Magnolia

by Diana Palmer

  “I daresay I can do something very special with so much time,” Claire promised.

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  Claire clutched her purse. “I want to join some societies,” she said at once. “I’ll work hard, and I’m not afraid to approach strangers for contributions. I’ll bake cakes and pies, man stalls at bazaars, do anything I’m asked within reason.”

  Evelyn raised up on her elbow. “My dear, you sound positively frantic. May I ask the reason for this sudden flurry of ambition?”

  “I want my husband to be proud of me,” she said simply.

  “Well, that is a laudable goal!” Evelyn sat up, stretching. “I do know several people on committees, and they always need volunteers.” She smiled mischievously. “Count on me. I’ll make sure you get the proper introductions—and to the very best people.”

  “Thank you.”

  Evelyn waved a languid hand. “No need for that. We women have to stick together.”

  CLAIRE VERY QUICKLY found herself in demand. Her days were full from morning until late afternoon, baking for cake sales, sorting clothes and whatnots for the fall bazaars, and wrapping bandages with her church group to send to the military in the Philippines and China for Christmas. She kept the apartment spotlessly clean, as well, and even found time to help Mrs. Dobbs bake. She felt obliged to do that, since she was having to borrow her landlady’s woodstove to make her contributions to her various societies.

  Mrs. Dobbs was impressed by the sort of women who began to call on Claire for tea. The names read like the roster of Atlanta society. The landlady began to dress more formally—and even to help Claire set up the tea tray, using her own best silver.

  “I must say, Claire,” Mrs. Dobbs told her one afternoon, “I’m very impressed with the company you’ve been keeping. Imagine! Mrs. Bruce Paine right here in my house! Why, her family and her husband’s were founding families of Atlanta, and they keep company with people like the Astors and the Vanderbilts!”

  “I’ve known Evelyn for several years,” Claire confided. “She’s a fine person, but for obvious reasons, I never tried to become a close friend.”

  “Well, that’s all changed with your marriage, since Mr. Hawthorn is well-to-do and holds the position he does at the Peachtree City Bank.”

  Claire didn’t exactly know that John was well-to-do, although he never seemed to lack money. He didn’t discuss finances with her. She did know that his position at the bank was an important one. “Yes, I know. That’s why I’ve tried so hard to find my way into the right social circles, so that I wouldn’t make him ashamed of me.”

  “My dear,” Mrs. Dobbs said gently, “no one would be ashamed of such a hardworking, kind young woman.”

  Claire flushed. Mrs. Dobbs always made her feel better. It was just as well that the starchy woman had been out of the house the day John and his business colleagues came home to find Claire in such a disreputable condition. “You’re the kind one, Mrs. Dobbs—to give me such freedom in your house.”

  “It’s been my pleasure. I must tell you, I’ve enjoyed the little savories left over from your efforts. Where did you learn to cook so well?”

  “From my uncle’s housekeeper,” she recalled. “She was a wonderful cook—of the ‘pinch of this and dab of that’ variety.”

  “Now, I’m just the opposite. I can’t cook without my measures.” There was a knock at the door. “Ah, that will be your callers, Claire. I’ll let them in.”

  Claire greeted Evelyn and her friends, Jane Corley and Emma Hawks, and introduced them to the flustered, beaming Mrs. Dobbs.

  It made the landlady’s day. She went off to bring in the tea tray in an absolute delirium of pleasure.

  Later, after tea and cakes, Evelyn brought out a sketch from the leather writing case she carried.

  “I’m no artist, but this is what I thought I’d like you to make me for the ball, Claire,” she said, and handed the rough sketch to the younger woman. “What do you think?”

  “Why, it’s lovely,” Claire said, nodding as she considered fabric and trim. “But this line, just here, won’t do. A peplum is going to make you look chubby around the hips, which you certainly are not,” she added with a grin.

  Evelyn’s eyes widened. “Why, you’re right. I never noticed.”

  Claire took a pencil from the small porcelain bowl on the occasional table and erased the line. “And if we just add one flounce to the skirt, here…” She made another few strokes with the pencil, while Evelyn watched, amazed.

  “There,” she said, finished, and handed the sketch back. “What do you think? In black, of course—with silver trim and black jet beads on the bodice, just here?”

  Evelyn was wordless. “Exquisite,” she said finally. “Just exquisite.”

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Emma Hawkes exclaimed. “I buy all my clothes in Paris, but this is—this is extraordinary. How very talented you are, Claire!”

  “Thank you,” Claire replied demurely.

  “Yes, I want this,” Evelyn said immediately. “And I don’t care about the cost.”

  “You will.” Claire winked. “It’s going to be quite expensive.”

  “Anything worth wearing to the governor’s ball should be,” came the reply.

  Emma nibbled on her lower lip and glanced at Claire. “I suppose it will take all your time to make Evelyn’s gown…?”

  “Not at all.”

  Emma brightened. “Then could you do one for me as well?”

  “And one for me?” Jane added.

  “Not of this design!” Evelyn cried, aghast.

  “Certainly not,” Claire said. “Each gown will be individual, and suited to its wearer. I’ll work on the sketches and you can come Friday to approve them. How will that do?” she asked Jane and Emma.

  “Wonderful,” they said in unison, beaming.

  CLAIRE HAD VERY LITTLE free time after that. If she wasn’t baking or helping with some worthy charity, she was buried upstairs in her room with the sewing machine and what seemed like acres of fabric, sewing madly to meet her deadlines.

  Of John, she saw little. That suited her very well, given their last conversation. She was still bristling from his disapproval. He seemed to avoid her afterward, but he chanced to come home early one Friday, and, since Claire’s bedroom door was open, he went to speak to her.

  The sight that met his eyes was a surprise. “What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked curtly.

  She’d been sewing an underskirt for Evelyn’s gown, and thank God she had the rest of the project safely hidden in the closet. She didn’t want John to know that she had a separate income from the household money he gave her. Her independence was sacred, and she wasn’t sharing the news with the enemy.

  “I’m making myself a dress,” she said calmly.

  His eyes narrowed. “You aren’t living with your uncle now, Claire,” he said. “You don’t have to manage with homemade clothes. Go down to Rich’s and buy yourself some clothes. I have an account there.”

  “I like to sew my own things.”

  His gaze went over the plain blue dress she was wearing, which was one of her older ones. It was faded, but very comfortable to work in. “So I see,” he replied mockingly. “But that’s hardly the sort of thing you need to wear in town.”

  Her chest rose and fell angrily. She’d make herself a gown for the governor’s ball, too—and then he’d see something!

  “Where in town did you have in mind?” she asked coolly. “You haven’t take me out of the house since we married over a month ago.”

  He scowled. “Has it been so long?”

  “It seems like much longer,” she returned quietly. She pushed back a loose strand of brown hair. “If you don’t mind, I’m quite busy. I’m sure you have some exalted function to attend, or a dinner with colleagues.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb and studied her. It hadn’t seemed like a month. Claire had been conspicuously missing from their apartme
nt—and his life—every time he looked for her lately. He’d supposed that she spent her time shopping, but she seemed to have nothing to show for it. There was the fabric she was working on, but it seemed an odd choice for a day dress…or for any kind of dress. It looked more like a slip.

  His eyes darted around her room and found it neat and clean, but with very few obvious signs of occupation—save for the brush and hand mirror on her dresser, and the small porcelain powder and jewelry boxes.

  “I hardly see you,” he said absently.

  “A blessing, I should think, considering the opinion you have of me and my wardrobe,” she murmured as she continued to apply pressure to the treadle under her feet to move the needle along the seam.

  He stuck his hands deep in his pockets, drawing the fabric taut against the powerful muscles of his thighs. “Well, one or two people have remarked upon the fact that we aren’t seen at social functions. I suppose we should be more outgoing.”

  “Why?” she asked, lifting clear gray eyes to his. “Does someone think you’ve murdered me and buried my body in the garden?”

  His mouth twitched. “I don’t know. Perhaps I should ask.”

  She took the fabric from under the needle and cut the thread with her small pair of scissors, holding the seam up for critical inspection. “I’m quite content with my life as it is,” she said, not looking at him. It made her heart skip to see the long, powerful lines of his body in that unconsciously elegant pose. He was so handsome. It took her breath away to look at him at all, but she couldn’t let him see. She’d had quite enough taunts from him about her helpless attraction to him.

  “Don’t you miss pretty clothes and parties, Claire?” he asked.

  “I’ve never had either, so why should I want them?”

  He considered that for a minute. It was true. She’d never had much in the way of material things. Now she had access to them through him. So why wasn’t she taking advantage of it? Diane would have. She’d gone on a shopping spree immediately after her marriage to Eli Calverson that still had tongues wagging today.

  “Buy a new gown,” he said abruptly. “There’s a party at the Calversons’ next Saturday evening, and we’ve been invited. Apparently Eli thinks you’ve had long enough to grieve for your uncle and become accustomed to marriage with me. He wants to introduce us both to a new investor. A very important one.”

  “Why us?”

  “Because I’m vice president of the bank, Claire, and investors keep us solvent. This gentleman is the head of an investment firm, and he’s very thick with Eli. Apparently, he’s rich as Croesus.”

  “How nice for him. But I don’t want to go to the Calversons’.”

  He took an impatient breath. “I’ve told you that I have no back-door dealings with Diane!”

  She looked at him steadily. “So I should go with you and spend the evening watching you eat your heart out over the sight of her? No, thank you.”

  His eyes flashed angrily. “It would be far better than to spend the evening here, watching you eat your heart out over me,” he countered icily.

  She threw the underskirt down on the floor and got to her feet, her gray eyes like lead bullets as she went right up to him.

  “I am not eating my heart out over you! I hardly see you, in any case. I have no secret hankering for such a conceited, overbearing—”

  Suddenly he reached for her and pulled her against him. In his leaning position, she found herself pressed intimately to his long legs—in between them, in fact—with his arms wrapped tightly around her. The look on her face amused him, taking the heat out of his anger.

  “Don’t stop there,” he invited, with a smile. “Do go on.”

  She wanted to, but her heart was beating too rapidly to allow speech. The whalebone corset she was wearing constricted her breath enough, without the added pressure of his embrace. She could barely breathe at all.

  Her hands pushed weakly at his chest. “Let go,” she said faintly. “I can’t…breathe.”

  “Relax, then.”

  “It’s the corset,” she whispered, pushing as hard as she could.

  He loosened his arms. She felt his hands tracing the bones, his thumbs brushing up under her breasts in the muslin chemise that contained them above the edge of the corset. The light, teasing pressure made her stiffen with unexpected pleasure.

  He was looking intently at her, watching her reactions as his lean hands teased her body.

  His thumbs slipped higher with each movement. “Is this better?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly deeper, huskier.

  She realized she was shaking. Her hands were clutching at his hard arms through his suit coat, and she couldn’t even manage speech. The feel of him so close, the touch of his hands, made her knees weak. She loved him so much that even the lightest caress was heaven. She hadn’t the will to pull away, despite the shame her easy capitulation caused. She wanted his touch too much to protest.

  His lips brushed her forehead. He could sense her struggle. “I’m your husband. It’s all right to give in to me, Claire,” he murmured deeply. “God knows, I’ve given you little enough since we married. It’s no hardship to pleasure you. I won’t do anything to frighten or hurt you. Relax, now.”

  Her hands trembled where they clung to his arms. She wanted to deny that he was pleasing her, to tell him to let her go, but she couldn’t. She had no pride. She moaned in anguish, drowning in the need to be touched by him, held by him, wanted by him.

  He understood. He was as helpless in his passion for Diane as Claire was in her need of him. In that one way, they were very much alike. It hurt him in an odd, new way, to see her suffer for his touch. He felt her need and ached to fill it.

  His lips hovered at her eyelids, closing them tenderly. His hands moved to the tips of her breasts and found the nipples hard and warm.

  She jerked back, but he drew a breath and shook his head, stilling her instinctive withdrawal. She met his eyes for an instant and found deep fires burning there.

  In the silence of the room, the ticking of the clock on the mantel was unusually loud. Outside, the steady clip-clop of a horse and the grinding wheels of a carriage behind it could be heard. Above all that, Claire’s heart made a rocky rhythm that was audible to the man holding her.

  Her response, her reaction, made him dizzy. Diane was so experienced that his touch only made her purr like a kitten. Claire was altogether different. He didn’t have to ask to know that she’d never permitted any other man to touch her like this. She’d probably never been kissed, either. The knowledge shook him.

  He watched what he could see of her downcast face while he teased her hard nipples, feeling her body tremble with each new caress. She liked what he was doing, but she was too shy to admit it, or let him see it.

  His hands slid up to the buttons at the high collar of her dress and, one by one, began to unfasten them. She stood before him, perfectly still and silent, so caught up in the excitement of her first caresses that, he knew, she was incapable of movement or speech.

  When he had the bodice unfastened to her waist, his warm, strong hands slid inside the neckline and spread the fabric before they eased down over the soft muslin of her chemise. He heard her breathing stop and then start again, jerkily, felt her hands contract even more on his arms. Smiling indulgently, he moved his hands slowly under the muslin and down, down until he had her soft, pretty little breasts warm and throbbing in his palms. He heard her gasp and felt his own body go rigid, and he laughed with surprise at how easily little Claire had aroused him.

  “Oh, you…mustn’t!” she whispered frantically, pulling at his wrists.

  “Claire, you’re my wife,” he whispered, ignoring her protests. His hands became even more warm and caressing and his lips brushed against her forehead, her temples, her nose. “This is part of marriage,” he continued softly, as his mouth moved down to poise, teasingly, just above her lips. “This is how a man expresses tenderness.” His mouth eased down right over her own, lig
htly brushing until he made her lips part. “Yes, that’s it, sweetheart. Open your mouth,” he coaxed against her lips, and then he moved closer again, and kissed her as a lover.

  Claire had never experienced such sensations. She trembled as his mouth became part of hers, lost in the pleasure his hands were arousing on her naked breasts, adrift in the sheer sweet anguish of his hard, insistent kiss.

  She never wanted it to end. She whimpered from the force of the pleasure he inspired in her. She felt his hands on her upper arms, guiding them up around his neck. She felt his body shift, so that she was completely between his long, powerful legs. His free hand slid down to the base of her spine and pushed her hips into the sudden hard thrust of his. Her head spun. She knew nothing of men’s bodies, but his felt different all at once, and her legs started to tremble. There was a burst of heat in her lower stomach, along with a thrill of pleasure that brought a shocked gasp from her mouth.

  He lifted his head and looked into her wide, stunned eyes. Holding her gaze, he deliberately moved her hips against his and felt her shudder with need.

  As she struggled to speak, his gaze fell to her bodice. Gently, one lean hand came up to pull the muslin down, baring the hard red peaks of her firm breasts to his eyes.

  His breath caught. “Oh, God, Claire!” he whispered roughly. Desire for her overwhelmed him.

  She had no idea what had caused him to look so violent. He sounded shocked, and the hands gripping her waist were hurting her. “What’s wrong?” she whispered shakily, because he looked as if he were hurting.

  “Don’t you know?” He lifted dark eyes filled with heat and pain to meet hers.

  She hung there, frightened, fascinated, with the sound of her heartbeat loud in her ears. She wanted to ask him what she’d done wrong, but as her lips parted to make the words, there was a sudden loud knock at the door of their apartment.

  John actually jerked, as if he’d been hit. His hands contracted and suddenly let go. He moved away from Claire as if it hurt him to walk. His movements were stiff and awkward as he went to the apartment door and opened it just a crack.