Magnolia (3 page)

She drew herself up to her full height. It didn't do any good. He still towered over her. “I'll do as I please,” she
informed him. “I have to make a living for myself. I have no means of support.”

He studied her curiously. Several things were becoming clear to him, foremost among them that he was about to land himself in one hell of a scandal because of Diane. Her husband was very suspicious—and if what Claire had told him was accurate, he was being gossiped about. He couldn't afford to let one blemish attach itself to Diane's good name.

His eyes narrowed. Claire wasn't at all bad to look at. She was spunky, and she had a devilish sense of humor. She had a kind heart, and even passable manners, and most of the time she delighted him. He had a soft spot for her that he'd never had for any other woman. Besides all that, she worshiped him. “You could marry me,” he suggested wickedly. “Then you'd have a husband to look after your interests as well as a roof over your head.”

She felt the ground go out from under her feet. It was the oddest sensation, as if she weren't touching the floor at all. “Why should you want to marry me?”

“It would solve both our problems, wouldn't it?” he drawled mockingly. “You get the husband of your dreams,” he said, smiling at her blush, “and I get a respite from gossip that could ruin Diane's good name.”

Diane's
good name, she noticed, not his own. He was still putting the woman above his own reputation. And the unkind remark about her infatuation for him hurt. She hated having him know how she felt.

“Marry you?” she replied haughtily. “I'd sooner eat an arsenic casserole with deadly nightshade sauce!”

He only smiled. “The offer stands. But I'll let you come to me when you've discovered that it's the best solution to your problem.”

“I'll drive the car and make my living!” she said belligerently. She knew she wasn't facing reality, and she almost added that she could support herself equally well if not better by becoming a seamstress. However, since he knew nothing of that particular talent, she thought it best to keep it to herself for the time being.

He shrugged. “Drive the car, by all means,” he said, turning to leave, “but, just remember, no self-respecting businessman is going to permit himself to be driven through the streets of Atlanta by a woman.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I'll be waiting to hear from you, Claire. When your situation is desperate enough, come and see me.”

“I'll never do that!” she said to his retreating back.

It was all bravado. She didn't know how badly she might end up, or what measures she might be forced to take. But how dare he make her such an offer of marriage—so cold and calculating that she got chills down her back just thinking of it! He
couldn't
believe she'd accept such a proposal—without even the pretense of warmth or affection! He
could
believe it because he cared so much for Diane. She didn't have to hear him say that to know the truth of it. He loved the woman more than anything, so to save her the vicious gossip of society dames, he would sacrifice himself on the altar of marriage to another woman. It was
rather noble and heroic, except that Claire would also be making a sacrifice to marry a man who didn't love her. She knew how he felt about Diane. That wouldn't change. She would be a fool to link her life to his.

But what if she could make him love her? asked a tiny voice deep inside her mind. What if by living with her, sharing things with her, being around her constantly, he could learn to love her? There might even be a child, she thought with a scarlet blush, and surely he would feel something for the mother of his son?

She put the thought away as quickly as she entertained it. He might be able to make love to her, as men were known to be capable of it with any woman. But he would be thinking of Diane, wanting Diane. How could she bear his kisses and his embraces when she knew he wanted someone else, even if the someone else didn't want him back?

The answer was, of course, that she couldn't. She had to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and become independent. There would surely be a way. If her uncle's beloved motorcar wasn't the answer she would think of something else. Then let Mr. High-and-Mighty Hawthorn come calling with his infamous proposals!

 

F
OR TWO WEEKS AFTER
the funeral Claire only went through the motions of living. Kenny came once and offered to do anything she needed done, including trimming the hedges. She didn't take him up on his offer, because she didn't want to raise his hopes. He had a mild crush on her, but she had no love for him, only friendship.

She missed her uncle terribly. Money was already a problem. She'd had to let Gertie and Harry go, a blow to all three of them, and not done without a tearful parting and promises to keep in touch. They easily found work, because locally they were known as hard workers. That, at least, took some of the burden from her conscience. The house was sold; Mr. Calverson had sent word that he had a buyer who wanted to move in within the month.

Claire would receive two hundred dollars as her part of the sale, but that would quickly be gone, because the funeral expenses had to be paid out of it.

She had tried to find clientele for her motorcar enterprise, but as John Hawthorn had predicted, businessmen didn't flock to her door to become clients. In fact, she was brushed off unceremoniously. She did back the motorcar out of the drive and run it around the block, dressed in the long white driving coat and goggles and cap her uncle had always worn. Young boys threw rocks at her, and she frightened a horse into jumping a hedge. Afterward she parked the motorcar in the garage and locked it away.

She had briefly considered work as a seamstress in a local fabric and notions shop, but the woman Gertie had suggested as a potential employer had just taken on a new seamstress and had no need of help. The only alternative was to sell her designs door-to-door or find a shop owner who would let her do alterations. Kenny came to mind, but she had no wish to sew men's fashions, much less do alterations on them.

Sewing at home was a good possibility, except that the
house would soon be gone. The chickens were hers, and the eggs they laid, but where would she take them to live in order to keep getting her egg money from her regular customers?

John had predicted that she'd have to come to him for help, and she was almost to that point. Only pride held her back. Pride was very expensive, though, and she was running out of money fast.

 

S
HE'D ONLY JUST PUT UP HER CLOAK
and hat when there was a knock on the front door. She went to open it and found John on the doorstep.

Her heart skipped, but anger overrode attraction. “Women run brothels and boardinghouses!” she raged, shaking her finger at him. “If they can run one sort of business, certainly they can run others!”

“Are you planning to open a brothel?” he asked, with faint amusement. “I shouldn't advise it—not in Colbyville.” He leaned down. “However, if you do, I promise to be your first customer,” he whispered.

She flushed to her neckline. “You know very well that I had no idea of doing any such thing! I was merely making a point,” she added, while the thought of being in John's arms in bed made her knees weak. He was only joking, of course. “What do you want?”

He smiled gently. “I wanted to see how you were,” he replied. He searched her eyes. “I've been keeping up with you through your neighbors. You seem less than prosperous at the moment.”

She folded her hands over her waist. “I can find a job when I'm ready.”

“The house has to be vacated by the end of the month. Surely you were informed of this?”

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.

He'd expected her to fold up after her uncle's death. In fact, he'd had every reason to believe that she'd approach him for help. She hadn't. In fact, she hadn't approached anyone with her hand out. The extent of her pride surprised him, when very few things did anymore. Past experience had made him far too cynical about human nature. He remembered the very moment in Cuba when all his illusions vanished forever. The sight of human beings rounded up like cattle in the Spanish general's concentration camps had sickened every man in his company. A large number of those prisoners had died before American troops invaded the island.

But even worse than the sight of those wretched men was the horror of the USS
Maine
going down in Havana Harbor only two months before his unit was shipped to Cuba. His two younger brothers had been on board that ship. It was he who had influenced them to join, he with his officer's commission and his medals. Now Rob and Andrew were dead. At the boys' funeral, his father had cursed him until literally running out of breath. He'd had to have permission from his commanding officer to return to Savannah from Tampa, where he was temporarily stationed, to attend it. Soon after that, his unit was sent back to Cuba to fight when the war against Spain was declared.

He could hear his mother weeping, see the pitying looks in the eyes of his young remaining brother and sister. He could feel the cold, hateful eyes of his father and hear the vicious admonition that he would never again be welcome at their Savannah home. Even later, after he was wounded and shipped to New York to muster out of the military, it was to an Atlanta area hospital that he eventually was sent, by his own request. And his father had not permitted his mother to come and visit him, even to correspond with him during his convalescence. He still hated the man for that alone. Claire had come often to see him then, he recalled, his gaze moving to her face. He'd lost everything he loved, even Diane, and Claire's gentle presence had meant so much. He'd never even told her that.

“Why do you look like that?” Claire asked unexpectedly.

He blinked. “How do I look?”

“As if you had nothing of hope left in you,” she said, with keen perception.

He laughed without humor. “Did you think me fanciful?” he taunted.

“I thought…well, it hardly matters, does it? I suppose losing the one thing in life you love would harden any man. I'm sorry for the things I said about Diane,” she said, surprising him. “I know you can't help the way you feel about her.”

He moved as if she'd stung him. “You see too much.”

“I always have,” she said, with a sad smile. “I don't have close friends because people like to keep secrets.”

“I can imagine that it's hard to keep them around you.”

She sighed. “Sometimes.” She looked around the barren room. “Do you think the new owners might need someone to keep house for them?” she asked absently.

“No, they have their own servants. What sort of work do you want to do?”

“All I know how to do is cook and clean,” she replied. “Oh, and work on motorcars, of course. And I sew a little,” she added, with a secret smile.

He glanced at her. “Every woman sews a little. And working on automobiles is hardly a viable skill when there are so few of them around. In fact, I seem to recall that your uncle had the only gasoline-powered one in these parts.”

“One day there will be many.”

“No doubt. But your need is more immediate.”

She let out an angry sigh. “What a world we live in, where women have to fight to be allowed any sort of work save washing, typing, sewing, or waiting on customers in shops.”

He sighed to himself, remembering Diane saying languidly that she had no interest in being anything except a loving wife. Why had she married Calverson? Now she knew what a mistake she'd made and it was too late. Too late! It hurt most of all to remember that he'd introduced her to Calverson, when he went to work at the bank for the first time, fresh out of Harvard.

He glanced around. Most of the furniture was already gone, sold to pay bills. “Do you have anyplace to go, Claire?”

Her spine stiffened. “I'll find someplace before I have to leave here.”

He saw the fear behind the pride. She wasn't going to admit defeat, regardless of what it cost her. He admired that independent spirit.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. “Marry me,” he said, with sudden seriousness. “It will put an end to all your troubles and most of mine.”

Her heart jumped with pained pleasure, but she refused to give way to it. She glared at him. “I said no before and I'll say it again. You only want me to be a blind, a camouflage, so you can carry on with your married woman!”

His black eyes narrowed. “You don't know me at all, do you? Turn it around, then. Would you marry me and cheat on me with some other man?”

She stiffened. “It would never occur to me to do anything so dishonest.”

“Nor would it occur to me.” He stared into her pale gray eyes and saw that nothing short of the truth would sway her. “Let's have it out in the open, then. Yes, I love Diane,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets and moving a step closer. “Some part of me will always love her. But she's married and I can't have her honorably. Anything less than that would destroy her reputation and mine. The only sensible thing to do is make a new life for myself. You and I aren't strangers. We've known each other, casually at least, for several years, and quite well for the past two. You have qualities I admire. We might not have the most
passionate marriage of all time, but I think we can deal very well together. Right now, both of us are extra people in the world.”

She hadn't expected him to say that. She expected coaxing and even a display of passion to make her fall in with his plans. His honesty left her without a defense.

He looked at her slowly, deliberately, until she blushed. One eyebrow lifted slightly. “You might enjoy being married, Claire.”

“If I marry you, it will be—it will be just as friends,” she stammered. “I won't— That is, I can't…”