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?”
She stiffened. “It would never occur to me to do anything so dishonest.”
“Nor would it occur to me.” He stared into her pale gray eyes and saw that nothing short of the truth would sway her. “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. Anything less than that would destroy her reputation and mine. The only sensible thing to do is make a new life for myself. You and I aren’t strangers. We’ve known each other, casually at least, for several years, and quite well for the past two. You have qualities I admire. We might not have the most passionate marriage of all time, but I think we can deal very well together. Right now, both of us are extra people in the world.”
She hadn’t expected him to say that. She expected coaxing and even a display of passion to make her fall in with his plans. His honesty left her without a defense.
He looked at her slowly, deliberately, until she blushed. One eyebrow lifted slightly. “You might enjoy being married, Claire.”
“If I marry you, it will be—it will be just as friends,” she stammered. “I won’t— That is, I can’t…”
“You can’t share my bed,” he said for her, and the smile grew larger. “All right. We’ll leave it like that. For a while, at least.”
“Forever!” she exclaimed, embarrassed.
“Why, Claire. How red you look!”
“You stop teasing me!” She shifted nervously. “And you must promise.”
He put his hand over his heart. “I promise, most sincerely, that I won’t ask you to do anything that makes you feel compromised. Will that suffice?”
She unbent a little. After all, he was doing her a tremendous favor to offer her the protection of his name and the security of a home.
“I don’t want to be her stand-in, you see,” she mumbled, under her breath.
“I can understand that,” he told her. “I hope that you’ll always be so honest with me. In return, I’ll promise never to lie to you.” His dark eyes were very intent. “I think we’ll get along.”
She sighed wearily. “It seems an unlikely sort of business.”
“Given
