Corbin's Fancy Read Online Free PDF Page A

cocoa.
    “Yes,” said Fancy directly. Though she was far away from Newcastle and had no desire to go back, she still grieved for her family. They were caught in the trap of debt and illness, forever trapped. “Papa is sick, but he still keeps working in that mine.”
    “Don’t reckon he has much choice,” observed Alva. “A body’s got to eat.”
    “They barely manage that,” mourned Fancy, her eyes distant. “The mine owner pays his workers in company scrip, which can only be spent at his store, of course. People always owe more than they can ever hope to earn.”
    “But you speak like a lady,” Alva pointed out after biting off a thread with strong, sure teeth. “How’d that come to be? And how’d you ever learn to work magic?”
    Fancy smiled. “As soon as I left, I got myself a job as a lady’s maid in Seattle. I listened to her and I read books when I wasn’t working, and pretty soon I came to speak the way Mrs. Evanston did. Her son studiedmagic as a sort of an avocation, and he taught me as much as he could.”
    Remembering Tim Evanston made Fancy smile, though somewhat bitterly. He’d wanted to teach her more than magic, that was a fact. In the end, he’d been the reason she’d left her job and struck out on her own, armed only with a rabbit caught in the woods behind the Evanston house, a hand-lettered sign optimistically listing her talents, and an old hat discarded by the senior Mr. Evanston.
    “You been sendin’ most of what you make back to your folks, ain’t you?” Alva guessed, with uncanny accuracy.
    “How did you know that?” asked Fancy, honestly surprised.
    “Easy. A girl as pretty as you, she’ll usually spend every nickel she can get on hair ribbons and geegaws. You ain’t got nothin’ but that fat rabbit and what you carry in your handbag.”
    Fancy blushed, embarrassed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want nice things—God knew, she ached for them sometimes—but there would have been no joy in spending money that was so desperately needed at home. “Like you said, people have to eat.”
    “Don’t they now?” commented Alva, handing over the lovely dress she had just altered.
    Fancy thanked her profusely and the two women parted, both exhausted, both filled with the joy of finding a new friend.
    *   *   *
    “Are you going to dump that all over me, or do I get to eat this time?” demanded Jeff Corbin sourly, his ink-blue eyes filled with residual rage.
    Fancy stood proudly in her new dress, her chin high, her hair neat, the tray clasped firmly in both hands. “To my mind, Captain,” she said, “you shouldn’t be getting trays carried to you at all. You’re not an invalid, you know.”
    “Why did you bring it up here, then?” snapped the surly man with the archangel face, not bothering to rise from his chair near the window.
    “Because I knew Alva would have to do it if I didn’t,” replied Fancy, setting the tray down on a small side table within his reach. “She has enough to do without waiting on the likes of you.”
    A grin pushed aside the scowl on Jeff’s face, reluctant though it was. “The likes of me, is it? Do you really think I’m that awful, Frances?”
    “Do not call me ‘Frances’!” ordered Fancy. “I despise it!”
    The grin became a smirk and Fancy knew that she’d made a serious mistake in revealing her aversion to the name. This man would certainly latch on to any method of annoying her that was offered. “Would you rather we were formal? I could call you ‘Miss Jordan.’ But, then, that isn’t really your name, either, is it?”
    Fancy colored, full of fury and some other disquieting emotion that she couldn’t quite set a name to. “No,” she admitted, without knowing why. “My last name is Gordon.”
    He laughed, the wretch, as he uncovered the dishes on his tray and began to consume fried eggs, bacon, and riced potatoes, with alarming appetite. “Frances Gordon. I love it!” He paused, chewing what amounted to a