Magnolia

But gossip had run rampant lately about the elusive John Hawthorn and the beautiful Diane, the new young wife of the bank’s middle-aged president.

Mrs. Diane Calverson was petite, blonde, and blue-eyed, with a complexion like cream.

Two years before, they had been engaged.

If only he’d notice her. If only…!

“You don’t consider a candlelight supper, alone with a married woman, scandalous?”

He’d been careless in his obsessive desire to be alone again—just once—with Diane. Her marriage to Calverson had been an act of vengeance—when

Losing Diane had changed John, had made him cold. Now her marriage of less than two years seemed to be in trouble. She’d beseeched John to come to her sister’s house for a meal so that she could ask him for help.

If it hadn’t been for Diane, he could well have cherished this child.

Everyone else in Atlanta knew that Diane had expensive tastes—and that her family’s ruined fortunes had left her, at the age of twenty-two, with no tangible assets save her beauty.

“Everyone knows he’s panting after the bank president’s wife. You’d think the man would have more pride.”

Her uncle never regained consciousness.

“My uncle had just died, Mrs. Calverson. Clothes were not much on my mind,” Claire said. Diane shook her head. “Nothing is more important to me than to be correctly dressed, whatever the occasion. Really, Claire. You should go and change before other people come.”

But his comfort seemed reserved for Diane. One more thing to add to her burdened spirit.

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.

“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.”

He’d lost everything he loved, even Diane, and Claire’s gentle presence had meant so much. He’d never even told her that.

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!”

“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.

“I don’t want to be her stand-in, you see,” she mumbled, under her breath.

She didn’t give that another thought, for the moment. Oddly, it never occurred to her just who the necessary people would be…until it was too late.

In fact, John was trying not to see Diane, so beautiful in her glorious white-and-black-patterned dress, so elegant.

John, you mustn’t go through with this. I’ll promise anything, anything…if you’ll walk out of the church. Anything, my darling,” she whispered boldly.

“How?” he demanded through his teeth, tormented by the anguish on her lovely face. She loved him. She still loved him! And he was about to be married!

“I know.” He groaned, holding her hands tight. His black eyes adored her. “I love you more than my life!”

John was distraught. Diane hadn’t said a word to him in weeks. Now, at his wedding, she was declaring her love, begging him to forgo this marriage, promising a future for them, insinuating…what?

Diane…his love, his life! He was losing her forever, because of his need to stem foul gossip about her and his pity for Claire.

She looked so pure, so untouched, so innocent. So much in love, he thought bitterly. And suddenly, the thought of hurting her was insupportable.

He was disgusted with himself. Pity was no excuse for marriage. His heart was forever Diane’s, now more than ever.

John had looked angry, unhappy. She glimpsed Diane through her veil and saw the woman looking straight at John with a curious, drawn expression. She still wanted him, it seemed. And a split second later, she saw John’s head turn helplessly toward Diane, saw his tormented gaze rest on the other woman.

Only Diane didn’t cheer them on. John glanced at her miserable face once and felt his heart go cold. He looked away.

“It was an act that we can both spend our lives regretting!”

Alone in the dark later, Claire gave way to tears. She’d had such great expectations about her marriage, only to find that her husband was full of regrets and bitterness.

“Some measure of decorum is called for. Your social status is higher now than it was when you lived with your uncle. You will have to conform, just a little.”

He wouldn’t have been overbearing like this with Diane. If she’d wanted to ride naked down the streets of Atlanta in a motorcar, he’d probably have said nothing about it. But then, he loved Diane.

“My sacrifices, of course,” she said, nodding curtly. “You’ll go on as before, working fifteen-hour days and mooning over Diane.”

“You’re living in the city now, not feeding your chickens and washing clothes like a countrywoman.”

Claire was spirited, all right. It was a pity his heart was Diane’s, because in many ways, Claire was his match.

Her response, her reaction, made him dizzy. Diane was so experienced that his touch only made her purr like a kitten.

But what disturbed him most was that he should feel such a powerful hunger for anyone other than Diane.

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.

But once they were in their apartment, John suddenly grew remote. He realized he’d forgotten Diane altogether for the afternoon, and wondered how he could have done such a thing.

Claire knew that she might look passable in a nice gown, but she was no match for the elegant and beautiful Diane.

“Certainly we will, my dear,” John said. His tone of voice was different when he spoke to Diane. His eyes as he looked at her were suddenly hungry and hot and full of pain. He tensed, because he hadn’t expected the feeling to rise in him so powerfully.

He averted his face. “Diane is none of your affair.” “I know that,” she said. “I won’t interfere, so long as you remember you’re a married man.”

“How lovely you look,” John told Diane, approving of the scarlet gown she wore. It was almost too tight, and made her voluptuous figure look frankly vulgar.

His heart jumped. Her mouth was soft and sweet, and he wanted it terribly. Abstinence had made him ill just lately, and he was hungry for a woman in his arms.

“How odd,” Ted said deliberately. “I’d have said that you’d like to spend time with Mrs. Calverson. Of course, I’m an outsider here, so what would I know?”

He hadn’t thought that he and Diane had been conspicuous. In fact, tonight he’d felt less drawn to Diane than at any time in the past. He looked around and encountered several pairs of feminine eyes with blatant disapproval in them. He felt vaguely ashamed that he’d embarrassed Claire so publicly.

No man sports with my wife in front of me!” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “But it’s all right for you to sport with Mr. Calverson’s wife in front of me, is that right?”

“John,” she whispered through tight lips, clinging. “John, you mustn’t…take me to bed,” she pleaded unsteadily. “I’m not Diane! I’m not! Don’t take advantage of something…I can’t help!”

Shocked, embarrassed, she sat up, hugging the sheet to her nakedness. John wasn’t there. There was no sign of him, no sound of him, in their apartments.

Yes, there was a bruise on one breast, and several on her upper thighs where his hands had gripped her so tightly when she’d satisfied him the second time. She half turned, and saw more faint bruises on her buttocks. Her eyes were no longer those of an innocent.

John had admitted that he loved Diane. How could she have permitted him to make love to her?

Idly he wondered what Diane would have thought of his lapse.

“With all my heart,” Claire said miserably, “for all the good it’s done me. He’d walk over my dying body to get to the beautiful Mrs. Calverson. I have no illusions whatsoever about his feelings for me; he has none.”

She gathered the plates, stacked them, and carried them down the hall to the kitchen—arriving just in time to see Diane in John’s arms, with her lips pulling away from his.

“I don’t have to ask you to leave, do I, Mrs. Calverson?” Claire asked pleasantly. “I’m sure you realize that all I have to do is go back into the parlor and tell your husband what you’ve been doing with my husband in my home.”

“If you ever bring that slut into my home again, I’ll tell your fancy bank president the truth about the two of you, and to the devil with gossip!” “Claire!” he said sharply.

Seeing Diane in his arms had shattered her last hope of any sort of life with him. She wouldn’t be set aside for his mistress. She had too much pride.

He’d used her, she thought furiously. He’d used her like a woman of the night—and she’d not only let him, she’d wrapped herself around him like a snake and whimpered with pleasure. She’d whispered things to him that she couldn’t bear to remember.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said icily. “Did you have fun pretending that I was Diane?”

“Of course I can. I’ve seen Diane without her clothes. You aren’t that naive, surely?” The color drained out of her face. “You’ve…made love?” “We were engaged,”

And eventually, I may even be able to stop pretending that you’re Diane, in the dark,” he added, hating himself as he said it.

“You invited Diane to my home—and let her make the cattiest sort of remarks to and about me,” she replied belligerently. “During our entire marriage, you’ve treated her like your sweetheart and me like an interloper.

She would never forget that it had been Diane who’d rushed to John’s side when he’d been hurt at the fire, Diane whose comfort he’d craved. Well, he could have his precious Diane.