe,” said Alva, and then the conversation was over because Melissa came bouncing into the kitchen, chattering about the organdy dress she was going to wear to the wedding.

*   *   *

Even after the wedding party and the many guests had arrived at the church, the sky was still dark and threatening and the wind was high. Everyone, it seemed to Fancy, was a bit uneasy.

She smoothed the skirts of her lavender lawn dress and hoped that they could all be settled in their pews before another storm came.

The other members of the party seemed to be in no
hurry to go inside, however—Mrs. Corbin was chatting with some of the local women, old friends of hers, perhaps, and her sons were conferring near one of the wagons. Banner and Melissa had disappeared into the tiny parsonage nearby, probably to help Amelie with her wedding dress and veil.

With a sigh, Fancy looked toward the river. It seemed to churn, that green-gray water, railing at the angry sky and the wind. A chill danced up and down Fancy’s spine and she shivered.

Guests were arriving steadily and the bell in the church belfry sang a soft, sad song in the wind. But then, in an instant, the sun broke through the dark clouds and warmed the small gathering, drawing pleased exclamations from the women.

Fancy smiled. It appeared that Amelie would get her wish; Keith had mentioned that she wanted to be married in the churchyard. It was all so romantic, unlike her own wedding.…

Amelie came out of the parsonage, wearing a beautiful, billowing gown and a flowing veil. Fancy knew a moment of uncharitable envy, remembering that she herself had been married in her star-spangled dress with a snake trainer to say the holy words.

“I’ll make it up to you,” whispered a knowing and amused masculine voice from her side.

Fancy looked up into Jeff’s face and marveled; it was disconcerting the way he so often seemed to know what she was thinking. Did he also know that she had seen the plans for his new clippership? “If you don’t go away to sea,” she said, and before Jeff could reply to that everyone was being ushered into place for the ceremony.

As Amelie had hoped, it would be performed out
side, under a towering oak tree. A retired pastor, who lived in the parsonage because Keith didn’t use it, would officiate.

The sun grew brighter and brighter as the rites progressed, and the wind settled. Still, Fancy felt uneasy. She gave herself a mental shake and put the feeling down to petty jealousy.

Keith had just slipped a wide gold band onto Amelie’s finger when the unthinkable happened. There was a thunderous roar, a bright flash, and Fancy was flung to the ground with hurricane force. There were screams and a frightening, ringing sort of thud. Pinned beneath Jeff’s rigid frame, sheltered by it, Fancy grappled to be free.

Jeff lifted his head; she saw his features tighten. “Jesus God,” he muttered.

Fancy was writhing wildly, trying to see what had happened. “Let me up—what are you—”

“Are you all right?” Jeff demanded sharply, staring down into her face.

There was a wailing sound somewhere, and people were sobbing. Horses shrieked in terror and pain. Fancy nodded and Jeff lifted himself off her and helped her up.

The church was gone—completely gone. Nothing remained except a pile of smoky rubble. Women and men were getting to their feet, the women crying, the men looking stunned and pale. Some of the guests lay still on the ground.

Clinging to Jeff’s arm because she would have fallen without its support, Fancy tried to absorb what she was seeing. It was then that she noticed the billow of white silk and tulle lying prone beneath the oak tree. Banner
and Adam knelt on either side of Amelie, while Keith stood at her feet, staring down at her in shock.