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  “ONE OF THE HOTTEST ROMANCE AUTHORS WRITING TODAY.”

  —Romantic Times

  Linda Lael Miller

  CORBIN’S FANCY

  When a traveling carnival left Fancy Jordan stranded in the rugged Washington Territory, she thought her luck had run out. Alone, penniless, she welcomed a most intriguing offer—to live in the home of Jeff Corbin’s brother and coax the wounded, withdrawn Jeff back to health and happiness.

  But a villainous attack on his ship had hurt only his body—a far deeper sorrow tortured him, heart and soul. For as the beautiful gamine fell deeply in love with this handsome, brooding man, she faced a phantom rival…one that only the most splendid, most heartfelt passion could conquer!

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  Sigrid Estrada

  LAEL ST. JAMES is a pseudonym for LINDA LAEL MILLER, the beloved bestselling author of more than thirty novels, of which there are more than twelve million copies in print. Most recently she received acclaim for her New York Times bestsellers Courting Susannah and One Wish, and her tales of life and love in the fictional towns of Springwater, Montana, and Primrose Creek, Nevada. Ms. Miller resides in the Scottsdale, Arizona, area.

  Books by Linda Lael Miller

  Banner O’Brien

  Corbin’s Fancy

  Memory’s Embrace

  My Darling Melissa

  Angelfire

  Desire and Destiny

  Fletcher’s Woman

  Lauralee

  Moonfire

  Wanton Angel

  Willow

  Princess Annie

  The Legacy

  Taming Charlotte

  Yankee Wife

  Daniel’s Bride

  Lily and the Major

  Emma and the Outlaw

  Caroline and the Raider

  Pirates

  Knights

  My Outlaw The Vow

  Two Brothers: The Lawman & The Gunslinger Springwater

  Springwater

  Seasons series:

  Rachel

  Savannah

  Miranda

  Jessica

  A Springwater Christmas

  One Wish

  The Women of Primrose Creek

  Bridget

  Christy

  Skye

  Megan

  Courting Susannah

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

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  This book is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents relating to nonhistorical figures are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical incidents, places or figures to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1985 by Linda Lael Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-73767-8

  ISBN: 9781476710709 (eBook)

  First Tapestry Books printing August 1985

  First Pocket Books printing April 1990

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  For Sally Jean Lang—the girl with snowflakes in her hair

  Prologue

  Port Hastings, Washington Territory

  December 24, 1887

  THE GREAT HOLLY WREATH JIGGLED ON ITS HOOK AS JEFF Corbin slammed the front door behind him, wedged his hands into the pockets of his heavy seaman’s coat, and stomped down the steps.

  Almost immediately, the door opened again. “Damn you,” barked a hoarse voice, “wait a minute!”

  Jeff paused in the middle of the snowy walk, his shoulders tense, his jaw set in a hard line. He did not turn to face his brother; feeling the way he did, he couldn’t. Even when Adam came to stand before him, Jeff refused to meet his eyes or acknowledge his presence.

  “How long are we going to keep this up?” Adam demanded, his hands rising to his hips.

  Jeff said nothing, though imagined shouts of anger and hurt were reverberating through his mind. Because he rarely hid his feelings, it was especially difficult for him to remain silent.

  “It’s Christmas, Jeff,” Adam reminded him, with uncommon patience. “You can’t leave now.”

  “I have to leave now,” Jeff breathed, his gaze still carefully avoiding his older brother’s. His mind and heart were full to aching with pictures of Banner, his sister-in-law, and of the children she had borne Adam. They were twins—a boy and a girl.…

  “Jeff.”

  Jeff forced himself to look at Adam. The wind was bitterly cold that Christmas Eve; it stung both men and blew between them, severing the chain that had once joined their two souls. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “The Sea Mistress sails at dawn and the crew is already aboard.”

  “Damn the Sea Mistress!” hissed Adam, lifting one hand to the back of his dark head in frustration. “I had to keep Papa’s illness a secret from you and everyone else, Jeff! Don’t you understand that?”

  Jeff nodded. “I understand,” he said, but it was only a half-truth. For five years he’d believed his father dead; finding out that the man had been alive all the time had jarred him deeply.

  “You don’t understand,” rasped Adam. “Jesus, Jeff, he had leprosy—”

  “I know. And he had you to take care of him. The devoted son. Why in hell would Papa have needed me when he had you?”

  Adam flinched slightly, but stood his ground. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

  Jeff lifted his chin. “Yes, it’s more than that,” he replied evenly. “I love your wife, Adam. I love Banner and I wish to God that those two babies in there were mine. Does that make the problem clear enough?”

  The explosion Jeff half expected didn’t come; Adam only sighed and tilted his head back to search the snow-shrouded heavens. Glistening, prismlike flakes gathered on his lashes and the strong planes of his face. “You’ll get over what you’re feeling now, Jeff. Just give yourself some time—”

  Battling his emotions, Jeff made his way around the barrier of his brother’s tall frame and started toward the gate. “Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it, doctor?” he called back, glad that Adam could not see his face. “I’ll be gone about six months, so don’t wait up.”

  Suddenly, Jeff felt himself whirled around. He was thrust backward against the heavy stone fence. Fury stung him, but its pulsing venom left him oddly weak and quite immobile.

  “You are going to listen to me,” Adam drawled, glar
ing into Jeff’s face like a blue-eyed demon.

  Jeff managed to thrust his brother’s powerful hands away from the lapels of his coat, but he could do no more, and his breath was coming hard, as though he’d just run a great distance. “Go to hell,” he said.

  “I love you, too, Jeff,” Adam replied. Then he sighed again and spoke without the sarcasm that was so much a part of his nature. “Please, don’t go. Not like this—”

  It happened. The sobs Jeff had been holding back broke free, tearing themselves from the depths of his chest, harsh and raw. “God damn you,” he choked out. “Damn you, Adam—I can’t stay—”

  Adam drew his brother close, held him for a moment, then stepped back. His voice was hoarse. “You know, don’t you, that I wouldn’t have seen you hurt like this for anything in the world?”

  Jeff nodded. “I know.”

  Briefly, Adam touched Jeff’s shoulder. Then, without another word, he turned and walked back toward the house, where Banner waited. Banner, with her lush, cinnamon hair, her green, green eyes—

  Jeff, so anxious to leave only moments before, stood still for a time, gazing up at the great stone structure that had always been his home, for all his travels. Tonight, however, it seemed to exclude him.

  After almost a minute, Jeff Corbin unlatched the gate, opened it, and walked through. Oblivious to the cold and the biting snow, he made his way down the steep hill to the town, and then to the harbor beyond.

  Reaching the long wharf where the Sea Mistress was moored, he drew a deep breath, hoped to God none of his grief showed in his face, and marched up the shifting, snow-laced boarding ramp.

  His men greeted him with coarse jocularity, as they always did; he spared them a desultory wave of one hand and strode toward his cabin, his head down. Whiskey. What he needed now was whiskey.

  The first thunderous blast shook the clippership just as Jeff reached the steps leading below deck, hurling him down into the companionway. There were screams and then another explosion sounded, seeming to tear at the innermost timbers of the ship.

  Dazed, Jeff half crawled back up the steps to the main deck. There was fire everywhere; crimson flames crackled through the rigging, consumed the sails, skittered along the deck itself, and danced hellishly on the railings. Men jumped overboard, their hair and clothing afire, their cries of terror and pain incongruous with the petal-soft snowfall wafting down from a hidden sky.

  The heat was unbearable and, as he lunged over the port side of the ship toward the darkness and oblivion that awaited him, Jeff thought he heard the devil laugh.

  Chapter One

  Wenatchee, Washington Territory

  May 12, 1888

  THE RABBIT WOULD NOT COME OUT OF THE HAT.

  Fancy could feel the creature with her right hand—it was crouched deep inside its black velvet bag, shivering and stubborn and heavy. The crowd of children in front of the gazebo pressed closer, their freckled faces intent and smudged with strawberry ice cream, their eyes fixed on the battered top hat.

  “She can’t make no rabbit come out of there!” one little boy complained. “That ain’t even a lady’s hat!”

  “Maybe she ain’t no lady!” observed a barefooted demon.

  Perspiration trickled between Fancy’s breasts and shoulder blades. She tugged harder at the rabbit, conscious of Mr. Ephraim Shibble’s cold glare of warning. Beyond his bulky frame, the glorious pink and white blossoms of the apple orchard seemed to shift and shimmer in a haze. Fancy noted distractedly that colorful ribbons, dozens of bright balloons, and even presents hung from the boughs of one tree.

  “Don’t do this to me, Hershel,” she pleaded. A breeze scented with blossoms and bruised grass and picnic food cooled her burning cheeks and loosened the damp tendrils of silvery saffron hair clinging to the back of her neck.

  “I told you she couldn’t do it!” howled the small heckler who had spoken first, squinting up at Fancy in hostile challenge.

  Stung anew, Fancy wrenched at Hershel, hard, and he came out of his hat at last—the black bag that had hidden him hanging from his hind legs like a grim flag of defeat.

  The adults who had gathered to watch shook their heads and turned away, some grumbling, some chuckling, some pitying the proud young woman who stood stiffly in her ridiculous star-speckled dress, still holding the rabbit aloft.

  As the children scattered, too, Fancy bent and thrust an unrepentant Hershel into the wire cage secreted beneath her folding table. When she straightened, she was met with the condemning gaze of Mr. Ephraim Shibble, her employer.

  The heavy man, suffering in his tight-fitting suit, bent to take up the worn placard that had stood in front of the table and perused it with calm disdain. “‘Fancy Jordan,’” he read, in mocking tones. “‘She sings. She dances. She does magic.’”

  Fancy winced and clasped her hands together behind her back. “Mr. Shibble, I—”

  Shibble interrupted by shaking the signboard; a shower of time-dulled glitter fell from the large, carefully formed letters. “You are a fraud,” he accused, in a scathing undertone. “You are an embarrassment! And you are out of a job!”

  This was what Fancy had most feared, but she retained some semblance of composure and met Mr. Shibble’s small, watery eyes squarely. “You cannot leave me here,” she said, in even tones that betrayed none of the hysteria rising within her. “I have no position, no money—”

  Shibble shoved the battered signboard into her hands. “Then I suggest that you sing and dance, since you are apparently incapable of magic. You will not travel another mile, Miss Jordan, with my company!”

  “But—”

  “No! You have humiliated me for the last time!” With that, Mr. Shibble turned and stormed away to watch one of the other members of the small traveling show perform. For a moment, Fancy, too, watched the Great Splendini wobble upon his “high wire,” which loomed all of five feet off the soft ground.

  When she was sure that she would not be observed, Fancy sank down to sit on the gazebo’s top step, resting her head against the white-washed railing. A long, despondent sigh escaped her.

  “You weren’t all that bad,” remarked a gentle, masculine voice.

  Fancy, on the verge of tears, looked up to see a tall man standing before her, his arms folded, his azure eyes revealing both amusement and sympathy. He wore dark trousers, a vest over a pristine white shirt, and a clerical collar.

  “I was bad enough to be fired,” she argued.

  He bent, took the signboard from the gazebo floor where Mr. Shibble had dropped it, and read it pensively, as though it were some lofty treatise. “Can you really do magic?” he asked, after some moments.

  Fancy blushed. Though one would never know it by the way her act had gone that afternoon, she was, as it happened, a fairly accomplished magician. She could draw coins from behind people’s ears, for example, and she could make fire flash from her fingertips. Once, on a particularly good night, she had even sawed a woman in half and put her back together again. Volunteers for that trick were hard to come by, though, and the props had been borrowed from another magician.

  “Yes,” she said, with dignity, “I can do magic.”

  “We could use some of that around here,” reflected the young minister.

  Fancy looked about, really seeing her surroundings for the first time since her arrival earlier that day. Since then, she, like the rest of the troupe, had been too busy preparing for the noon performance to pay much attention.

  Now she saw a massive, gracious stone house, the acres of lushly blossomed apple trees that flanked it, the green-gray river tumbling past the sloping front lawn, the gardens with their budding rosebushes and marble benches. “Do you live here?” she ventured, thinking it a marvel that a man of the cloth could be so prosperous.

  “Yes,” replied the reverend, with a slight bow of his head and an amused twist of his fine lips. “My family owns the land, actually, and I manage it.”

  Fancy was impressed. Once again her
gaze caught on the particular apple tree with the balloons, ribbons, and presents dangling from its boughs. She was certain that she had never seen such a festive sight. “Is it someone’s birthday?” she asked.

  The reverend laughed softly. “No. My family has a tradition of celebrating the blossoming of the orchard. The entire community is invited and each of the children gets to take a gift from the tree.” He paused and frowned thoughtfully. “Sounds a little pagan, doesn’t it? Like a rite of spring or something.”

  Despite her circumstances, Fancy smiled. “It’s a lovely idea,” she answered.

  “I’m hungry, Miss Jordan,” the man announced suddenly. “How about you?”

  Fancy was ravenous. There had been no time to eat that morning after leaving the train in nearby Wenatchee, a small but thriving settlement along the same green river that flowed past the house. “I have a rabbit we could roast,” she suggested, only half in jest.

  The pastor grinned and offered his hand to help Fancy up from her perch on the gazebo steps. “That would take far too long, wouldn’t it?” he reasoned.

  Before taking his hand, Fancy looked down at the worn skirts of her performing dress. One of the silver stars she had stitched onto it was coming loose, and she attempted, in vain, to smooth it with her slender finger. “I don’t know your name,” she said.

  “Keith,” he replied informally. “Keith Corbin.”

  Corbin. The name stabbed the pit of Fancy’s empty stomach and spun there before whirling through the rest of her system like a stormwind. Dear God in heaven, surely the family this man spoke of could not be the Port Hastings Corbins!

  Reverend Corbin crouched to peer into Fancy’s bloodless face, her hand still warmly cushioned in his. “What is it?”

  “N–Nothing,” lied Fancy. In her mind, however, vivid, flashing images collided with each other—the explosion aboard the ship anchored in Port Hastings’ busy harbor; Temple Royce, then her employer and avid suitor, laughing as he lifted a glass to toast the demise of the vessel’s captain.