But she couldn’t have done that. He would have laughed at her.
Fancy cried until her throat ached and then fell into a fitful sleep. When she awoke, there were shadows creeping across the dusty board floor and someone was knocking impatiently at the door. Stumbling a little, disoriented and headachy, she made her way across the tiny room and released the bolt. Probably, the proprietress had brought her bath water.
She was only half-right. Her bath water was being delivered, steaming in two large kettles, but its bearer was Jeff.
“Madame,” he said with a suave bow, stepping around her and into the room before she could recover enough to slam the door.
“Get out,” she managed impotently, as he set the kettles down on the floor and assessed her with bold blue eyes.
“I will. I’ve got two more kettles and a tub to carry up,” he said as though they had never quarreled. As though he had not spent the afternoon tumbling in the grass with Miss Jewel Stroble.
“Thank you, but I’d rather you left entirely,” Fancy declined with remarkable dignity.
At that moment, the proprietress of the seedy little railroad roominghouse arrived, carrying a huge, round tub and another kettle of water. She gave Jeff a beaming smile. As she was leaving the room, she pointed out that towels and a new bar of soap could be found under the washstand.
“I didn’t think anyone could make that woman smile like that,” marveled Fancy, momentarily distracted. “Not even you.”
Jeff shrugged with feigned humility. “I try to be humble,” he demurred.
“You have never tried to be humble in your life!” countered Fancy furiously, coloring now. “Get out of my room!”
He simply folded his arms. “Our room, dear.”
Mocking him, Fancy folded her arms, too. Since she was incapable of brute force, there was only one other way of getting rid of Jeff Corbin, and she was desperate enough to make use of it. “I told you that I only married you for your money,” she said.
Jeff arched one butternut eyebrow. “And I told you that I intend to have my money’s worth,” he replied. And then, cool as a cucumber picked in the shade, he closed and bolted the door and began filling Fancy’s tub with clean, singularly inviting water.
“Take your bath,” he said finally, sitting down on the edge of the bed in the attitude of a spectator.
“You’ll have to leave first.”
“That water will ice over before I do that.”
“Fiend!”
He lay back on the bed, stretching his long frame out with a hearty sigh, cupping his hands under the back of his head. “I could use a little sleep before we go to dinner,” he said.
“I’ve made my own arrangements for dinner, thank you very much!” sputtered Fancy, glaring at him.
He closed his eyes and, despite her scathing gaze, he did not stir again. After several minutes, he snored.
Fancy didn’t trust him, but the bath water was growing colder by the moment, and everything within her craved its comfort and solace. She stepped closer to the bed and peered into Jeff’s face. “Are you asleep?” she whispered hopefully.
Breathing deeply and evenly, he seemed to be in genuine repose. As if to prove this, he snored again.
Fancy made haste to get out of her dress and underthings and into the bath water. When she looked in the direction of the impossibly narrow bed, she saw that Jeff was watching her, his head propped up on one hand.
“You are beautiful, Frances Corbin,” he said, unperturbed, apparently, by his own deceitfulness.
Fancy sank deep enough to cover her breasts. “My name is not Frances Corbin, you hateful man!” she bit out, taking up the soap and lathering it.
Jeff only laughed.
“What are you doing here, anyway? Is Jewel indisposed?”
“I think she’s milking a cow or something.”
Fancy stretched one leg out and covered it with soap suds. “How fitting,” she said.
“How are we both going to sleep in this bed? It isn’t long enough for me, let alone wide enough for both of us.”
“Don’t worry about that, Mr. Corbin. We are not going to sleep in that bed—I am.”
Jeff grinned and, with that audacity so peculiar to him, came to kneel beside Fancy’s tub. He took the soap and sponge from her and began to methodically scrub her back. “You’re probably right,” he conceded. “I doubt that we’ll sleep.”
Fancy closed her eyes, trying not to succumb to the feelings spawned by the totally innocent washing. “Why are you here?”
“Because my wife is here,” he answered, and set aside the sponge and soap for a moment to repin her tumbling hair.
“Am I really your wife, Jeff?” she dared to ask after a very long time. “Was that ceremony real?”
“Absolutely.”
“But your family—”
“My family didn’t marry you, Fancy. I did.”
She couldn’t argue with him anymore, not tonight, for she had neither the strength nor the spirit to prevail. She said nothing at all, in fact, as he lifted her effortlessly to her feet and completed the bathing process, leaving no part of her unattended.
Just when Fancy was ready for him to make slow, sweet love to her—yes, in spite of everything, she wanted that—he swatted her bottom, handed her the towel, and said, “Get out of there. I want a turn.”
Fancy watched in amazement as he stripped off the clothes he’d been wearing ever since he arrived at the carnival camp and stepped into the tub she had just left. He sang a bawdy saloon song as he washed, ignoring his startled wife completely.
Befuddled, Fancy dressed herself in her spare camisole and drawers, then put on her new lawn dress. She was brushing out her hair before a cracked little mirror affixed to the wall when Jeff finished his bath and took up her discarded towel to dry himself.
“Hurry up,” he said, for all the world like a longtime husband. “I’m hungry.”
Fancy shrugged. “You can’t very well eat naked,” she observed, putting the finishing touches on her coiffure.
“I can do almost anything naked,” he replied, in sunny tones, as he dressed again. “In fact, some of my favorite activities are things that I do naked—”
Color ached in Fancy’s cheeks, even though she knew that he was teasing her, deliberately maneuvering her into just such a reaction. “Preferably with bosomy milkmaids,” she declared acidly.
Jeff laughed, his shirt still gaping open to reveal a broad expanse of muscular midriff matted in a golden tracery. “Next time you shop for a husband, my love, you might want to be a bit more choosey.”
“I might want to be a lot more choosey!” snapped Fancy, too angry to tell him the truth. Let him go on believing that she’d married him because he was wealthy. What did it matter?
He sat down on the edge of the bed and, in a lightning-quick motion, he caught Fancy’s hand and pulled her onto his lap so that she was straddling his thighs and looking away from him. “I do have my redeeming virtues,” he breathed against the bare, tingling flesh along her neck.
“I have yet to see them!” hissed Fancy, scrambling to rise. But he held her fast, his hands sliding up to cup her breasts in a bold display of mastery.
“Let me refresh your memory,” he enjoined gruffly. And then he undid the buttons at the back of Fancy’s dress and drew downward on the front, causing her breasts to spill out, covered just to mid-nipple by her camisole. This, too, was easily removed.
“Jeff,” Fancy choked out, in dazed protest.
He was stroking her, at once soothing her and setting her afire. “Is it really such a bad bargain, Fancy?”
“Jeff, I didn’t mean—I don’t think—”
“Hmmm?” He turned her with idle strength so that she was lying on the narrow bed, looking up at him. And then he lifted her skirts.
Fancy struggled. “No—not now—you’ve got to listen—”
“I have something else in mind.” He made short work of her drawers, then knelt
on the floor. She could not close her legs for he was blocking them with his body.
A jolt shot through Fancy as he parted and then tasted her. “Damn you—is this—what you did to Jewel?” she rasped, already caught up in sweet anguish.
“No. But it is sure as hell what I’m doing to you, lady.” He enjoyed her for a while, idly, and then went on, his strong hands pressing her knees farther and farther apart. “Furthermore, I intend to go on doing it. In carriages, on trains, wherever the mood strikes. And when I do this”—he paused, running the fingers of one hand across his lips—“it means that I plan to exercise this particular pleasure at the first opportunity.”
“That is”—Jeff came back to her, with savage hunger, and Fancy had to pause to cry out—“despicable!”
“Nevertheless,” he replied presently between kisses that made her writhe and toss on the narrow little bed, “that’s the way things are, Mrs. Corbin. God, you are a sweet—delicious—little morsel—”
“Oooh,” Fancy cried, shuddering even as her back arched in a spasmodic, furious surrender. Again and again her body buckled, and it was a very long time before Jeff allowed her to descend to that little room again.
They ate their supper alone in a little café down the street. There were dusty potted palms everywhere, and the windows were fly-speckled, but the food was surprisingly good. Fancy devoured her Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, and peas, not only because she was hungry but because it gave her a brief respite from all the contradictory thoughts and emotions inspired by the man across the table from her.
“I didn’t notice this place when I arrived,” she said over strong coffee and peach pie.
Jeff grinned. “You were too full of righteous wrath to look around you, no doubt,” he replied. “What a pity that it was all unfounded.”
“You went off into the bushes with Jewel Stroble!” Fancy blurted. Of course, the sole waiter’s attention was immediately drawn by this unfortunate remark.
“Must you shout the scandalous details to the world?” retorted Jeff, not seeming particularly upset. “And I did not ‘go into the bushes’ with Jewel Stroble.”
“You did so! I saw you!”
“I meant, you thick-headed little wench, that I did not figuratively—”
“Figuratively?!”
Jeff sighed, looking pained. “Damn it, I’m trying to say that we didn’t do anything there. I just wanted to make you mad, that’s all.”
Fancy was skeptical and wildly hopeful. “Then how come it took you so long to get here?” she demanded.
“Phineas was sick.”
The glorious rage Fancy was working up instantly deflated. “What? What’s the matter with him? What happened?”
“One question at a time, sugarplum. He’s resting comfortably now in the back of his wagon, but I think we should get him to Spokane, where he can rest. He has a sister there.”
“W–What about his wagon—his balloon and everything?”
Jeff looked away momentarily, then met Fancy’s eyes again. “I bought the balloon.”
“You what?!”
“I bought it.” He was defensive now. “Any objections?”
“As long as you don’t expect me to fly in it, none at all!”
“Good. Then can we get back to the subject of Phineas’s health, please?”
Fancy was properly shamed. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“I’m no doctor, but I’d say it’s his heart. I’ve seen some of my brother’s patients with similar symptoms.”
“We should leave right away!”
“Wrong,” Jeff immediately replied. “He needs to rest first. Spokane is several days’ journey from here and it will be hard in a wagon.”
“Couldn’t we send him ahead on the train?”
“I suggested that, but Phineas wanted no part of the idea.”
“What are we going to do, then?”
Jeff smiled over the rim of his coffee cup. “Finish our supper, go back to the roominghouse, and make love. I’ve never had you in a real bed, you know, and I do find the prospect intriguing.”
“How can you even think of something like that when Phineas is so gravely ill?”
“Bemoaning our friend’s condition won’t change anything. Besides, life is a fleeting thing, Fancy, and it can be gone”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. In my opinion, we should take advantage of every opportunity to enjoy the pleasures at hand.”
Fancy blushed. “And in my opinion, you are positively shameless. In fact, you’re a libertine!”
Jeff lifted his coffee cup in a mocking toast. “Get used to it,” he said.
“I will not!” hissed Fancy, leaning across the sugar bowl to make her point. “I didn’t bargain for this!”
“All the same,” he answered smoothly, “you did bargain. You sold yourself to me, Fancy, and—”
“I know, I know. You intend to get your money’s worth!”
“And more,” crooned Jeff. Then he rose from his chair and solicitously helped Fancy out of hers. After he’d paid their check, he escorted her out onto the narrow board sidewalk.
Fancy tried to pull her hand from the crook of his elbow, where he had firmly placed it, and found that it was stuck there. “Let go of me!”
“Not on your life, dear.”
“You have no right to treat me like this—as though—as though I were a slave! I don’t have to follow your orders, Jeff Corbin!”
“Of course not, my dear. For that matter, you needn’t sing, you needn’t dance—” He paused, sighed philosophically, and kissed the tip of her nose. “Just do magic.”
Chapter Nine
THE SOUND OF A TRAIN WHISTLE DREW JEFF UP FROM THE depths of a drugged sleep. A train. There was somewhere he should be going, something he should be doing.
It was cool in the small room due to a soft breeze wafting in through the window. Fancy lay across his chest, her hair tickling his chin. He smiled and entangled one hand in the honey-colored tresses, careful not to awaken her.
She made a kittenlike sound in her throat and stirred. Their flesh was bonded together by the fever of the night, it seemed to Jeff, and he wished that they could remain this way forever.
Again, the train whistle sounded, nearer this time, intrusive. Jeff closed his eyes and held onto the moment, knowing that the sweet peace of it would soon be gone, driven away by the din from the nearby railroad tracks and by facts that would demand to be faced.
Fancy wriggled and then stretched, and Jeff ached with love for her. He should tell her how he felt, he knew that, but the act required more courage than he’d been able to muster up. Another announcement like the one she’d made yesterday would devastate him.
The arrival of the eastbound Pacific Central shook the roominghouse and the flimsy cot. Fancy lifted her head, looked at Jeff with befuddled violet eyes, and murmured, “Good heavens, what’s that noise?”
Jeff smiled sleepily. “Noise?” he asked with feigned surprise as the cot began to dance and jiggle beneath them. The keening shriek of a steam whistle muffled her reply.
He slid his hands down her satin back to her bottom, nipping at her earlobe.
She squirmed against him, igniting fires that burned away his doubts. He turned her, placed her beneath him. “I love you,” he said at her breast.
Fancy could not hear him, he knew. But her body arched toward his in heated welcome and, minutes later, when their frenzied need was satisfied, their cries of despairing triumph went unheard for the clanging of the conductor’s bell.
They lay still in the aftermath, clinging together, struggling for each breath as though they were one entity. Desire, now sated, ebbed and flowed over them in warm waves.
Jeff closed his eyes and shuddered, certain that should he ever care more deeply for Fancy than he did at that moment, he would not be able to bear it. The feeling coursing through him now was startling in its intensity.
“Jeff?” She spoke his name softly; it was only then that
he realized that the whistling clatter of the train had died away.
He could not speak; if he did he would do something stupid and unmanly. He would cry.
Fancy tangled a finger in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Darling, what is it?” she pressed.
Jeff clenched his teeth together, the flesh on his face seemed to stretch taut over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. She married you for money, not love, he reminded himself savagely. If you forget that for one minute, you’re a fool. “Fancy,” he said despairingly, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“We’d better get back to Phineas, don’t you think?”
The cool practicality of that remark sobered Jeff, allowing him to lift his head without fear of disgrace. “Yes,” he croaked out, careful not to look directly into those lethal violet eyes. “You’re right—”
She cupped her hands on the sides of his face and made him look at her. “Jeff,” she insisted softly. “What’s the matter? D–Didn’t I please you?”
With a strangled exclamation, Jeff thrust himself out of her arms, off the cot. He wanted to batter the wall with his fists, wanted to shout and rail. Instead, he let his forehead rest against the cracked plaster and struggled for some semblance of control. His shoulders heaved with the effort.
He heard quiet desolation in her voice. “I’m s–sorry,” she said.
Jeff whirled, unconcerned now with the tears that were glittering in his own eyes, blurring his vision. “Sorry?!” he rasped. “God in heaven, Fancy, for what?”
She was crouched in the middle of that miserable, rumpled, sagging excuse for a bed, her fingers knotted in her lap, her face wan. “I—It would seem that I’ve upset you—disappointed you—”
Heedless of his nakedness, Jeff stared at her in frank amazement. “Disappointed me?” he echoed.
Fancy bit her lower lip and nodded. A tear streaked down her face and fell away into the twisted sheets.
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