Magnolia (7 page)

“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, lightly 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.

“Yes?” he asked curtly.

“Oh…Mr. Hawthorn…I didn't hear you come in…” Mrs. Dobbs was flustered by the bite in his voice. “I wanted to tell you that I've set the table in the formal dining room for you and Claire this evening, as I'm having some women friends in to play bridge and we'll be taking our meal in the kitchen.”

He seemed stuck for a reply. After a minute, he said, “We could very easily have our meal up here, so that it wouldn't inconvenience you.”

“I wouldn't hear of it,” she said cheerfully. “You both can come down whenever you're ready. I've made a cherry pie especially for Claire. I know how much she likes it.”

She was gone with a wave of her hand.

John closed the door and leaned his head against it, fighting against the most powerful desire he'd felt since his youth. Claire didn't understand what she'd done to him, and he was certain that he didn't want to tell her just yet. He was still coping with the shock of it.

When he turned, she'd redone her buttons and was picking up the underskirt from the floor. He stared at her as if he hadn't ever seen her before. It stunned him that she had such an effect on him. Perhaps it was the soft, helpless devotion and longing in those gray eyes that kindled his desire to such a feverish pitch. Being loved was affecting, apparently. But what disturbed him most was that he should feel such a powerful hunger for anyone other than Diane.

It must have been a fluke, he told himself as he moved toward the doorway, back in control now and angry at her submission and his response to it.

She glanced toward his angry face and away again, still hot inside. “You needn't look as if the whole thing was my fault. I never held a gun to you to make you touch me. And I don't need your pity, either, while we're on the subject.” She was seething with humiliation. Her eyes sparked with temper. “I'm not dying for your kisses, and I won't beg for them!”

He recognized the hurt under the words. She was more vulnerable than any woman he'd ever known, but she was fiercely proud and didn't like people to see her weaknesses. He understood that feeling.

“It was a moment out of time,” he said gently. He felt protective of her. “Don't agonize over what happened.”

Nervous, she wrapped and unwrapped the underskirt in her hands.

“Aren't you hungry?” he asked after a pause. “I hardly had time for lunch. Mrs. Dobbs made you a cherry pie.”

“I like it.”

He smiled indulgently. “I know.”

She averted her gaze and put the skirt down. “I suppose it wouldn't hurt to eat something.” She looked in the mirror and grimaced at the way his hands had disarranged her hair into wild tangles, the way his lips had made hers swollen. She groaned in sweet memory.

“Claire, we're married,” he emphasized, watching her carefully bundle her hair. “People expect us to act like it occasionally.”

She lowered her gaze. “You don't want to be married to me. You said so.”

“I also said that we might as well make the best of it,” he added. “A few kisses won't make you pregnant,” he teased wickedly.

“John!”

He enjoyed her scarlet blush. He enjoyed so much about her. His eyes glittered with sudden intentness as he watched her complete her toilette. He'd never given much thought to her place in his life. He'd been far too busy mourning Diane. But now, as he looked at Claire, he felt the first stirrings of pride in possession. She belonged to him. She was innocent and kind and mischievous, and she loved him. There had never been a man, because she wanted only him. It went to his head like wine. Diane had flirted, withdrawn
from him, in a game of love. Claire had no knowledge of such games. She was completely honest and open with him, devoid of coquetry. How very different she was from the sleek, experienced women who had walked through his life. For a moment, he wondered how it might have been if he and Diane had never met, and he could have come to Claire heartwhole. Perhaps he would have fallen in love with her.

As it was, he felt a sudden, fierce attraction to Claire—and possessive and protective of her. As he stared down at her flushed, dear face, he wondered why he'd never noticed that little dimple in her chin, or the way her mouth curved so sweetly. Her figure was all a man could ask for, nicely rounded—even if a bit on the thin side. She wasn't beautiful, but she had beautiful qualities.

He fought a stirring of desire for her that rose like a tide in his blood. How unexpected, to feel that for his own wife. What might happen if he gave in to it fully?

There was Diane, though. He turned away from Claire, more confused than ever.

CLAIRE LEARNED NEW THINGS ABOUT JOHN EVERY
day. He was a studious, quiet man for the most part. He liked to play chess and he loved railroads and trains. Often when he was home, she found him standing on the balcony watching the trains go slowly down the tracks toward the freight yards. She wondered if he'd ever entertained dreams, as many boys did, of becoming an engineer. But he didn't talk to her of his past at all.

He did let things slip from time to time that he must have learned during his military career. He knew which medals were which, and how to distinguish one uniform from another. He knew quite a lot about military history, reading a great deal, she noted, about strategy and tactics. And he seemed to relish perusal of his collection of biographies about great military leaders.

He was fastidious to a fault about his personal appearance. His hair was always clean and combed, his fingernails
immaculate and trimmed. His shoes were so polished that they reflected. The crease in his trousers was perfect. He never looked disheveled or rumpled—all due, she guessed, to that military background that he wouldn't talk about.

There was so much that she didn't know about him. She wondered if there had been women besides Diane in his past, and reasoned that there probably had. He looked at her with a sort of sensual wisdom from time to time that made her knees go weak. He hadn't learned that in banking. And he was careful to open doors for her, help her into carriages, walk to the street side of her on the infrequent occasions when they strolled together on nice fall days. His family must have taught him exquisite manners. He also had a strong sense of right and wrong, and he was honest to a fault.

But he kept his distance. There were no more passionate kisses or even familiar touches. They were as apart as if they'd never married. He'd withdrawn from her at a time when they were just beginning to grow closer.

Part of her understood his attitude. He loved Diane. Perhaps in some queer way it made him feel that he had been unfaithful to Diane when he had kissed Claire, even though Claire was his wife. It was so sad that he'd married her in the first place, feeling so deeply and strongly about someone else.

The real tragedy was the way Claire felt about him. She loved him with all her heart. There had never been any other man in her thoughts, in her life. He knew that. It probably flattered him. But on the other hand, it must
have been unpleasant, as well, to have the responsibility for someone's happiness, when it was a woman he didn't, couldn't, love.

And despite his courtesy, the everyday things that any cherished woman would expect from her husband weren't forthcoming. He never brought her flowers or little, inexpensive presents. He never sought her out, just to talk. He never took her to the opera or the theater or even out for a meal unless it was connected somehow with the bank's business. He never commented on her clothing or paid her compliments.

Only once did she get a glimpse of the real man that John was under the intangible mask he wore, and that was when a tall, lean, very dark-haired man in a military dress uniform came by the apartment house and asked for him.

Claire stared at the man as if he weren't quite real. “Well, my husband is at work. At—at the Peachtree City Bank,” she said falteringly.

The man, very formal, with his cap tucked under his arm, smiled at her faintly; his green eyes glittered with amusement. “You are his wife? I must say, it delights me that you aren't fair and petite, madam. The last time I saw John, he was mourning his ex-fiancée and threatening to shoot her husband.”

That was news, and not welcome news. Claire's face fell.

“Forgive me,” he said quickly. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Lt. Col. Chayce Marshal, United States Army.” He presented her with his card and made her a formal bow.
“I have been serving in the Philippines. I was wounded and only have recently recovered enough to go back to duty and assume my next post, but I wanted to call on John before I left the city. I have very little time.”

“May I offer you tea or coffee?” she asked more wistfully than she knew. It was a very lonely life that she led outside the small circle of women with whom she worked on charitable events.

He smiled. “It would be a pleasure. I don't suppose that you could send word to John?”

“Why, yes, I could,” she said. “Mrs. Dobbs has a telephone. I'll ask her to contact the bank and tell him that you're here.”

He grinned widely. “That would be wonderful.”

She went to find Mrs. Dobbs, to ask for a pot of coffee, which he said he preferred, and for sliced cakes. It was almost midday, so Mrs. Dobbs also offered a meal, which he declined.

Mrs. Dobbs rejoined them shortly with a tray of cake and coffee.

“Mr. Hawthorn was delighted to hear of your arrival,” she told the army officer, “and he's on his way home right now.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And for such a lavish feast, as well.”

“This is just some pound cake and some freshly baked bread,” Mrs. Dobbs murmured, blushing. “But I hope you find it edible.”

“Don't be silly, Mrs. Dobbs.” Claire chuckled. “Everything you cook is delicious.”

“How very kind of you.” The older woman beamed. “Well, I'll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

She left, and Claire poured coffee for herself and the colonel.

“How long have you and John been married?” he asked.

“Let me see. It's the second week of November… Almost two months,” she replied.

“I see. Well, do you own this house, then?”

“No. John has rooms here on the second floor,” she said conversationally. Her face was lowered as she poured coffee into the thin china cups, so she didn't see the surprise on her companion's face. “He said that a house was unnecessary.”

“Thank you,” he said, and picked up his cup without adding either cream or sugar. His green eyes were thoughtful as they searched Claire's wan face. “Have you known him long?”

“Several years,” she said, surprising him further. “My uncle died recently, but he and John were good friends as well as banker and client. When my uncle died, I was left destitute. John proposed and I accepted.” She looked up with a smile. “So you see, it was not an affair of the heart with us. It was…a business relationship.”

He had to bite back a comment.

“Forgive me,” Claire said. “It was the way you looked, as
if you couldn't understand why John would marry someone as plain as me.”

He was taken aback by her frankness. “I could hardly think of you as plain,” he said gallantly. He studied her with unblinking intensity. “I can't imagine John marrying any woman out of pity alone.”

“Nor did he,” she replied. “There was scandalous gossip about him and his now-married ex-fiancée.”

“I see.” He smiled. “It pleases me that you trust me enough on such short acquaintance to be so honest with me.”

“Honesty is a fault of mine,” she confessed. “I never feel the need to dance around unpleasant topics. Even if I offend people, they know exactly where they stand with me.”

He burst out laughing. “Do you know, that's why John and I became friends when we were first in the service together. He spoke his mind and so did I. We were kindred spirits. I don't believe I've ever heard him tell an overt lie. I don't think he could.”

She had to admit that he'd been just as honest with her about his feelings for Diane. She sipped coffee for a moment. “Was John a good soldier?”

“A good officer,” he corrected. “And yes, he was. Few men are more suited to the military life than John. It hurt him to give it up, I think. But he couldn't bear the memories.”

“What memories?” she asked quickly.

He smiled. “No, you don't. I won't share John's secrets with you. He must do that himself.”

“Then I can assure you, I'll live out my life without knowing. He tells me nothing about himself.”

“You are newly married,” he pointed out. “Wait a few years.”

“And you think it will bring him to speak about himself?” She laughed coolly. “Hardly. Everything I know I have learned by observation. He likes military history,” she recounted, “also biographies and railroads.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “He knows most of the railroad lines in this part of the country and their routes, as well as some of the engineers who run the trains. He has some expertise in the area of colonial Georgia history, as well, and a working knowledge of skirmishes between the Georgia militia and the Creek and Cherokee and Seminole Indians.”

She smiled. “How exciting.”

“You might ask him to tell you about the ‘red sticks' one day, when you need a topic to help pass the time.”

She leaned forward intently. “Red sticks?”

“Renegades who left their tribes and formed a confederation to try and defeat the whites who were taking over their ancestral lands. For instance, did you know that
Baton Rouge
means
red stick?
”

She caught her breath. “Why, how very interesting! And he likes ships, too. He has an intricate model of the
Cutty Sark
inside a bottle.”

“Yes, he built it.”

She all but gasped. “That tiny thing?”

“He loves sailing,” he told her. “The sea haunts him. But he never liked the navy because it would involve spending
too much time away from land. John was a keen horseman and loved to ride before the war. He was a cavalry officer.”

“I don't think that he rides now,” she remarked.

“He had a bad experience with a horse in Cuba,” Chayce Marshal said slowly. “It balked at the lines and was shot out from under him. His leg was pinned and the Spanish Army got a little too close.” He shrugged. “Several of us went to his rescue, but he never forgot the incident. I think he hates horses now.”

“I didn't realize there were horses in Cuba.”

“We shipped mounts over for the officers,” he told her. “Sadly, many of them were eaten in the days after the war when food was so scarce and people were starving.”

“I read the dispatches in the local paper when the war was raging in Cuba,” she told him. “They were full of sad stories. And it sounds as if it was much worse in the Philippines.”

“It still is,” he said shortly, and for an instant, the horror of that continuing conflict was in his eyes. What he'd seen was no fit talk for women's ears. Cuba had been bad, but the Philippines was hell itself. “I deeply regret being denied a chance to go back there and support my men. It was a wicked thrust of fate that I should have been wounded.”

“Aren't you going back?” she queried.

He shook his head. “I have an uncertain temper and the courage of my convictions,” he said amusedly. “I made enemies of all the wrong people—and now I'm being assigned as instructor to a bunch of green cadets. Pray God
I can instruct them well, so that they don't go into battle and die as so many of the young cadets under my command did.”

“Yes.” She searched his face. “It must have been a terrible time.”

“It was. War is never glorious, Mrs. Hawthorn. It is only a facade of glitter over an ugly, red wound.” He chuckled. “Forgive me. I become fanciful.”

“Oh, I could listen to you all day. How very knowledgeable you are!”

He stopped feeding her facts and studied her animated face. She was pretty when she was excited, and she was the best female listener he'd ever encountered. “Lucky John, to have so willing an audience,” he murmured.

“I expect he's always had a willing audience when it comes to women,” she said bitterly.

He cleared his throat and sipped some more coffee, unwilling to put his head into that particular verbal noose.

“I've embarrassed you,” she said at once. “Forgive me. I do tend to ramble.”

“Dear lady, I've spent most of my life in the military,” he said, giving her a droll smile. “I don't think I can be embarrassed anymore. However—” he paused, his eyes twinkling “—please feel free to try.”

“Why, Colonel…are you flirting with me?” she asked demurely, and colored.

It was unfortunate that John should come in the door at that particular moment. Claire's red cheeks and the colonel's teasing expression didn't improve his disposition one bit.
It had been an altogether difficult morning and it seemed bent on worsening.

But he kept his irritation to himself and went forward—with every appearance of happiness—to meet his old friend.

“Chayce!” he said, holding out his hand.

The two men shook hands and patted each other on the shoulders warmly.

“God, it's been such a long time,” John said.

“Two years,” Chayce said. He sighed. “It's good to see you again. I'm on my way to Charleston, and I thought I'd look in on you as I passed through Atlanta.”

“Charleston?”

Chayce smiled coldly. “I'm to teach cadets,” he said. “Ironic, isn't it—after years on the front lines of battle! I made some enemies in Washington by speaking my mind, you see.”

“I'm not surprised.” John chuckled. “You never were one to pull your punches.”

“I made my support of William Jennings Bryan a little too well known, and I joined the anti-imperialist movement. The senior officers felt that I should have kept quiet. McKinley has just won the election and I am disgraced.”

“Your political views should be your own business,” John remarked. “I say that even though I supported McKinley.”

“Yes, because of Roosevelt getting the vice presidency. Served beside him, didn't you?” John nodded and Chayce said, “Well, we can agree to disagree.”

“Just what I was about to say!” John sat back and took the coffee cup that Claire had filled for him. He didn't meet her eyes. He was too unsettled. She'd never flirted with him, but she seemed to find no difficulty doing it with Chayce, who was a ladies' man for real. “What will you teach?” he continued.