To add to her misery, as her wedding day bore down on her, her agitated mind began tormenting her with constant visions of that terrible night when Clayton had cruelly and deliberately shamed her with his hands and mouth and body. The humiliation of that night came back to haunt her, magnifying her remembered physical pain until she was a mass of fear and trepidation.
Five days before the wedding, she was simply too worn down to attend the ball being given by one of Clayton’s friends. The next day she sent Clayton a note, asking him to excuse her from an afternoon party at the Rutherfords’.
Clayton, who had removed to his townhouse in Upper Brook Street to be near Whitney during the weeks preceding the wedding, read her brief note declining the Rutherfords’ party with a faint frown of bewilderment. After a moment’s thought, he ordered his carriage brought round and went directly to the Archibald townhouse where he was informed that Miss Stone was in the Blue Salon, and that Lord and Lady Archibald were out for the day.
Whitney picked up a fresh piece of stationery, dipped her quill into the ink pot, and continued with the exhausting task of writing notes of appreciation for the staggering number of wedding gifts which had been arriving in an endless stream for weeks. In the doorway of the salon, Clayton stopped and gazed at her. She was seated at a desk, her dark chestnut hair twisted into thick curls bound with narrow green ribbons. Her head was bent slightly as she wrote, her flawless profile turned to him. With the sun streaming in the window beside her, Clayton thought she looked so fragile and lovely that she seemed ethereal. “Problems?” he said after a long moment, closing the doors behind him. He crossed to her, took her by the hand and pulled her gently, but firmly, out of her chair and over toward the sofa. “Young lady, is it your intention to treat me as a bystander in all of this, and only remember my existence when you walk down the aisle?”
Whitney sank down beside him. “I’m sorry about the Rutherfords’ affair,” she said with a tired smile that made Clayton instantly regret his mild reprimand. “It’s just that I’m so busy with everything, that even I feel like a bystander at times.” Turning her face into the comforting curve of his shoulder and neck, she said, “I missed you terribly last night—did you have a pleasant time at the ball?”
Clayton tilted her chin up. “Not without you,” he murmured as his mouth covered her. “Now, show me how much you missed me . . .”
Within moments, Whitney’s tension and exhaustion had melted away in the heat of Clayton’s passionate kiss. In a kind of sensual haze, she was dimly aware that he was inexorably drawing her down to lie beside him on the silk sofa, but with his lips moving persuasively against hers, and his tongue teasing and exploring, the shift in her position scarcely seemed to matter.
Her senses swam dizzily, assaulted by his deep kisses and the gentle, arousing things he whispered against her parted lips as he kissed her. “I can’t get enough of you,” he murmured, leaning over her. “I’ll never get enough of you.” His hand roamed possessively over the sensitive skin above her bodice, his fingers nimbly unfastening the row of tiny buttons at the front of her lime-wool dress. Before Whitney could react, her chemise was down and his mouth was moving leisurely toward her naked, exposed breasts. “The servants!” she gasped.
“They’re scared to death of me,” Clayton said. “They wouldn’t come in here to warn us of a fire.”
His tongue touched a rosy nipple, and Whitney struggled in genuine, frantic earnest. “Don’t! Please!” she said hoarsely, lurching into a sitting position and clutching her open bodice, clumsily refastening it.
Clayton started to reach for her, but she leapt off the sofa. Amazed, he sat up and stared at her. She looked slightly flushed, very beautiful—and frightened half to death! “Whitney?” he said cautiously.
She jumped, took three steps backward, then sank onto the sofa across from him, her expression tortured and embarrassed. As Clayton watched, she started to speak, changed her mind, then ran her hand over her forehead. Finally, she raised pleading green eyes to his and drew a long, unsteady breath. “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you—a favor. But it’s dreadful and embarrassing. It’s about our wedding. Night.”
Frowning with worry over the tension and anxiety he saw on her face, Clayton leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “What favor do you want to ask of me?” he said quietly.
“Promise me you won’t be angry when you hear it?”
“You have my word,” Clayton assured her calmly.
“Well, you see,” she began hesitantly, “I—I would like to be able to really look forward to our wedding. But I can’t, because I keep thinking about what is going to happen—you know—later that night. Other brides don’t understand, not exactly, but I do now and I—” She was as pink as roses when she trailed off into pathetic silence.
“What is it that you wanted to ask of me?” Clayton said. But he already knew—God help him, he already knew.
“I was wondering if you might agree to wait,” she explained miserably. “I mean, agree not to do that to me on our wedding night.” Unable to meet his steady gaze any longer, Whitney looked away in sheer embarrassment. Uninformed she might be about some things, but she knew full well that wives made no such bargains with husbands, and that marriages were consummated on the wedding night. Why, in days gone by, a marriage was consummated with observers in the room, in the old—and thank heavens, antiquated—custom of “bedding” the newly wedded couple. A wife’s duty, her vows, required that she submit to her husband in all things, and that included satisfying his passion.
“Are you absolutely certain this is the way you want it?” Clayton asked after a long silence.
“Positive,” Whitney whispered, her eyes downcast.
“What if I refuse to agree?”
Staring at her hands, Whitney swallowed. “Then I’ll submit to you.”
“Submit to me?” Clayton repeated, stunned and a little irritated by her choice of words. He could hardly believe that after eight weeks, Whitney still thought of the final culmination of their desires as some form of punishment to which she must “submit.” She always came eagerly into his arms, returning his kisses with a fervor and hunger that almost matched his. And whenever he held her, she instinctively fitted her voluptuous body to the contours of his. What in the living hell did she imagine he was going to do on their wedding night—turn into a crazed animal and tear her clothes off again? “Is it me you’re afraid of, little one?” he asked quietly.
Her gaze flew to his and her response was emphatic. “No! I couldn’t bear it if you thought that. I know you aren’t going to—to treat me the way you did before. It’s just that I feel embarrassed, because I know exactly what you are going to do to me. And there’s something else too—something terrible that I should have told you weeks ago. Clayton, I think I am malformed in some way. You see, it—what you did to me that night—hurt dreadfully. And I don’t think other females feel such pain or . . .”
“Don’t!” Clayton interrupted harshly, unable to bear hearing how badly he had hurt her. With an inward sigh, he accepted this as the penalty he was going to have to pay for his callous cruelty that night. And in view of what he had actually done to her, it seemed a small price, at that. “I will give you my word to wait, on two conditions,” he told her quietly. “The first is that, after our wedding night, the option of choosing the time is mine.”
She nodded so eagerly and looked so relieved that Clayton almost smiled.
“The second condition is that you promise that during the next few days you will seriously consider what I am about to say.”
Again she nodded.
“Whitney, what occurred between us before was nothing more than an act of outrage on my part; it was not ‘making love,’ it was an act of selfish revenge.”
She was listening, and Clayton realized she was trying to understand, but to her at this point, an act was an act, and if it was painful and humiliating before, it would be again. “Come here,” he
said gently. “I can explain better with a small demonstration.”
Apprehension flitted across her face, but she obediently crossed to sit beside him. Clayton tipped her chin up and kissed her deeply and tenderly. Her response was longer than usual in coming, but when it did, it was exquisitely warm and filled with love. “Do you remember the first time I ever kissed you, on the balcony at Lady Eubank’s house?” he asked, drawing back and searching her eyes. “I was punishing you for trying to use me to make Sevarin jealous—remember?”
She nodded. “I slapped you,” she recalled with a smile.
“Do you feel like slapping me now? Do you feel in any way the same about this kiss as you did that first one?”
“No.”
“Then believe me when I tell you that what will happen between us the next time I take you to my bed will be as different from before, as this kiss is from that first one.”
“Thank you,” she said with a beaming smile of relief.
She didn’t believe him for a minute, Clayton knew. But she was overjoyed with her “wedding night reprieve.”
33
* * *
At the first light of dawn, Whitney climbed from beneath the cool sheets, groped for her dressing robe in the dark, then settled into a chair at the windows to watch the sun rise over London on her wedding day. She bent her head and tried to pray. But all her prayers began with “Thank you” instead of “Please.”
She heard the house slowly stirring to life, the sound of servants moving about the halls, of footsteps passing her door. The wedding was not to begin until three o’clock, and that seemed like an eternity from now.
For hours, time scarcely seemed to move, and then, just after noon, time leapt forward, picking up extraordinary speed. People scurried in and out of her bed chamber, while Aunt Anne sat perched upon the bed, watching Clarissa brush Whitney’s thick mahogany tresses until they shone. Emily came into the room wearing a dressing robe, ready to slip into her gown, and Elizabeth was right on her heels. “Hello,” Whitney said in a quiet, joyous voice.
“Nervous or just not talkative?” Emily teased gaily.
“Neither. Just happy.”
“Aren’t you the tiniest bit nervous?” Elizabeth persevered hopefully, darting a conspiratorial wink at Emily and Whitney’s aunt. “I hope his grace hasn’t changed his mind.”
“He hasn’t,” Whitney assured her with perfect serenity.
“Well!” Clayton’s mother laughed, coming into the room, “I can see things are not much different here than they are in Upper Brook Street this afternoon. Stephen is driving Clayton to the brink of madness.”
“Is Clayton nervous?” Whitney asked incredulously.
“Beyond belief!” her grace said, smiling and sitting down beside Anne Gilbert on the bed.
“Why?” Whitney asked in alarm.
“Why? There are at least a dozen reasons why, and all of them are either directly or indirectly related to Stephen. At ten o’clock this morning, Stephen arrived at the house and told Clayton that as he passed here, two traveling chaises were being loaded and that he was quite, quite certain he saw you getting into one of them. Clayton was already bounding down the stairs to come after you before Stephen shouted that he was joking.”
Whitney smothered a laugh and the duchess said, “You may find that amusing, my dear, but Clayton did not. After that, Stephen convincingly reported that he had discovered a nonexistent plot among the groomsmen to kidnap Clayton and delay his arrival at the wedding. Which is why all twelve of the groomsmen are now cooling their heels under Clayton’s watchful eye at his house. And that is only the beginning.”
“Poor Clayton.”
“Poor Stephen,” the duchess corrected drily. “I came here because I couldn’t bear to watch my elder son murder my younger, which is what Clayton was threatening—rather seriously, I might add—to do if Stephen came within arm’s reach of him again.”
Time flew on rapid, beating wings, and suddenly Whitney was fully dressed, walking into the bedroom for her aunt and her future mother-in-law’s inspection.
“Oh my dear child,” the duchess gasped, her eyes shining with wonder. “I have never seen anything like you in all my life!” Stepping back, she surveyed Whitney’s ivory, pearl-encrusted gown which had been designed as a glorious representation of a medieval bride. Its low, square-cut bodice hugged Whitney’s full bosom, then tapered to a narrow waistline, where a gold chain with clusters of diamonds and pearls set in each shining link rode low on her hips. The undersleeves were tightly fitted satin tubes terminating in deep points at the tops of her, hands, but the satin oversleeves, stiffly encrusted with pearls, ended in wide bells at her elbows. A flowing satin cape trailed behind her, bordered in pearls, and attached at her shoulders with jeweled links that matched those at her waist. She wore no veil. Instead, her long hair was pulled back off her forehead and held at the crown with a diamond and pearl clip. It cascaded over her shoulders in curving waves, ending in soft thick curls, midway down her back. Clayton had once said he liked it best this way.
“You look exactly like a medieval princess would have wished to look,” Clayton’s mother breathed reverently, but Anne Gilbert only stared in silent joy at the serenely beautiful young woman who was about to become a duchess, while in Anne’s mind she saw Whitney as she had been not so long ago, wearing groom’s britches and balancing barefoot on the back of a cantering horse. When she finally spoke, tears of happiness and pride thickened her voice. “We should leave early for the church. Your father said there were crowds of spectators already gathering when he passed there hours ago, and he said that traffic was dreadfully bogged down.”
That turned out to be an understatement. Four blocks from the massive church, the coach bearing Whitney, her father, and her aunt, was at a complete stop, hopelessly caught in the tangle of conveyances and would-be spectators blocking the streets. It was as if all London had turned out to witness the wedding.
In a large anteroom of the church, twelve groomsmen looked up hopefully as Stephen came in from a side door. He walked over to Clayton who was leaning against a table, his rigid features reflecting the gathering storm brewing within him as it seemed more and more likely that Whitney had jilted him at the altar. Stephen, however, was imperturbably cheerful as he reported, “There is the most unbelievable snarl out there. The streets are swarming with pedestrians, and the horses and carriages can’t move.”
Clayton straightened abruptly and jerked his head toward the door. “Find McRea, he’s in this church somewhere, and tell him I want the coach waiting in front. If she isn’t here in five minutes, I’m going after her.”
“Clay, unless your cattle have sprouted wings, it wouldn’t do any good. Would you mind stepping over to this door and seeing for yourself why Whitney is late?”
With long, restless strides, Clayton followed him to the door which looked out from the side of the church onto a square. The street was teaming with humanity and hopelessly entangled conveyances. “What in the living hell is going on?” he snapped.
“A duke is getting married,” Stephen grinned. “And to a beautiful girl who has neither aristocratic lineage nor even immense wealth. Apparently yours is the fairy-tale wedding of the century, and the cits mean to be here to see it.”
“Who in God’s name invited them?” Clayton demanded, his mind on where Whitney might have gone to elude him.
“Since we don’t own the church, they undoubtedly think they have the right to be here. Although,” Stephen added wryly, “there’s no more room left out there. Even the balconies are filled to capacity.”
“Your grace,” a serene masculine voice interrupted. A group of concerned male faces turned toward the archbishop who was arrayed in all his ecclesiastical finery. “The bride is here,” he said quietly.
Twenty thousand white candles illuminated the aisles and the altar of the church. The organ pipes gave forth an expectant note, and then music rose majestically, filling the echoing church
from its marble floor to the high-vaulted ceilings.
One by one, Whitney watched her twelve bridesmaids drift down the aisle. Therèse DuVille Ronsard accepted her bouquet from the maid and straightened her train, then she turned to Whitney with a soft smile. “Nicki gave me a message, which I am to give to you at this moment. He said to tell you, ‘Bon voyage—again.’ ”
The poignant message from Nicki almost shattered Whitney’s composure. Tears momentarily blurred her vision and she purposefully focused her eyes on Emily, who was just stepping out into the aisle in a trail of apple-green silk and satin. Alone now with her father with whom she had only exchanged polite, impersonal comments since his arrival for the wedding two days ago, Whitney turned to him. He looked austere and gruff. “Are you nervous, Papa?” she asked softly, watching him.
“Nothing to be nervous about,” he said in an oddly hoarse voice. “I’m walking down the aisle with the most beautiful female in England on my arm.” He looked at her, and Whitney saw that his eyes were moist as he added, “Don’t suppose you’ll believe this, because you and I have always been at sixes and sevens, but I never would have promised you to the duke if I didn’t think he was man enough to handle—no, the man for you,” he corrected clumsily. “I thought to myself that first day, when he came to the house, that the two of you were cut from the same cloth, and I agreed to his suit right then. We never even discussed money until after I had agreed to the betrothal.”
Whitney’s eyes were misty as she leaned up and kissed his furrowed brow. “Thank you for telling me that, Papa. I love you, too.”
The organ music suddenly stopped, followed by a long moment of suspenseful silence, then it gave forth two expectant blasts, and Whitney laid her trembling hand upon her father’s arm.
With the music soaring through the eaves and four thousand people staring in awed, hushed silence as she took each step, Whitney started down the long aisle.