Under the wide arched entrance to the ballroom, he stopped and nodded at the musicians in the far alcove, and the music ground to an abrupt halt. Whitney could feel the eyes swerving toward her, hear the roar of the crowd dying swiftly as the babble of voices trailed off in ominous silence. She drew a long, quivering breath, focused her eyes slightly above everyone’s heads, and stepped down the the shallow steps, allowing her father to lead her toward the center of the room.
Staring, watchful silence followed her and, at that moment, had she been able to find the strength, Whitney would have picked up her skirts and fled. She clung to the memory of Nicolas DuVille, of his proud, laughing elegance, and the way he had escorted her everywhere. He would have leaned over and whispered in her ear, “They are nothing but provincials, chérie! Just keep your head high.”
The crowd parted as a young, red-haired man shoved his way through—Peter Redfern, who had teased her unmercifully as a child, but had also been one of her few friends. At five and twenty, Peter’s hairline had receded slightly, but the boyishness that was so much a part of him was still there. “Good God!” he exclaimed with unconcealed admiration when he was standing directly in front of her. “It is you, you little ruffian! What have you done with your freckles?!”
Whitney gulped back her horrified laughter at this undignified greeting and put her hand in his outstretched palm. “What,” she countered, beaming at him, “have you done with your hair, Peter?”
Peter burst out laughing, and the silent spell was broken. Everyone started talking at once, closing in on her and exchanging greetings.
Anticipation and tension were building apace, but Whitney restrained the urge to turn and look for Paul as the minutes ticked past and she continued making the same mechanical responses, over and over again. Yes, she had enjoyed Paris. Yes, her Uncle Edward Gilbert was well. Yes, she would be pleased to attend this card party or that dinner party.
Peter was still beside her a quarter of an hour later while Whitney was speaking with the apothecary’s wife. From her left, where all the local girls and their husbands were standing, Whitney heard Margaret Merryton’s familiar, malicious laugh. “I heard she made a spectacle of herself in Paris and is all but shunned from polite society there,” Margaret was telling them.
Peter heard her too, and he grinned at Whitney. “It’s time to face Miss Merryton. You can’t avoid her forever. And anyway, she’s with someone you haven’t met yet.”
At Peter’s urging, Whitney reluctantly turned to face her childhood foe.
Margaret Merryton was standing with her hand resting possessively on Clayton Westland’s claret-colored sleeve. This afternoon, Whitney would have sworn that nothing, nothing could make her dislike Clayton Westland more than she did, but seeing him with Margaret, knowing he was listening to her vituperative comments, turned Whitney’s initial dislike into genuine loathing.
“We were all so disappointed that you weren’t able to find a husband in France, Whitney,” Margaret said with silken malice.
Whitney looked at her with cool disdain. “Margaret, every time you open your mouth, I always expect to hear a rattle.” Then she picked up her skirts, intending to turn and speak to Emily, but Peter caught her elbow. “Whitney,” he said, “allow me to introduce Mr. Westland to you. He has leased the Hodges place and is just back from France.”
Still stinging from Margaret’s cruel remarks, Whitney jumped to the conclusion that if Clayton Westland had just returned from France, he must be the one who had provided Margaret with the lie that Whitney was an outcast there. “How do you like living in the country, Mr. Westland?” she inquired in a voice of bored indifference.
“Most of the people have been very friendly,” he said meaningfully.
“I’m certain they have.” Whitney could almost feel his eyes disrobing her as they had at the stream. “Perhaps one of them will even be ‘friendly’ enough to show you the boundary of your property, so that you don’t embarrass yourself by trespassing on ours, as you did earlier today.”
A stunned silence fell over the group; the amusement vanished from Clayton Westland’s expression. “Miss Stone,” he said in a voice of strained patience, “we seem to have gotten off on a rather bad foot.” Inclining his head toward the dance floor, he said, “Perhaps if you will do me the honor of dancing . . .”
If he said anything more, Whitney didn’t hear it, because directly behind her and very close to her ear an achingly familiar, deep voice said, “I beg your pardon, I was told Whitney Stone was to be here tonight, but I don’t recognize her.” His hand touched her elbow, and Whitney’s pulse went wild as she let Paul slowly turn her around to face him.
She lifted her eyes and gazed up into the bluest ones this side of heaven. Unconsciously, she extended both her hands, feeling them clasped firmly in Paul’s strong, warm ones. In the last four years, she had rehearsed dozens of clever things to say when this moment finally arrived; but looking up at his beloved, handsome face, all she could say was, “Hello, Paul.”
A slow, appreciative smile worked its way across his face as he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. “Dance with me,” he said simply.
Trembling inside, Whitney stepped into Paul’s arms and felt his hand glide around her waist, gathering her closer. Beneath her fingertips, his beautiful dark blue jacket seemed to be a living thing that her fingers ached to slide over and caress. She knew that now was the time to be the poised, light-hearted female she’d been in Paris, but her thoughts were jumbled and erratic, as if part of her was fifteen years old again. All she wanted to say was, “I love you. I have always loved you. Now do you want me? Have I changed enough for you to want me?”
“Did you miss me?” Paul asked.
Warning bells went off in Whitney’s head as she heard the thread of confidence in his tone. Instinctively, she gave him a provocative sidewise smile. “I missed you desperately!” she declared with enough extra emphasis to make it seem a gross exaggeration.
“How ‘desperately’?” Paul persisted, his grin widening.
“I was utterly desolate,” Whitney teased, knowing full well that Emily had regaled him with stories of her popularity in Paris. “In fact, I nearly wasted away in loneliness for you.”
“Liar.” He chuckled, his hand on her waist tightening possessively. “That’s not what I heard this morning. Did you, or did you not, tell some French nobleman that if you were as impressed with his title as you were with his conceit, you’d be tempted to accept his offer?”
Whitney nodded slowly, her lips twitching with laughter. “I did.”
“May I ask what his offer was?” Paul said.
“No, you may not.”
“Should I call him out?”
Whitney felt as if she was dancing on air. Should he call him out? Paul was flirting with her, actually flirting with her!
“How is Elizabeth?” Before the words were past her lips, she cursed herself in French and English. And when she saw the satisfied smile sweeping across Paul’s face, she felt like stamping her foot in self-disgust.
“I’ll find her and bring her over, so you can see for yourself,” Paul offered, the knowing smile lingering in his eyes as the music wound to a close.
Whitney was still trying to recover from the humiliation of her hideous blunder when she realized that Paul was guiding her directly toward Clayton Westland’s group. Until that moment, she’d entirely forgotten that she’d turned her back on him when he was asking her to dance, and had strolled off with Paul.
“I believe I stole Miss Stone away when you were about to request a dance, Clayton,” Paul said.
Considering her earlier rudeness, Whitney couldn’t see any way to avoid dancing with her loathsome neighbor now. She waited for Clayton to repeat the invitation, but he did nothing of the sort. With everyone witnessing her chagrin, Clayton let her stand there until she flushed with angry embarrassment. Then he offered his arm and said in a bored, unenthusiastic voice, “Miss Stone.”
“No, thank you,” Whitney said coldly. “I don’t care to dance, Mr. Westland.” Turning on her heel she walked off toward the opposite end of the room, putting as much space as possible between herself and that boorish clod, and joined a group of people that included Aunt Anne. She had been standing there for perhaps five minutes when her father appeared at her elbow and drew her away. “There is someone I want you to meet,” he said with gruff determination.
Despite his tone, Whitney could tell that he was very proud of her tonight, and she accompanied him gladly as he skirted around the perimeter of the ballroom . . . until she realized where he was taking her. Directly ahead, Clayton Westland was engaged in laughing conversation with Emily and her husband. Margaret Merryton still clung to his arm.
“Father, please!” Whitney whispered urgently, drawing back. “I don’t like him.”
“Don’t be absurd!” he snapped irritably, forcibly pulling her the rest of the way. “Here she is,” he told Clayton Westland in a booming, jovial voice. He turned to Whitney and said, as if she were nine years old, “Make your curtsy and say ‘how do’ to our friend and neighbor, Mr. Clayton Westland.”
“We’ve already met,” Clayton said drily.
“We’ve met,” Whitney echoed weakly. Her cheeks burned as she endured Clayton’s mocking gaze. If he said or did anything to embarrass her in front of her father, Whitney thought she would murder him. For the first time in her life, her father was seeing her as an accepted, and acceptable, human being, and he was proud of her.
“Well, good. Good,” her father said, looking expectantly from Whitney to Clayton. “Then why don’t you two dance? That’s what this music is for—”
The reason they weren’t going to dance, Whitney instantly realized, was because it was obvious from Clayton’s aloof expression that he wouldn’t ask her to dance again if someone held a gun to his head. Feeling lower than an insect, Whitney made herself look imploringly at him, and then at the dance floor, in an unmistakable invitation to him.
His brows arched in ironic amusement. For one hideous moment, Whitney thought he intended to ignore her invitation, but he shrugged instead and, without so much as offering her his arm, he strolled toward the dance floor, leaving her to follow or remain standing there.
Whitney followed him, but she loathed him every single step of the way for making her do it. Trailing along in his wake, she stared daggers at the back of his wine-colored jacket, but until he turned toward her, she didn’t realize that he was laughing—actually laughing at her mortification!
Whitney stepped toward him, then right past him, fully intending to leave him standing there in the middle of the dancers.
His hand shot out and captured her elbow. “Don’t you dare!” he growled, laughing as he drew her around to face him for the waltz.
“It was excessively kind of you to ask me to dance,” Whitney remarked sarcastically as she stepped reluctantly into his arms.
“Wasn’t that what you wanted me to do?” he asked with mock innocence, and before she could answer, he added, “If I had only realized that you prefer to do the asking, I’d not have wasted my other two attempts.”
“Of all the conceited, rude—” Whitney caught her father’s anxious stare and smiled brilliantly at him, to show what a marvelous time she was having. The moment he looked away, she glared murderously at her dancing partner and continued, “—unspeakable, insufferable—” Clayton Westland’s shoulders began to rock with laughter, and Whitney choked on her ire.
“Go on,” he urged with a broad grin. “I haven’t had such a trimming since I was a small boy. Now, where were you? I am ‘unspeakable, insufferable’—?”
“Outrageously bold,” Whitney provided furiously, and then for want of anything better, “—and ungentlemanly!”
“Now that puts me in a very difficult position,” he mocked lightly. “Because you’ve left me no alternative except to defend myself by pointing out that your behavior to me tonight has been anything but ladylike.”
“Smile, please. My father is watching us,” Whitney warned, forcing her mouth into a smile.
Clayton complied immediately. His teeth flashed white in a lazy grin, but his gaze dipped lingeringly to her soft lips.
The focal point of his gaze did not escape Whitney, who stiffened in his arms. “Mr. Westland, I think this brief, unpleasant encounter has gone on long enough!”
She jerked back, but his arm tightened sharply, preventing her from pulling free. “I haven’t any intention of either of us becoming a spectacle, little one,” he warned. Since Whitney had no choice except to move where he led her, she ignored his improper endearment, shrugged, and looked away. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” he drawled, and then in a stage whisper, he added. “Your father is watching us again.”
“It was a lovely evening,” Whitney retorted. She waited for Clayton’s rejoinder and when, after several seconds, there was none, she glanced uncertainly at him. He was watching her intently, but without a trace of rancor over her jibe. Suddenly Whitney felt foolish and bad-tempered. True, he had behaved outrageously this afternoon at the stream but, considering the things she had done and said to him tonight, she had not behaved any better. A rueful smile lit her eyes to glowing jade as she looked at him. “I think it is your turn to be rude to me now,” she offered fairly. “Or have I lost count?”
His eyes smiled his approval at her sudden change of attitude. “I think we’re about even,” he said quietly.
Something about his deep voice and gray eyes, about the effortless ease with which he danced the waltz, stirred the ashes of some vague memory. Forgetting that his eyes were locked to hers, Whitney gazed at him, trying to grasp what was niggling at the back of her mind. “Mr. Westland, have we ever met before?”
“If we had, I hate to think that you could forget it.”
“I’m certain that if we had, I would remember,” Whitney said politely, and dismissed the idea.
True to his promise, Paul brought Elizabeth over when Clayton and Whitney strolled off the dance floor. Elizabeth Ashton, Whitney thought despairingly, looked like a beautiful, fragile china doll. She was wrapped in a gown of ice-blue satin that complemented the pink of her cheeks and the shining gold of her curls, and her voice was soft with amazed admiration as she said, “I can’t believe it’s you, Whitney.”
There was the implication, of course, that Whitney had been so unpresentable before that Elizabeth couldn’t believe the change, but watching her stroll away on Clayton’s arm, Whitney didn’t think Elizabeth had meant to be insulting.
Since Elizabeth was dancing with Clayton Westland, Whitney waited, hoping that Paul would ask her to dance again. Instead he frowned and said abruptly, “Is it the custom in Paris for a man and woman who have just been introduced to gaze into one another’s eyes while they dance?”
Whitney looked at him in startled surprise. “I—I wasn’t gazing into Mr. Westland’s eyes. It was just that he seemed familiar to me, and yet, I don’t know him at all. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”
“It happened to me tonight,” Paul said curtly. “I thought you were someone I knew. Now I’m not certain I know you at all.” He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Whitney staring after him. In the old days, Whitney would have run after him to reassure him that it was him she wanted, only him, and not Clayton Westland. But these weren’t the old days and she was much wiser, so she smiled to herself and turned in the opposite direction.
Even though Paul never approached her again, she was perfectly happy to dance the night away with the local swains. Given a choice between an overconfident Paul and an aloof, jealous one, Whitney definitely preferred the latter. Lady Eubank was right, Whitney decided. Competition was what Paul needed.
* * *
It was nearly noon when Whitney awoke the following day. She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, positively certain that Paul would come to call.
Paul didn’t come, but several of her other neighbor
s did, and she spent the afternoon trying to be charming and gay while her spirits sank along with the setting sun.
When she went to bed that night she told herself that Paul would surely come tomorrow. But tomorrow came and went without a sign of him.
It was not until the day after, that Whitney saw him, and then it was purely by chance. She and Emily were riding back from the village, their horses kicking up little puffs of dust as they walked along the road. “Did you know that Mr. Westland was called away to London the day after your party?” Emily asked.
“My father said something about it,” Whitney said, her mind on Paul. “I think he is expected back tomorrow. Why?”
“Because Margaret’s mama told mine that Margaret has been counting the hours until he returns. Apparently, Margaret’s affections are absolutely fixed on him and—” Emily stopped talking and squinted down the road. “Unless I mistake my eyes,” she said with a teasing glance at Whitney, “we are about to encounter your prey.”
Leaning forward, Whitney made out an elegant phaeton tearing along at a spanking pace in their direction. There was scarcely time for her to smooth the skirt of her riding habit before Paul was upon them. He pulled up, greeted Whitney politely, and then devoted his complete attention to Emily, flattering her with teasing gallantries until she laughingly ordered him to desist because she was now a married woman.
Khan had taken an instant aversion to Paul’s showy black horse, and Whitney listened to their conversation while trying to keep Khan under control. “Are you going to Lady Eubank’s affair tomorrow?” she heard him ask. When there was a lengthening moment of silence, she looked up to find Paul’s attention on her.
“Are you going to Lady Eubank’s affair tomorrow?” he repeated.
Whitney nodded, her heart doubling its tempo.
“Fine. I’ll see you there.” Without another word, he flicked the reins, and the phaeton bowled off down the road. Emily turned, watching the vehicle until it vanished from view. “If that wasn’t the most extraordinary encounter I have ever had in my life, I can’t imagine what was!” she said. A slow smile dawned across her features as she looked at Whitney. “Paul Sevarin just went to great pains to completely ignore you. Whitney!” she said excitedly, “doesn’t that strike you as rather odd?”