Whitney, My Love (33 page)

Reaching out, he took Whitney's hand in his and smiled
gently. "My dear, I have been a friend of the Westmoreland family for many
years. You are soon to become a Westmoreland, and I would like to think we
are also friends. Are we?"

Whitney was not going to become a Westmoreland, but she
nodded acceptance of his offer of friendship.

"Good. Then allow me to presume upon this new friendship
of ours by telling you that denying your fiance' your company in order to
gain whatever it is you want, is not only foolish but risky. It was obvious
to me that his grace has a great affection for you, and I truly think he
would give you anything you want if you simply gave him that lovely smile of
yours and asked him for it."

More emphatically he said, "Deceit and deviousness do
you no credit, my child, and what's more, they will get you absolutely
nowhere with the duke. He has known females far more skilled in deception
and trickery than you, and all those ladies ever got from him was the
opportunity to amuse nun for a very brief tune. While you, by being direct
and forthright as I sense that you are, have gained the very thing those
other females most desired. You," he said, "have gained the offer of his
grace's hand in marriage."

Fireworks exploded behind Whitney's eyes; bells clanged
in her ears. Why did everyone act as if she'd just been offered the crown
jewels because Clayton Westmoreland had stepped down from his lofty pinnacle
and deigned to make poor little lucky her an offer of marriage? It was
insulting! Degrading! Somehow she managed to nod and say, "I know your
advice is well meant, Dr. Whitticomb. I-I'll think about it."

He stood up and smiled at her. "You'll think about it,
but you don't plan to follow it, do you?" When Whitney made no reply, he
reached down and patted her shoulder. "Perhaps you know best how to deal
with him. He's quite taken with you, you know. In fact, I never thought to
see the day anything or anyone would unnerve him. But you, my dear, have
come very close. When I arrived from London this morning, I found him
wavering between anger and laughter. One moment, he was quite prepared to
break your pretty neck for pulling this 'stunt,' I believe he called it. The
next minute he was laughing and regaling me with stories about you. The man
is torn between merriment and murder."

"So when he couldn't choose between the two, he sent you
here to teach me a lesson," Whitney concluded darkly.

"Well, yes," Dr. Whitticomb said, chuckling. "I rather
think that was his intent. I confess that I felt a certain annoyance when I
discovered that the patient I'd been hauled out of my house and bounced
across half of England to treat was most likely shamming. But now that I've
been here, I daresay I wouldn't have missed it for the world!"

Gaiety, Whitney thought testily as she dined with her
houseguests that evening, was not a balm for misery, it was an irritant. But
then, nothing seemed to help. In an attempt to bolster her drooping spirits,
she had taken extra care with her appearance and had even worn one of her
new gowns-a soft powder-blue confection. At her throat and ears were blue
sapphires encircled with diamonds which she'd bought her last day in Paris.
Her hair was pulled back off her forehead and fastened with a diamond clip,
leaving the rest to cascade naturally over her shoulders and down her back.

I am a kept woman, she thought as she listlessly pushed
at a stuffed oyster with her fork. He had paid for the clothes she was
wearing, the jewels, even her underthings. To add to her unwholesome
feelings about herself, her cousin Cuthbert's slavering gaze kept slithering
sideways as he tried to steal a glimpse of what her bodice concealed.

Her father, she noted, was behaving with artificial
joviality, proclaiming to his guests how happy he was that they'd come, and
how sad he was that they were departing tomorrow. Whitney thought that he
probably was sorry to see them go. After all, he had been using them as a
shield to insulate himself from her impending wrath. So much the better,
Whitney thought. She didn't want a confrontation with him. All she felt for
him now was a frigid core of nothingness.

After the gentlemen had enjoyed their port and cigars,
they joined the ladies in the drawing room, where tables were set up for
whist. The instant Cuthbert saw her, he started toward her table. He was
pompous, balding and, to Whitney, wholly repulsive. Mumbling a quick excuse
to Aunt Anne about not wanting to play whist, Whitney hastily stood and left
the room.

She wandered down the back hall and into the library,
but could not find anything of interest among the hundreds, of books lining
the shelves there. The salons were being used for parlor games, and Cuthbert
was in the drawing room. Under no circumstances could Whitney endure another
moment near him, which left her the choice of either returning to her
bedroom and the plaguing problems that would haunt her there, or else going
into her father's study.

She chose the latter and, after Sewell brought her a
pack of cards and added a log to the cheerful fire burning in the grate,
Whitney settled into a high-backed chair beside the fire. I am becoming a
hermit, she thought, slowly shuffling the deck, then laying the cards, one
at a time, on the parquet table in front of her. Behind her, she heard the
door open. "What is it, Sewell?" she asked without looking around.

"It isn't Sewell, Cousin Whitney," chanted a singsong
voice. "It is I, Cuthbert." He sauntered over and stood beside her chair
where he could avail himself of this new view of the creamy swells above her
bodice. "What are you doing?"

"It's called solitaire," Whitney explained in a cool,
ungracious voice, "or Napoleon at St. Helena. It can only be played by one
person."

"I never heard of it," said Cuthbert, "but you must show
me how."

Gritting her teeth, Whitney continued to play. Every
time she leaned forward to place a card on the table, Cuthbert leaned
forward too, feigning interest in the play while his gaze delved into her
bodice. Unable to endure it a moment longer, Whitney slapped the cards down
and leapt to her feet in irritated resentment. "Must you stare at me?" she
snapped. "Yes," Cuthbert rasped, grasping her arms and trying to pull her
toward him, "I must."

"Cuthbert," Whitney warned ominously, "I'll give you
just three seconds to take your hands off of me before I start screaming the
house down."

Unexpectedly, Cuthbert did as she commanded, but as his
arms dropped, his body followed. Falling to one knee, he placed a hand over
his heart, preparatory to proposing matrimony. "Cousin Whitney," he murmured
hoarsely, indulging himself in a visual fondling of her from the tips of her
toes to the top of her head and back down. "I must tell you what is in my
heart and mind-" "I know what is in your mind," Whitney interrupted
scathingly. "You've been ogling me for hours. Now get to your feet!"

"I have to say it," he persisted in rising tones. His
pudgy hands felt the hem of her blue gown and Whitney snatched her skirt
away, half convinced that he intended to lift it and peak beneath it.
Deprived of her hem, his hand returned to cover his heart. "I admire you
with every fiber of my being. I have the deepest regard for-" Gulping, he
broke off, his widened eyes riveted on a point behind her.
 
"I sincerely hope," drawled a lazily amused voice from the doorway, "that I
am not interrupting a devoted man at his prayers?" Strolling to Whitney's
side, Clayton looked down at an angry Cuthbert until Whitney's cousin
finally staggered to his feet.

"My cousin was teaching me a new game of cards, and only
one can play," he said.

The indulgent amusement in Clayton's expression
vanished. With a curt nod toward the door, he said, "Now that you have
learned, go and practice."

Cuthbert clenched his fists, hesitated, took a second
look at the coldly determined line of his opponent's jaw, and left. Whitney
watched the door close behind him and looked up at Clayton with relieved
gratitude. "Thank you, I-"

"I ought to break your neck!" Clayton interrupted.

Too late, Whitney realized that she shouldn't have been
standing all this time on her "injured" knee.

"Allow me to congratulate you on a fine day's work,
Madam," he said sternly. "In less than twelve hours, you've brought
Whitticomb to your side and Cuthbert to your feet."

Whitney stared at him. Although his tone was very grave,
one corner of his mouth was quirked into something that looked suspiciously
like a grin. To think she'd been quaking with fear because she thought he
was furious! "You devil!" she whispered, torn between laughter and anger.

"I would hardly describe you as an angel," Clayton
mocked.

All day, Whitney's emotions had been careening crazily
between anger, dread, fear, and relief, rebounding from one near calamity to
the next narrow escape. And now, gazing up at the darkly handsome man who
was amused instead ot enraged, as she'd expected, the last vestige of her
control slipped away. Tears of exhausted relief sprang to her green eyes.
"This has been the most awful day," she whispered.

"Probably because you've been missing me," he said with
such ironic derision that Whitney's shoulders trembled with mirth.

"Missing you?" she giggled incredulously. "I could
cheerfully murder you."

"I'd come back to haunt you," he threatened with a grin.

"And that," she said, "is the only reason why I haven't
tried." Without warning, what had started as a giggle became a choked sob,
and tears came spilling down her cheeks.

Clayton's arm slid gently around her. He was offering
her comfort, and Whitney accepted it. Turning into his arms, she buried her
face against his dove-gray jacket and wept out her troubles in the embrace
of the man who was responsible for causing them. When the tears finally
subsided, Whitney remained where she was, her cheek resting against the
solid, comforting wall of his chest.

"Feel better now?" he murmured.

Whitney nodded sheepishly and accepted his proffered
handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes. "I can't remember crying after I was
twelve years old, but since I came back here a few weeks ago, it seems as if
I'm forever weeping." Glancing op, Whitney surprised a look of panted regret
in his eyes. "May I ask you something?" she said softly.

"Anything," Clayton replied.

"Within your power, and within reason, of course,"
Whitney reminded him with a teary half smile.

He accepted her mild jibe with an amused inclination of
his head.

"Whatever made you do this Gothic thing?" she asked him
quietly, without rancor. "Whatever made you come to my father, without
speaking to me first, scarcely knowing me?" Although there was no change in
his expression, Whitney felt his muscles tense, and she quickly explained,
"I'm only trying to understand what you could have been thinking of. We
didn't get along well at the Armands' masquerade. I mocked your title and
rebuffed your advances, yet you decided you wanted to marry me, of all
people. Why me?" "Why do you think I chose you?" "I don't know. No man
offers for a woman merely to make her miserable and ruin her life, so you
must have had another reason."

Despite the unintended insult in her words, Clayton
grinned. She was letting him hold her, and he was feeling extremely
tolerant. "You can't condemn me for wanting you, unless you condemn every
other man who has. And arranged marriages may be Gothic, but they have been
a custom in the best families for centuries."

Whitney sighed. "In yours perhaps, but not in mine. And
I can't believe that in those marriages there wasn't at least a chance that
both people would eventually come to like one another, even to develop an
affection for each other."

"Can you honestly say that you haven't occasionally felt
a liking for me?" he persisted gently. "Even against your will?" There was
no mockery or challenge in his tone to justify an argumentative denial, and
Whitney's innate fairness prevented her from attacking without provocation.
She shrugged uncomfortably and looked away. "Occasionally." "But always
against your will?" Clayton teased. In spite of herself, Whitney smiled.
"Against my will, and against my better judgment." His eyes warmed and
Whitney cautiously changed the subject. "You promised to tell me why you
wanted to marry me, and you haven't."

"How could I have known when I came here that you would
set out to despise me the moment you saw me?" he countered.

"Clayton!" Whitney burst out, then froze in surprise at
the sound of her voice using his given name. Hastily, she corrected her
error. "My lord duke-" "I liked it much better the other way." "My lord
duke," she persisted stubbornly as the quiet intimacy of their truce began
to crumble, "you answer all my questions with questions! What in heaven's
name possessed you to come here and offer for me?" At last Whitney realized
that his arms were around her, and she jerked away. "And don't bother trying
to tell me that you thought you loved me."

"I didn't," Clayton agreed equably. "As you have just
pointed out, I hardly knew you at the time."

Whitney turned her back on him, unable to understand why
his answer hurt her. "Wonderful!" she said bitterly. "Now it is all
perfectly clear. You met me a tune or two and, knowing nothing about
me-caring nothing about me-you came to England and purchased me from my
greedy, penniless father, who drove a sound bargain and then sent for me to
hand me over to you!" She swung around, ready-eager- for battle, but Clayton
simply stood there, calm and impervious, refusing to take up the gauntlet.

In angry despair, Whitney sank back down into the chair
she'd occupied earlier, and picked up the cards. "This is solitaire," she
said, dismissing him as she resumed the game she'd left unfinished. "It's
all the rage in France, but it can only be played by one person "