Magnolia Read online

  “Excuse me. I don’t feel well,” she said in a husky tone, and went quickly out of the room, into the hall. She leaned, resting her forehead against the cool wall, while sickness rushed over her. It had been such a long, terrible day.

  She heard the door behind her open, then shut. The voices in the parlor receded as footsteps sounded. She felt the pull of a steely hand on her upper arm, turning her, and then she was pressed against scratchy fabric. Strong, warm arms held her. Under her ear, a steady, comforting heartbeat soothed her. She breathed in the exotic cologne and gave in to the need for comfort. It had been a very long time since her uncle had held her like this when her parents had died. In all the years of her life, comfort had been rare.

  “My poor baby,” John said softly at her temple. His hand smoothed over her nape, calming her. “That’s right. Just cry until it stops hurting so much. Come close to me.” His arms contracted, riveting her to him.

  She’d never heard his voice so tender. It was comforting and exciting all at once. She pressed closer, giving free rein to the tears as she cried away the grief and fear and loneliness in the arms of the man she loved. Even if it was only pity driving him, how sweet it was to be held so closely by him.

  A handkerchief was held to her eyes. She took it and wiped them and blew her nose. He made her feel small and fragile, and she liked the way his tall, muscular body felt against hers.

  She pulled slowly away from him, without raising her head. “Thank you,” she said, with a watery sniff. “May I ask what provoked you to offer comfort to the enemy?”

  “Guilt,” he replied, with a faint smile. “And I’m not the enemy. I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did. You’ve had enough for one day.”

  She looked up at him. “I most certainly have,” she said angrily.

  John searched her fierce eyes and wan face. “You’re tired,” he said. “Let the doctor give you some laudanum to make you sleep.”

  “I don’t need advice from you. I doubt anyone close to you has ever died,” she said miserably.

  His eyes flared darkly as he remembered his younger brothers, the frantic search of the cold waters for bodies, the anguish of having to tell their father that they were dead. “Then you would be wrong,” he said abruptly, dismissing the painful memories. “But loss is part and parcel of life. One learns to bear it.”

  She wrung the handkerchief in her hands. “He was all I had,” she said, lifting her gaze to his. “And if it hadn’t been for him, I should have ended up in an orphanage, a state home.” She drew her shoulders up. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him, it was that quick.” The tears came again, hot and stinging.

  He tilted her chin up. “Death isn’t an end. It’s a beginning. Don’t torture yourself. You have a future to contend with.”

  “Grief takes a little time,” she reminded him.

  “Of course it does.” He pushed back a strand of unruly hair from her forehead. As he moved it, he noticed a smudge of grease. Taking the handkerchief from her hand, he wiped away the smear. “Grease smears and dirty skirts. Claire, you need a keeper.”

  “Don’t you start on me,” she muttered, snatching the handkerchief away.

  His lips curved in a semblance of a smile. He shook his head. “You haven’t grown up at all. Instead of teaching you to work on motorcar engines, Will should have been introducing you to young men and parties. You’ll end up an old maid covered in grease.”

  “Better than ending up some man’s slave!” she shot right back. “I have no ambition to marry.”

  John cocked his eyebrow in amusement. “Not even to marry me?” he chided outrageously, grinning at her scarlet blush.

  “No,” she replied tightly. “I don’t want to marry you. You’re much too conceited and I’m much too good for you,” she added, with a twinge of her old impish nature.

  He chuckled softly. “That tongue cuts like a knife, doesn’t it?” He took a slow breath and tapped her gently on the cheek. “You’ll survive, Claire. You were never a shrinking violet. But if you need help, I hope you’ll come to me. Will was my friend. So are you. I don’t like to think of you being alone and friendless, especially when the house is sold.”

  She looked vaguely panicked, and John understood why at once.

  “I won’t own anything, really, will I?” she asked suddenly. “Uncle Will mentioned that he’d just taken out another loan…”

  “So he did. The bank will have to foreclose on the house and sell it. You’ll get anything over the amount necessary to pay off your uncle’s debts, but frankly I doubt there’ll be much left. The motorcar will have to go, too.”

  “I won’t sell it,” she said through her teeth.

  “And I say you will.”

  “You have no right to tell me anything. You’re neither my banker nor my friend!”

  He only smiled. “I’m your friend, Claire—whether you like to admit it or not. Mr. Calverson won’t act in your interest.”

  “And you will? Against your employer?”

  “Of course, if it becomes necessary,” he said surprisingly.

  She dropped her gaze to his expensive tie. He sounded very protective. He’d always been protective of her. She’d never quite understood why. “I won’t sell the motorcar, all the same.”

  “What will you do with it?”

  “Drive it, of course,” she said. Her eyes lit up. She lifted them to his. “John, I shan’t have to sell it! I can hire it out to businessmen, with myself as the driver! I will start a business!”

  He looked as if she’d hit him in the head. “You’re a woman,” he pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  He took an exasperated breath. “You can hardly expect me to condone such a harebrained scheme.”

  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 permi
t 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!

  FOR 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.

  SHE’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?”