Jeff laughed. “Eustis,” he said, “is a true friend.”
Fancy was blushing so hard that it hurt. “Men!” she spat out.
The hand was stroking her breast, tracing the nipple, making it ache. “Now where is that sweet, obedient, cloyingly compliant little chit that made a fool out of me at the livery stable today?”
Fancy squeezed her eyes shut, determined to ignore the sweet havoc he was wreaking upon her breast, to sleep. “I wouldn’t know,” she said.
Jeff rolled easily out of bed with a long-suffering sigh, pulling Fancy after him. Just as easily, he pulled her nightgown up over her head, flung it aside, and then kissed her, his tongue plundering her mouth until she was weak. To repay him, she knelt, and in kneeling, she came into power.
Jeff trembled, uttered a muffled groan and surrendered to the ruthless pagan who gave him no other choice.
Chapter Fifteen
FANCY LEFT THE PRIVATE COMPARTMENT WITH AS MUCH dignity as possible, her head high. The train seemed to be careening down the tracks toward certain destruction and she had to grip the occasional seat back to keep from falling as she made her way along the aisle to her place.
Jeff, already resettled in his own seat, looked up at her with a salacious grin and then pretended to concentrate on the newspaper he had bought in Colterville.
Fancy glared at her husband in silent defiance and sat down opposite him. Beneath her stylish new traveling dress and her hand-embroidered camisole, the thoroughly tongued and suckled peaks of her breasts chafed.
“I warned you,” Jeff said in an amused whisper, crackling his newspaper once for emphasis.
Fancy stiffened, folded her arms across her breasts, and looked out the train window. They were traveling along the broad and angry Columbia River now, drawing nearer to Wenatchee with every passing second. “I didn’t think you were serious!” she hissed.
“You liked it,” said Jeff.
Fancy suppressed an untoward urge to plunge the sole of one shoe through that cursed newspaper of his. There was no denying that she’d enjoyed their brief and scandalous encounter in the compartment, but her pride was nettled, all the same.
She colored, remembering what had gone on in that tiny room. Jeff had all but dragged her back there and, once the door was closed, he’d calmly unbuttoned her dress, lowered her camisole, and taken his pleasure at her bare breasts. This with passengers and the occasional conductor walking by in the narrow passageway outside!
When he had satisfied himself at her nipples, Jeff had had the gall to divest her of her drawers and lift her onto the upper berth, so that she sat facing him, without hope of escape. He had then nuzzled his way into the moistness and warmth of her and brought her to a savage, gasping release with a calm greed that infuriated her even now.
Lowering his newspaper, Jeff smiled at her. It was as though he had been looking into her mind, marking the passage of her thoughts and the direction they took. “That was revenge for last night, among other things,” he said.
“Beast,” muttered Fancy, albeit half-heartedly. The train was thundering its way over an impossibly high trestle that seemed most unsteady to her. One look down into the swirling currents and eddies of that dangerous river sent her bounding across to sit beside Jeff.
There was a look of tender tolerance in the ink-blue eyes that swung to her pinkened face. “The train isn’t going to fall into the river, Frances,” he said moderately.
“Fancy,” she corrected doggedly, clasping her hands together in her lap. Her skirts, freshly pressed that morning at Isabella’s, were now crumpled and somewhat dusty. Would anyone be able to guess, from her appearance, that she had just been ravished in a train compartment?
“Your thoughts might as well be written on your forehead,” Jeff observed, in a low tone that stirred that strange, wanton part of her to life again.
“Oh?” she said, trying to look nonchalant.
He laughed and shook his head and went back to his newspaper.
It was a relief to Fancy when the train jolted and shrilled to a stop at Wenatchee, for more reasons than one. The nearness of Jeff, the intangible power of his body over hers, had caused her a delicious sort of misery. More than once she’d considered taking his hand and leading him back to that compartment.
There were angry clouds in the summer sky, but the Corbin family was waiting at the ramshackle train station anyway, and Fancy’s first sight of them was alarming. There seemed to be so many of them.
“Courage,” teased Jeff, ushering her toward the group, his grasp firm but unhurting on her elbow.
A beautiful, fair-haired woman with delicate features and eyes as blue as Jeff’s hurried forward immediately. “Is this our Fancy?” she demanded gleefully, casting only one glance at her towering son.
Jeff chuckled. “Yes, Mama, this is Fancy.”
Katherine Corbin flung her arms around her daughter-in-law and hugged her fiercely. “Welcome, welcome!” she cried. And then, still holding Fancy by the shoulders, she turned her head to look back at the others. “Look—isn’t she wonderful?”
Fancy swallowed, disconcerted. She had not expected such a warm greeting from a woman who had every reason to think her unsuited.
At that moment, the most beautiful woman Fancy had ever seen stepped forward, green eyes sparkling, cinnamon hair done up in a loose and appealing knot at the top of her head. “Wonderful is hardly the word, Mama,” she smiled.
“Fancy, this is Banner,” Jeff said quietly, and with a gentle sort of pride that stung his wife.
“H–Hello, Dr. Corbin,” Fancy managed to say.
“Dr. Corbin!” scolded the vision. “We’re sisters now, Frances. Won’t you call me Banner?”
Fancy felt rumpled and road-weary. Her hair was coming down from its pins, thanks to Jeff Corbin’s lust, and her pretty dress was probably a mass of wrinkles. Her throat worked, but no response was forthcoming.
“Back off and let her breathe, O’Brien,” ordered a familiar masculine voice from somewhere in the blur.
The emerald-green eyes snapped with annoyance, but Banner subsided enough to present a young girl with dark hair and eyes of the clearest crystal blue. “This is Melissa,” she said.
Melissa’s smile was eager and bright with mischievous delight. “Hello,” she said without the slightest shyness. And then her gaze swung to Jeff’s face, impish. “I don’t know how a great lumbering sea dog like you ever managed to win such a bride,” she informed her brother.
Jeff laughed, locked his arms about Melissa’s waist, and swung her unceremoniously around in a circle that forced everyone else, including Fancy, to step out of range. “I’ve missed you, brat,” he said.
Melissa hugged his neck and, when he set her down again, there were happy tears in her eyes.
The whole scene was a colorful mist to Fancy, and she was grateful when Keith suddenly appeared before her, smiling his gentle smile. “Aren’t you glad you already know Amelie and me?” he teased, kissing her forehead. “Welcome to the family, Fancy.”
Fancy hugged him, her heart in her throat, and then smiled at Amelie, who looked slightly overwhelmed herself.
“I’m afraid your rabbit got away,” announced Melissa, facing Fancy squarely. Her serious expression melted into a delighted grin. “Don’t worry, though—he’s in the house somewhere. Poor Alva is hysterical!”
“Are we going to stand around here in a mob or what?” Adam demanded with gruff impatience.
Everyone laughed, including Fancy, and then they were off toward a line of three buckboards.
“We have our own wagon train,” said Banner, falling into step beside Fancy.
Fancy felt more secure now; she had half expected to be met with horrified disbelief, but now that she had been greeted with warmth instead she was almost dizzy with relief. “Did you bring your babies?” she asked Adam’s wife.
Banner shook her head. “They’re at home with Maggie, our housekeeper,” she said, and there was a brief
sadness in the depths of her clover-green eyes.
A few clamorous and confused minutes later, they were all seated in the seats of the wagons, Katherine, Keith, and Amelie riding in the first, Adam and Banner in the second, Jeff, Fancy, and Melissa in the third. The balloon was being sent on to Port Hastings aboard the train.
Melissa talked incessantly all through the short trip back to Keith’s big stone house. Fancy listened with half an ear, already feeling deep affection for Jeff’s young sister. Mostly, though, she was remembering the day she had come to this place with Mr. Shibble’s troupe. She’d thought of that experience as a cruel ending at the time; instead it had turned out to be a beginning.
There were pink tea roses growing up the sides of the gazebo where she and Hershel had performed; she marveled that she hadn’t noticed that before.
“I hope you aren’t angry about the rabbit,” Melissa said, penetrating Fancy’s thoughts at last. “I only wanted to hold him.”
Fancy smiled and patted her sister-in-law’s small hand. Hershel was a symbol of another time and she didn’t need him quite so much as she had before. “We’ll find him,” she said.
The wagons came to noisy, simultaneous stops, and before Jeff could so much as secure the brake lever and let go of the reins, Melissa had caught Fancy’s hand in her own and was tugging at it insistently.
A shriek from inside the huge stone house indicated that Hershel had been found or at least sighted. Laughing, Katherine reclaimed her daughter-in-law firmly, linking her small, strong arm with Fancy’s. “Do try to be patient with us, darling,” she enjoined in an amused whisper. “We become easier to accept with time.”
Accept? Fancy had never worried about accepting them; quite the reverse had been true. She couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat.
Banner and Melissa joined the entourage, followed somewhat hesitantly by Amelie, while the men remained behind to see to the horses.
“Get back here, you pink-eyed critter!” screamed Alva as they drew nearer the house. Katherine laughed and encircled an uncertain Amelie with her free arm. Fancy found herself liking her mother-in-law even more.
The inside of the house was cool and spacious and again Fancy remembered her first day there. She’d had no hope then of being a Corbin—the thought hadn’t even occurred to her—but now she was a part of the family.
An inviting luncheon had been set out on the dining room table. Harried and driven by an annoyed Alva Thompkins, the Corbins finally gathered there, all of them talking at once.
Fancy, having washed her face and hands and repinned her hair in the upstairs room where she had first encountered Jeff Corbin, was just beginning to feel like a lady. Her worries about being accepted by the family were gone for the most part, for they had not only accepted her, they had welcomed her. She smiled across the table at Amelie and lifted her fork to eat.
At that very moment, Hershel struck. He came leaping across from a sideboard and landed, hind feet slipping in a wild bid for traction, in the middle of a platter of glazed ham. Gaining his footing, he calmed instantly and approached the green salad, where he nibbled at an overhanging lettuce leaf.
There was a stunned silence, during which Fancy wished that she could quietly die, and then Melissa and Banner gave simultaneous shrieks of laughter.
“I was hoping for roast chicken,” said Adam without inflection of any kind.
Eyes dancing, Keith turned to shout toward the kitchen. “Alva, we found the rabbit!”
Fancy saw the whole scene through a shimmering blur of mortification. When Jeff calmly stood up and grasped the furry intruder in both hands, she pushed back her chair and fled.
In Jeff’s room, she flung herself down on the bed and sobbed.
A gentle hand came to rest on one of her shoulders and the mattress gave way a little as a skirted figure sat down on its edge. “Oh, Fancy, don’t cry,” Banner pleaded gently. “It’s all right, really it is.”
Fancy wailed. Her good impression was ruined. Ruined! How had she ever hoped to fit in with these people? Why had she deluded herself that she could? “I never should have married Jeff!” she cried. “I knew I would be a shame to him—”
Banner’s voice was instantly firm. Gone was the gentleness. “Frances Corbin,” she ordered, “you sit up this minute and look at me!”
Fancy obeyed, sniffling inelegantly. The command had been put in such a way that she would not have thought of ignoring it.
Banner’s green eyes were snapping. “Jeff loves you,” she said forcefully, “and he needs you. You could never be a shame to him in any way, and I don’t want to hear that sort of nonsensical drivel from you ever again!”
Fancy was aghast. “But—”
Now Banner was waggling an angry index finger in her face. “We all thought Jeff was lost!” she went on. “But you saved him, Fancy. You and your rabbit and your dress with stars on it!”
“H–How did—I mean—”
Banner lowered her finger and smiled. “Keith told us all about it, Fancy—how you came here and blasted Jeff out of his black moods and his self-pity—”
“I have been spoken of in kinder terms,” observed Jeff wryly from the doorway.
“But not truer ones,” retorted Banner crisply, at the same time taking both Fancy’s hands in hers and squeezing them in reassurance.
Fancy lowered her eyes, a blush aching in her cheeks, unable to look at Jeff. Banner stood up and quietly left the room.
There was a short, pulsing silence. Now, Jeff would reprimand Fancy for owning a rabbit that would step in his august family’s dinner. She braced herself, hands knotted together, head down.
“Frances,” Jeff ordered sternly, “look at me.”
She couldn’t.
He came and sat down beside her on the bed. “Frances,” he repeated.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
And, to her complete surprise, his arm came around her shoulders, strong and warm. “Banner was right, you know. If you hadn’t come prancing in here and thrown my supper all over me that night, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Fancy gaped at him, wide-eyed. “But I—Hershel—”
He laughed and the sound was low and gruff and profoundly comforting. “Hershel is part of your charm,” he said. “Fancy, I love you.”
She sniffled and a smile formed itself on her mouth. “Last time you said that, I kicked you out of bed,” she said.
He kissed her briefly once, and then again in a more lingering fashion. “I remember,” he breathed.
* * *
O’Brien was grinning as she took her chair at the table. “I don’t think they’ll be down for a while,” she said, to the family at large.
Watching his wife, Adam was reminded of the way her satiny belly was rounding to accommodate his child and of their reunion the night before. He sat with his legs just a little farther apart.
Fork in hand, O’Brien met his smoldering gaze with impish understanding. All the same, a slight blush crept up her flawless face and lost itself in the cinnamon tendrils curling along her forehead. If he signaled her, in the secret way, would she obey him?
Adam decided to find out. Setting his wineglass down, he cleared his throat and tugged thoughtfully at one ear.
O’Brien blushed even harder, but she laid aside her fork and stood up again, her eyes lowered but hardly submissive. “I–I don’t think I’m very hungry,” she said, and then she turned and left the dining room.
Adam waited until he heard her footsteps on the stairs before excusing himself from the table and following.
“Please pass the rabbit,” said Keith with humorous resignation.
* * *
“Bag balm?!” hissed Fancy, lying naked and warm on the bed.
Jeff laughed and knelt astraddle of her, taking a great dollop of the soothing potion onto his fingers. She whimpered softly as he rubbed balm into her right nipple.
“You’ll taste terrible,” he said gravely, but then he
proceeded to attend the opposite nipple with more balm and slow, tantalizing motions of his hand.
Fancy had expected something quite different when Jeff had undressed her, but this was very pleasing. A feeling of heated luxury surged through her. “Aren’t you—aren’t you going to t–take me?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, moving downward, kneeling between her legs. The cooling cream was now being applied to the secret, tender place—around and around his fingers went, in gentle mastery, up and down, around and around.
“Oooh,” crooned Fancy, closing her eyes and arching her back.
“Do you like that?” Jeff asked in deep, idle tones.
Fancy bit her lower lip, not wanting to admit that she did.
He caught the very core of her passion between gentle fingers and plied it, smoothed it, roused it to aching obedience. “Fancy,” he insisted.
“Yes!” she gasped. “Yes, yes—”
“How much?”
A great tremor went through Fancy, followed by a frantic, molten need. “V–Very much.”
“Shall I take you?”
Fancy blushed at the scandal, the sweet wickedness. The breeze from the open window floated over her, somehow fanning the inferno within. She stretched in sweet, eager comfort. “Yes,” she whispered.
“When?”
Fancy reached out with shaking hands to undo his belt and the buttons of his trousers. She learned instantly that he was not so calm as she’d thought. “Now,” she conceded raggedly. “Oh, now—”
Groaning, Jeff got up from the bed just long enough to take off his clothes. Then he lay down again on his back and turned Fancy to sit astride him. His shaft glided easily inside her, thanks to the balm, but it was as imposing as ever.
Grasping Fancy’s hips in his hands, Jeff began to raise and lower her upon his mastery, slowly at first, and then with fury. She reached a blinding release that made her fling her head back and bare her teeth over a hoarse growl of satisfaction and then was free to watch Jeff.
He was so beautiful, so very beautiful, even with the angry scar reaching the length of one powerful arm. Finally, with a gravel-rough cry of her name and an upward thrust of his muscular hips, he gave up what her velvety passage had drawn from him.
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