Whitney flew upstairs and slid into the chair at the dressing table. While Clarissa fussed with the roses in her hair, Whitney joyously imagined her reunion with Clayton tomorrow. He would come to see her early, of course, and they . . . She noticed the thick packet propped against her mirror. She picked it up and opened it, dreamily extracting some official-looking documents. At first glance they were filled with so many “parties of the first part” and “parties of the second part,” and “whereas’s” and “wherefore’s,” that Whitney thought the packet must have been intended for Lord Archibald and put in her room by mistake. She flipped to the last page and a signature leapt out at her: Clayton Robert Westmoreland, Ninth Duke of Claymore. Dismissing Clarissa, she slowly began to read the documents.
They set out in cold legal terms that she was no longer betrothed to the Duke of Claymore, that his offer of marriage was herewith withdrawn, and that whatever “monies, jewels, considerations, tokens, etc.,” the Stone family had received from the duke were to be retained by them and considered as gifts.
Whitney’s hand shook violently as she unfolded a note in Clayton’s bold handwriting enclosed with the documents: “Please accept my sincere wishes for your happiness and convey them to Paul. The enclosed bank draft is intended as a present.” A bank draft for £10,000 slid from Whitney’s numb fingers onto the floor while nausea surged in her throat. Clayton was paying her off with a generous check as if she were a common trollop or one of his mistresses, and suggesting that she give her soiled body to Paul in marriage. “Oh my God!” Whitney whispered. “Oh my God!”
Emily tapped on her door and asked if she were ready to leave.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Whitney called hoarsely. “Emily,” she added, dragging her voice through the constricted pain in her chest. “Do . . . do you know how the duke came to be at the wedding? I mean, did Elizabeth decide to invite him, after all?”
Emily sounded both guilty and gay. “Yes. And aren’t you glad now that she did?”
The room reeled and tilted. Whitney started to lurch from her chair, thinking that she was going to be ill, but her legs refused to move. Gulping long uneven breaths of air, she stayed where she was. The tumultuous upheaval settled slowly, leaving a dull, throbbing ache that was intensified with every moment.
Clayton hadn’t come to the wedding to see her, he’d been invited! Whitney realized with a blinding streak of suffocating humiliation. Since his note and documents were dated weeks ago, he would naturally think she’d known about them today, when she saw him. Wild, hysterical laughter welled up within her. He had simply been attending the wedding—and how gratified he must have been when she had smiled adoringly at him!
She hadn’t merely smiled at him, Whitney remembered with a fresh streak of mortified fury—she had leaned against him! She had let him put his arm around her and hold her! And that vile, conceited, arrogant lecher probably thought she was inviting him to use her body again! He was probably planning to take her home with him after the banquet and, considering the way she had acted, he would be confident she was willing to go.
The banquet. Whitney put her face in her hands and moaned aloud. Clayton was going to be at the banquet. She would have to face him there.
When she joined Emily and her husband downstairs, Whitney was a little pale and there was a suspicious sheen in her eyes, but her head was high and her delicate chin was stubbornly set. Outwardly she was composed and very calm—but it was the deadly calm that precedes a hurricane while it gathers force, preparing to strike.
The first thing she did when she arrived at the huge home of Elizabeth’s paternal grandparents, was to smile her very best smile at the two handsomest groomsmen. Clayton had accused her once of trying to collect as many fawning admirers as she could squeeze around her skirts, and for a beginning, that was exactly what she intended to do.
As she stood between both groomsmen in the receiving line, she spoke to each guest as they made their way past—but if the guest happened to be a bachelor, Whitney was her most dazzlingly vivacious self. Within fifteen minutes, she had caused a tie-up in the proceedings, and she was surrounded by six gentlemen all of whom were vying for her attention. Only once did her composure slip a notch, and that was when Paul bent over her hand. Her bright smile faded uncertainly as she gazed into his handsome face, but he looked so sheepish and so contrite, that she immediately decided to add him to her entourage. Tightening her fingers a little on his, she drew Paul into the circle of men surrounding her.
Now she was fortified, surrounded. Insulated from Clayton. For the moment, this was all she needed.
Clayton arrived just as the receiving line disbanded. He paused in the doorway, his tall, commanding frame clad in an elegantly tailored black suit and waistcoat. Whitney watched his glance slide over the guests, then instantly halt when it reached her. A rosy peach tint suffused her high cheekbones as she shifted her gaze from Clayton to the men around her. “We are quite ignoring the bride,” she teased with a gorgeous smile, and without a backward glance she led her entourage toward Elizabeth.
Clayton was positive she had seen him, and his eyes darkened with surprise and puzzlement as he watched her walk away. After a moment, he realized that Whitney had an obligation to attend the bride, and he felt slightly better, but as he watched her laughing gaily with the men who trailed after, no dammit, flirting with them, his confusion began to grow.
A footman appeared beside him bearing a tray, and Clayton took a glass of champagne, his hungry gaze following Whitney. She knew he was here, and she was obviously waiting for the appropriate moment to come to him. He ached to touch her, longed to hear the soft music of her voice, had been driven half out of his mind these past two hours just thinking of being near her again.
Dinner was announced, but Clayton hung back, hoping that Whitney might come to him before she went in to the banquet. “Ah—Claymore! Good to see you again,” a jovial masculine voice said at his elbow.
Clayton glanced briefly at the short, elderly man beside him, recognizing him as Lord Anthony, an old friend of his father’s.
“How’s your lovely mother?” Lord Anthony asked, sipping from his champagne.
Clayton watched Whitney walk into the banquet room; she was not going to come to him. “She’s well,” he answered absently. “And yours?”
“I imagine she’s about the same,” Lord Anthony replied. “She’s been dead for thirty years.”
“Good,” Clayton said. “Glad to hear it.” He put his glass down and strolled off to take his assigned place at one of the banquet tables.
In the true spirit of a matchmaker, Elizabeth had contrived to place Clayton at the table facing the bridal party’s, directly across from Whitney. Clayton ate little of his meal, and what he did eat, he couldn’t taste. He was too preoccupied with an elusive and beautiful young woman who owned his heart, but who seemed either afraid, or unwilling, to meet his gaze. He watched her chatting playfully with the groomsmen on either side of her, winding them around her slender fingers, and jealousy pulsed through his veins.
To add to his mounting frustration, he was seated between two matrons who had discovered his title and immediately singled him out as a prospective husband for their unmarried daughters. “My Marie plays the pianoforte like an angel,” one mother said. “You must come to one of our musicales, your grace.”
“My Charlotte sings like a bird!” the other mother instantly countered.
“I’m tone deaf,” Clayton drawled without taking his eyes off Whitney.
After what seemed like an eternity, the guests adjourned to the ballroom. Peter guided Elizabeth to the center of the floor and they danced together, their fine young bodies moving in perfect harmony with each other, then the newly married couple was joined by the bridal party, who also danced together. When the required first dance was finished, Clayton waited for Whitney to come to him. Instead she drifted into the arms of another groomsman, and then another, smiling into their eyes in a w
ay that made Clayton want to wring her neck!
She was dancing the fourth dance with Paul Sevarin, when it finally dawned on Clayton that Whitney was waiting for him to come to her, and he was dumbstruck at his own stupidity. She had taken the first step toward a reconciliation at the church, and naturally she expected him to take the next one.
The instant the dance ended, Clayton strode directly to her. “Good to see you again, Sevarin,” he lied politely as he firmly placed Whitney’s hand on his arm. “I believe the next dance is mine,” he added, covering her long fingers with his and drawing Whitney onto the dance floor.
Although she didn’t object, Clayton was a little taken aback by the courteous, but impersonal smile she gave him as she turned into his arms for the waltz.
She was slimmer than before, and Clayton drew her protectively closer to him. It was his fault that she had lost weight. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked, his tone laced with tenderness and guilt.
Whitney nodded brightly. She nodded because she couldn’t trust her voice. From the moment he had walked into this house, her senses had been screamingly aware of his presence. She felt as if she were dying inside, slowly and painfully suffocating. He had stolen her virginity and then coldly withdrawn his offer of marriage, suggested calmly that she marry Paul and then tossed his money in her face to appease her. And even so, it was all she could do not to humble herself now, to plead with him to tell her why, to beg him to want her again. Only one thing kept her silent and upright: pride—outraged, stubborn, courageous, abused pride. Her face ached with the effort it took to smile, but she had been smiling all night, and she was going to keep right on doing it until Clayton walked out of this room. And then she was going to die.
For the first time since he had met her, Clayton didn’t know what to say to her. He felt as if he were in a dream, and he was afraid to speak lest he say the wrong thing and break the spell. He thought of apologizing for ravaging her, but in view of the crime he had committed against her an apology was ludicrously inadequate. What he really wanted to say was, “Marry me tomorrow,” but having already deprived her of her wedding night, Clayton was resolutely determined that she would have a spectacular wedding, complete with all the splendor and trappings, all the glittering pomp and circumstance, that she was entitled to enjoy as the bride of a duke.
Since he couldn’t beg her forgiveness, or ask her to marry him at once, he decided to say the only other thing that mattered to him. Gazing down at her bent head, he said the words he had never spoken to another woman. Very quietly and very tenderly, he said, “I love you.”
He felt the emotional impact his words had on her because she went rigid in his arms, but when she lifted her beautiful face the laughter in her expression almost made him stumble.
“I am not in the least surprised to hear it,” she teased breezily. “I seem to be all the rage this season—particularly with tall men.” She tipped her head to the side, considering the possible reasons for such a thing. “I believe it is probably because I am rather tall for a woman. It must be quite awkward for tall men to be forever bent over, trying to speak to tiny women. Or,” she added jokingly, “it could be because I have very good teeth. I take excellent care of them and—”
“Don’t!” Clayton commanded, trying to stop her banter.
“I shall never brush them again,” Whitney agreed with sham solemnity.
Clayton gazed down at her entrancing cream and roses face and wondered how in the hell he had started to speak of love and ended up in an inane discussion of personal hygiene. If his emotions weren’t in such a turmoil, if he weren’t trying so desperately to make things right between them, he would have noticed that her overbright eyes were sparkling with suppressed tears, not laughter, and that the muscles in her slim throat were constricting spasmodically. But he was in a turmoil, and he didn’t notice. “Elizabeth is a beautiful bride,” he said, trying to guide their discussion around to marriage.
Whitney laughed. “All brides are beautiful. It was decreed centuries ago—by a duke, no doubt—that all brides must be beautiful. And blush.”
“Will you blush?” he asked tenderly.
“Certainly not,” she said, managing to smile despite the catch in her voice. “I have nothing left to blush about. Not that I mind, you see, because I’ve always harbored a secret contempt for females who blush and swoon at the slightest provocation.”
Clayton’s frustrated confusion reduced his voice to a tense whisper. “What’s wrong? You weren’t like this when you were in my arms outside the church—”
Whitney’s jade green eyes widened in apparent bewilderment. “Was that you?”
Ignoring the wild curiosity they were generating among the wedding guests, Clayton jerked her hard against his chest. “Who in the living hell did you think it was?”
Whitney felt as if her heart was breaking. “Actually, I couldn’t be absolutely certain who it was. It might have been . . .” She inclined her head toward the two groomsmen who’d been dancing attendance on her all night. “John Clifford or Lord Gilmore. They say they ‘adore’ me. Or it might have been Paul. He ‘adores’ me. Or it could have been—”
In one swift motion, Clayton whirled her off the dance floor and thrust her away. He stared down at her with cold savage contempt, his voice dangerously low, hissing with fury. “I thought you were a woman with a heart, but you’re nothing but a common flirt!”
Whitney lifted her chin in scornful amusement. “I’d hardly say I was common; after all, I’ve fleeced you out of £110,000, and even so, all I have to do is smile, and you still come straight to heel, just as you did today. We are neither of us common, my lord,” she taunted. “I am an accomplished flirt and you are a sublime fool.”
For a split second, Whitney thought he was going to strike her. Instead he turned on his heel and strode swiftly away. She watched him stalk past the staring guests, past the servants stationed at the doors and knew that he had just left her life forever. Forcing back her dammed-up tears, she searched the crowd for Emily. “Emily,” she mumbled brokenly, keeping her face down, “please explain to Elizabeth that I—I felt quite violently ill. I’ll—I’ll send your driver back with your carriage as soon as he leaves me at your house.”
“I’ll come with you,” Emily said quickly.
“No, I prefer to be alone. I have to be alone.”
Later that night Emily and Michael both paused outside Whitney’s door, listening to the wrenching sound of grief being poured into a pillow. “Let her be,” Michael advised compassionately. “She’ll cry it all out of her system.”
However, when Whitney failed to appear for breakfast the next morning, Emily went up to her room and found her sitting in bed, her knees drawn up to her chest as if she were trying to curl into a cocoon. She looked pale and fragile but when she saw Emily, she managed a wan smile. “How do you feel?” Emily asked softly.
“I—I’m much better today.”
“Whitney, what happened last—”
“Don’t!” Whitney implored tightly. “Please don’t.” When Emily nodded, the tension in Whitney’s face gave way to gratitude and she relaxed against the pillows. “I’ve decided to begin enjoying the remainder of my time in London. Would you object if I had callers in occasionally?”
“Of course not. In fact, Lord Gilmore and the other groomsmen are downstairs right now, hoping to see you.” Despite Emily’s determined cheerfulness, her voice wavered and she sat down beside Whitney, putting her arm around her. “Michael and I both want you to stay with us as long as you can. He understands that you’re more like my sister than my friend.”
Whitney gave her a hard hug and tried to laugh. “Sisters argue abominably. Friends are better.”
28
* * *
That day began a month of frenetic social activity for Whitney. With courage and determination, she purposely kept herself too busy to think. Each night she fell into bed exhausted, and slept until it was time to dress for the nex
t day’s engagements. Nicki was her favorite and most frequent escort, but two of the groomsmen and the other eligible gentlemen she’d met at Emily’s party and Elizabeth’s wedding were frequently at her side, as well. With Emily normally acting as chaperone, she was escorted to rout parties, to musicales, the opera, the theatre, and balls. And she met more eligible men at those places, who then appeared with gratifying predictability at the Archibald townhouse to invite her to more parties and more balls.
If Paris had welcomed her, London embraced her with outstretched arms, for her charm and her wit were even more rare here. Whispers began and heads turned when she walked into a room. Her humor was softer now, and shy men who would have been terrified to approach her before, flocked around her.
She was courted and sought after. And she was unhappy beyond words.
She was never alone. And she was never at peace.
Occasionally at one of these functions, Whitney would hear Clayton’s name mentioned, and she would die a little inside. But no one who saw her dazzling smile brighten even more would have guessed she cared.
Only once during that first month did Whitney even come close to encountering Clayton. The young viscount who was her escort for that particular evening handed her into his closed carriage and announced with obvious pride that tonight he was going to escort her to “the ball of the year,” then he had turned to his coachman and instructed, “Number 10 Upper Brook Street.”
The address struck Whitney like a pitcher of ice water in her face. Number 10 Upper Brook Street was Clayton’s London address, the address he’d given her long ago, in case she wanted to reach him. “I detest large parties,” she desperately informed him. “They give me the vapors!”