Corbin's Fancy by Linda Lael Miller

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 obviouselectrical 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 improvisedbed, the light of real stars catching on those affixed to