Magnolia (14 page)

She got up with an apologetic glance at Claire and swept off to the kitchen.

Claire felt her temper begin to rise. She stared at John with cold eyes, noting his sudden tension.

“Obviously you didn't feel inclined to take me with you,” she said bluntly.

“It was a business meeting.”

“Mrs. Calverson wasn't there?” she persisted.

He threw his napkin down. “Yes, she was there!”

“And Mrs. Dobbs's sister-in-law was there, also.”

He got to his feet. He felt guilty—and because of it, he sought refuge in bad temper. “The Whitfields were also in attendance, and judging by past events, I thought it diplomatic to keep you and Ted Whitfield separated,” he said, with some heat.

“Are you accusing me again of encouraging Ted?”

“Didn't you?” he asked, his smile as mocking as his tone. “I do recall almost coming to blows with him over you the last time you were together. That couldn't have happened if you hadn't encouraged his advances. And those of other bank officers.”

She stood up, too, very slowly. “And naturally, your feelings for the elegant Mrs. Calverson are nothing more than those of a banker for his business partner's wife?”

His eyes darkened. Beside his powerful thigh, one lean hand clenched. “Be careful, Claire,” he cautioned softly.

“Why?” she demanded. “You obviously believe that you have every right to spend your time ogling Mrs. Calverson and making sure that I don't do anything to spoil your fun. But I mustn't be seen near Ted, is that right?”

“I don't ogle Mrs. Calverson!”

“That isn't what it looks like!” she snapped. “Our marriage will do very little to stop the gossip if you continue to feed it in such a manner.”

Mrs. Dobbs came back before he could reply, looking worried and nervous.

“Shall we continue this discussion upstairs?” John asked curtly.

“No, we shall not,” Claire replied, shocking him. “I have no wish whatsoever to speak with you about such a distasteful subject. My opinion is of no consequence to you, anyway—since you don't care what I think of your philandering.”

He was outraged. “I have never philandered!”

“Ha!”

He turned and left the room, pausing just long enough to retrieve his coat, hat, and cane from the rack in the hall before he went slamming out the front door.

Mrs. Dobbs hesitated. “The first days of any marriage can be very difficult,” she said encouragingly.

“This marriage has been nothing short of difficult since its beginning,” Claire replied shortly. “I should never have married him. It's my own fault for thinking I could change the way he feels. He can't really help finding Mrs. Calverson attractive. And I have neither the beauty nor the charm to compete with hers.”

Mrs. Dobbs came forward and took her hands. “Claire, you have so many wonderful qualities,” she said earnestly. “Please don't let that woman break up your marriage.”

“How can I fight her influence?” Claire asked wearily. “I had no idea that he was going to socials without me.”

Mrs. Dobbs looked guilty. “I shouldn't have said anything. It just rankled to have him keep quiet about it. You had a right to know.”

“Yes, I did,” Claire replied firmly. “Thank you for telling me. I should have hated to hear gossip about it.”

“Gossip,” Mrs. Dobbs said, shaking her head. “How terrible it can be.”

“As I have learned. Good night, Mrs. Dobbs. Thank you for sticking up for me.”

“You won't do anything rash, Claire?” she asked worriedly.

“I've already done something rash,” came the reply. “I married him.”

 

T
HE NEXT DAY
, C
LAIRE
had a message from her friend Kenny Blake; he wanted to see her. She took a carriage into the city and went to find out what he wanted.

She was surprised to find Kenny with a tall, elegant white-haired man who was looking at one of Claire's gowns.

“I borrowed this from the boutique to show Mr. Stillwell,” Kenny told her, with a grin.

Stillwell nodded politely. “Mrs. Hawthorn, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance. This,” he said, gesturing toward the gown, a white-and-black silk one with jet bead details,
“is the most beautiful creation I've seen in many a long year. I would like to display it in my store.”

“His store,” Kenny informed her, “is Macy's department store in New York City.”

She gasped. “You can't be serious!”

“I assure you that I am,” he replied solemnly. “And I think you'll find that your asking price is far too low for such an original.” He named a price that left her speechless.

“Sit down,” Kenny said quickly, providing her with a chair. “I told you she wasn't going to believe it,” he added to Mr. Stillwell.

The older man chuckled. “So I see. But you are very talented, Mrs. Hawthorn, and I believe we can do a great deal of business. Your designs can be sewn by a local concern for us, and we will market them. I assure you of the highest quality, your own personal label, and strictly a couture trade. All you would invest is the time to sketch your ideas and sew a model for us.”

“I can't believe it! I just can't!” Claire said, tears of pure joy streaming down her cheeks. “I never dreamed of such a thing!”

“I did,” Kenny said smugly.

She was beside herself. “I will be financially independent,” she said almost to herself.

“Wealthy,” Mr. Stillwell corrected. “Very wealthy, if these designs do as well as I expect them to.”

“There's just one thing,” she interjected. “My husband must not know.”

“I have no reason to tell him,” Stillwell assured her.

“And I'm quiet as a clam,” Kenny added. “No one will know. You'll be known simply as Magnolia.”

“Quite.”

“In that case, Mr. Stillwell, I'm your girl.”

He grinned from ear to ear.

 

C
LAIRE WAS BURSTING
to tell someone, anyone, about her good fortune, but she didn't dare. If she told Mrs. Dobbs or Evelyn, as trustworthy as they normally were, they wouldn't be able to keep a secret of such magnitude. So Claire had to keep her tidings to herself.

“Oh, Kenny! I'll never be able to thank you enough!” she said enthusiastically after Mr. Stillwell had exchanged addresses with her and was on his way to another meeting.

“It was my pleasure,” Kenny said. He smiled ruefully. “I've missed you since your marriage, Claire. I called once or twice, but your husband told me that you weren't available to speak to me.”

That came as a surprise. “When was this?” she asked.

“One morning just after your marriage—and then again two weeks ago.”

She grimaced. “He didn't tell me.”

He shrugged. “A husband is entitled to be jealous of a new wife, I suppose,” he said charitably. “But I would have liked to congratulate you, at least.” He eyed her. “Didn't you know about the wedding gift I sent, either?”

“What wedding gift?”

“A set of thimbles,” he said. “Porcelain ones. I know how much you enjoy your needlework.”

“No, I didn't get them,” she said, smoldering inside.

“Of course not. He sent them back,” he told her, shaking his head. “He's a very possessive man, your husband.”

“Apparently,” she agreed. He could see Diane Calverson whenever he liked, but she wasn't allowed to have a wedding present from an old friend! It was outrageous.

“Would you like a soda before you go home?” Kenny asked.

“Yes, I would,” she said, smiling.

He grinned. They went to a soda parlor about a block away, where she indulged in a sticky, delicious hot fudge sundae. It was like old times to sit and talk with Kenny, who had been a frequent visitor to her uncle's home. Even though they were no more than friends, she'd missed him since her marriage. She could talk to Kenny—something she was rarely able to do with her husband.

“I'm delighted that you're going to do this designing job,” Kenny said. “I hope it won't get you into any trouble at home.”

“As long as John doesn't know, it won't,” she said honestly. “And you've promised me that you won't tell him.”

“Indeed I have,” he assured her.

She sighed. “It's like a dream,” she said, smiling at him. “It's something I've always wanted to do—and here it is, falling right into my lap. I can hardly wait to get started. I have all sorts of ideas!”

“You can send them to me by messenger. Or bring them by when you're in town. I'll get them to Mr. Stillwell,” he
said. “That way, there won't be anything to connect you to him.”

“You're a good friend, Kenny. I'm lucky to have you.”

“That works both ways.” He smiled back and touched her hand lightly.

It was unfortunate that Diane Calverson happened to be passing the window at that moment and witnessed the innocent touch.

THAT EVENING, CLAIRE WAS SHOCKED TO DISCOVER—
at the last minute—that John had invited the Calversons for dinner. Mrs. Dobbs had prepared a scrumptious meal for them, but a maid employed by John for the evening had served it, because Mrs. Dobbs was going out to the theater with friends.

Eli Calverson seemed worried and a little preoccupied, while Diane was making an obvious effort to be especially nice to John.

Over after-dinner coffee, Claire noticed that John was staring at her with the coldest, angriest dark eyes she'd ever seen. Diane, on the other hand, was sweetness itself.

“What a lovely apartment house,” she said to Claire, looking around. “Of course, it's not quite the same as having a place of your own, but I suppose it's the next best thing.”

Claire studied the other woman, hesitating so long to
make a reply that the artificial smile on Diane's face began to waver.

“Under other circumstances, I should have enjoyed having a home of my own,” she replied finally, with a smile as cool as her tone.

“Other circumstances?” Diane echoed.

“Why, yes,” Claire told her, aware that the men were too involved in talking business to overhear. “If I had a husband who loved
me.
”

The bitter emphasis on the last word made Diane's eyes widen, but before she could reply, Claire turned away to direct the maid clearing the table.

“That was a lovely meal, Claire,” Mr. Calverson said graciously.

“Thank you, but it was Mrs. Dobbs who prepared it.”

“Oh. I assumed…” he began, unsettled.

Claire's hands folded together at her waist. “I would never presume to invade another woman's kitchen, even if I'd known that we were expecting guests for dinner,” she said, dropping a bombshell right in her husband's lap.

“John!” Eli Calverson exclaimed. “You invited us to a meal and your wife wasn't told?”

“My wife likes her little jokes,” John said, eyes slicing into Claire.

“Oh. Oh!” Eli chuckled. “Yes, I see. Well, we must be on our way, my dear,” he told Diane.

“I'll have the maid fetch our coats,” Diane volunteered. “Where did she go, John?”

“Through here.” He escorted Diane into the kitchen.

But the maid wasn't there. Claire had glimpsed her going out the back door with a bucket of ashes to empty from the woodstove.

“Excuse me. I'll take these dishes off the table for her,” Claire told Mr. Calverson.

She gathered the plates, stacked them, and carried them down the hall to the kitchen—arriving just in time to see Diane in John's arms, with her lips pulling away from his.

Claire stood stock-still. Diane was flushed and laughing nervously. As he moved back, John had an intense expression on his face that defied description.

“I don't have to ask you to leave, do I, Mrs. Calverson?” Claire asked pleasantly. “I'm sure you realize that all I have to do is go back into the parlor and tell your husband what you've been doing with
my
husband in
my
home.”

Diane nibbled her lower lip. “Now, Claire…”

“Get out!” Claire said, with smoldering fury and flashing gray eyes. “Right this minute!”

“Claire—” John began, moving toward her.

She jerked away from him, rattling the dishes in her hands. Her breasts heaved with the effort of her breathing. She was milk-white, but angry enough to overcome her numbness.

“You scoundrel,” she said harshly. “You utter scoundrel!”

He looked shocked. Diane brushed past him with a muttered apology and ran into the hall. The maid was there and she ordered her to bring their coats.

“Yes, ma'am,” the maid replied, and ran to do as she was bidden.

There was a faint murmur of voices as Diane went back into the parlor, but Claire scarcely heard. She was glaring at her husband as if she'd like to hit him with the plates, shaking with temper and reaction.

“Kindly make an effort to control yourself until our guests are gone,” John said, with icy formality.

“Your guests, not mine,” she returned. Her voice shook; her face burned. “If you ever bring that slut into my home again, I'll tell your fancy bank president the truth about the two of you, and to the devil with gossip!”

“Claire!” he said sharply.

She took a calming breath, put the plates down, and swept past him out the door and back to the parlor.

“Thank you for a lovely evening, Claire,” Diane said, with a forced smile. She looked at John through her lashes. “Good night, John.”

“Good night. Thank you both for coming,” he replied, smiling easily as he and Claire escorted them to the door.

“Nice to see you again, Claire,” Eli said, with a distant smile, apparently unaware of any undercurrents. “Now don't trouble yourself about this merger with Whitfield. Just because a few people are disgruntled, there's no need to worry.”

John was scrambling to get his thoughts organized. He was reeling from Diane's behavior and Claire's reaction to it. “I've heard some gossip, and this morning one of our investors actually asked me if we were solvent,” John told
his boss, and found it odd that Calverson's cheeks seemed a bit flushed.

Calverson patted him on the arm. “How ridiculous.” He chuckled. “Why should Whitfield want to merge with us if there was any shadow on the bank's reputation? And I don't have to remind you, dear boy, of our new assets—thanks to your calculated act of kindness toward the general's widow!”

John frowned. “It wasn't a calculated act,” he said.

“Bad choice of words,” the older man said. “Come, Diane. We must be away. Good night, dear friends.”

John said the appropriate things, but he was worried. He'd heard more than one comment about the bank's assets. He made a mental note to have a conversation with the bank's head bookkeeper, without Calverson's knowledge.

Claire seethed. Her attention was far from Calverson and remarks about the bank.

She stood quietly by while John said all the socially correct things. Diane and Eli got into their waiting carriage and went off down the cold lamplit street.

Claire went back inside, shivering with the cold and her feelings of betrayal. She couldn't manage to look at John. Seeing Diane in his arms had shattered her last hope of any sort of life with him. She wouldn't be set aside for his mistress. She had too much pride.

“I'll pack my things this evening and leave in the morning,” she said.

“The hell you will.”

She whirled to face him, just as the maid poked her head into the parlor.

“I've finished, Mr. Hawthorn,” she said, with wary looks from husband to wife. “May I go now?”

“Certainly you may—and thank you for your help.”

“Thank you for the work, sir. The money will come in right handy with Todd out of his job,” she replied, with a smile. “Good night, sir, madam.”

“Thank you,” Claire added, almost choking on the words.

The maid let herself out. She lived two doors down, and it was a safe neighborhood. All the same, John went to the front porch and watched her until she had entered her own small apartment behind the main house of her landlord.

As he closed the door again and locked it, Claire started up the stairs. “I'm sure you'll understand that I have nothing to say to you,” she said over her shoulder. “I'm leaving you.”

“We're newly married,” he said shortly. “I won't let you walk out on me.”

She turned, her slender hand resting on the banister. “How do you propose to stop me? If you chain me to the floor, I'm sure Mrs. Dobbs will ask why. Short of that, you won't be able to keep me here. I will not be used as a cover for your shameful affair with that woman anymore. The idea of it! Kissing her like that in my own house! I must have been out of my mind to marry you in the first place!”

He took a deep breath. “It wasn't as bad as it looked,”
he replied. “And I'm not having an affair with her. I give you my word.”

She searched his lean face. The things his mother had told her came back to her—and she saw the pain and grief that must have shaped him into this taciturn man. He'd loved Diane. He still loved her. Could she really blame him? Diane might not be her idea of the perfect woman, but people were rarely loved for their flaws. Diane must have qualities that he admired, even if Claire couldn't see them.

Her shoulders rose and fell. “Your conduct is none of my business anymore,” she said, with quiet defeat in her tone. “Do what you please, John.”

“Where do you plan to go?” he asked curtly. “To your friend Kenny?”

Her eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?”

“You accuse me of having an affair, but I can assure you that I haven't been seen holding hands in public. In a soda parlor, of all the damned places! In broad daylight!”

Dimly, she wondered how he'd known that—if he'd actually seen her with Kenny. “It was totally innocent!” she snapped. “And while we're on the subject, where is the wedding present he sent to me? And why was I never told that he called to congratulate us?”

His chin lifted. “I don't share. You're my wife. As long as you are my wife, you won't accept presents from other men…and that includes sundaes!”

“How did you know?”

“Because Diane saw you and told me,” he replied.

“How very convenient!” She snapped her skirts with an angry hand. “So I can't have a sundae with a man in a public place, but you can kiss another woman in my kitchen, is that right?”

“She kissed me, if you must know!”

“And you couldn't defend yourself,” she drawled sarcastically.

He came away from the door and up the staircase so quickly that she didn't have time to get out of his way. He caught her around the waist with one arm, while his free hand tangled in her high coiffure.

“Perhaps if you kissed me more often, I wouldn't have to go to other women for it.”

She fought him like a tigress, furious with herself for being jealous, furious with him for his behavior. He'd kissed that horrible woman, and she hated him!

But, oh, his mouth was so warm and passionate, his arms so strong and comforting around her slender body. She felt her lips parting involuntarily as the slow, deep kiss went on and on and on.

He murmured something against her lips and bent to lift her into his arms. He was breathing roughly as he mounted the rest of the stairs and carried her into their apartment, kicking the door closed behind them.

He didn't put her down. He carried her into his bedroom, as he had once before. This time he didn't bother with putting out the lights or even closing the bedroom door. He fell onto the bed with Claire under his lean, tense
body; his hands went under her long skirt, against the soft, warm skin of her thighs.

“John,” she said in a choked, halfhearted protest.

“Shh,” he whispered into her mouth. He was trembling, as she was. His hands moved urgently between them, removing barriers, gently, coaxingly.

She felt him go into her with a sense of shock. They weren't even undressed. But as she tried to protest, his tongue went deep into her mouth, echoing that other fierce, slow, deep movement of his body that brought no pain at all. Tides rose and fell inside her body, inside her mind. She heard their mingled erratic breathing, heard the slide of cloth against cloth, skin against skin. His hands were bruising where he held her as his body began to move fiercely. She hadn't dreamed that such pleasure could exist. It should have hurt, because he was so demanding. But it didn't hurt. The pleasure came upon her in wave after wave of sensuous heat. She tasted him, breathed him, as his body buffeted hers in the utter silence of the cold room. She heard him begin to groan even as his control slipped and he gave in to the damning urgency of his body. She moved to accommodate him, lifted into him, arched under him. He cried out and so did she as the pleasure exploded in a sinful, shameful tide of ecstasy so great that she thought her body would never be able to bear it…

She felt the trembling of her own body echoed in his. Her arms were tightly around him; her legs had curled around his. They lay intimately joined, fully clothed, with his heart beating madly against her bound breasts.

Her mouth was so dry that she could hardly manage speech. “Was it…because you wanted her?” she whispered.

His intake of breath brushed his chest over her sensitized breasts. “No, it was because I wanted you.” He pulled away from her and looked down into her wide, silvery eyes. Slowly his hand went to the buttons of her lacy black dress and he began to unfasten them. He was still joined to her, and the movements were stimulating, erotic.

“I'm going to strip you,” he whispered huskily. “Right down to your silky skin. And then I'm going to take my own clothes off, and enjoy you all night long. When morning comes, there won't be an inch of you that I don't know, that I haven't touched or kissed or nibbled with my teeth.” As if to emphasize the words, his mouth went down hard over her soft breasts, right through the fabric, and she felt his teeth bite softly into a hard nipple. She gasped.

He moved, laughing deeply when she shivered; her eyes widened as he looked into them. “Yes, you're still ready for me, Claire.” He moved again, catching his breath as the movement brought him totally back to life. “And I'm more than ready for you!”

 

C
LAIRE LAY AWAKE
in the darkness, sick at her own shameless response to the ways John had touched her, the places his mouth had invaded.

She lay under a single white sheet, completely nude, thankful that the light was finally out so that she didn't have to see, again, the cold triumph in her husband's face. He'd
used her, she thought furiously. He'd used her like a woman of the night—and she'd not only let him, she'd wrapped herself around him like a snake and whimpered with pleasure. She'd whispered things to him that she couldn't bear to remember.