Magnolia

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 apartment—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.