Whitney, My Love (52 page)

Clayton was deeply engrossed in his morning
correspondence. "Are you to await a response?" he asked absently.

"No, my lord."

"Then leave it there." Clayton nodded at a small table
near the door.

He was getting dressed to go out for the evening when he
recollected the envelope left lying in his library that morning. "Send
someone for it, Armstrong," he murmured to his valet without looking away
from the mirror which reflected the success of the intricate folds he was
putting into his snowy neckcloth.

Clayton shrugged into the jacket Armstrong held for him,
then he took the envelope a footman had just brought up. Opening it, he
extracted what appeared to be yet another invitation for his secretary to
attend to.

The name "Ashton" leapt out at him and his heart
instantly contracted with painful memories. "Tell my secretary to decline,
but to send an appropriate gift in my name," he said quietly, handing the
invitation back to the footman.

As he passed it across, however, a tiny handwritten
message along the bottom caught his eye. Clayton read it, then read it
again, his pulse beginning to hammer. What in God's name was Emily trying to
tell him? That Whitney wished to see him? Or that Emily wanted him to see
her? Impatiently waving his valet and the footman away, he carried the
invitation into his bedchamber and reread Emily's words three more times,
growing more agitated with each reading. Futilely he tried to find something
in the brief note to indicate that Whitney had forgiven him. But there was
nothing.

That evening, Clayton sat through the play at the Crown
Theatre paying no more attention to the raven-haired beauty beside him than
he did to the performances on the stage. His emotions veered back and forth
between hope and despair. There was nothing about Emily's note to give him
any encouragement except that she had sent it to him. Emily Archibald and
Whitney had been fast friends since childhood. If Whitney hated him, Emily
would have discovered that by now, and she would never have sent him the
invitation. On the other hand, if Whitney had forgiven him, she would have
sent it to him herself.

Suppose Whitney didn't want to see him. Suppose she took
one look at him in the church and fainted? A sad smile touched Clayton's
eyes. Whitney might hurl her bouquet in his face, but she wouldn't faint.
Not his brave, courageous girl.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Al THE BACK OF THE CROWDED CHURCH, ELIZABETH ASHTON
stood with her father, watching her third bridal attendant drift slowly down
the carpeted aisle, then she turned to Whitney who would be next. "You're
going to steal the day from me," she smiled, surveying the yellow and white
roses entwined in Whitney's lustrous hair and the flowing yellow velvet
bridesmaid gown she wore. "You look like a jonquil in springtime."

Whitney laughed. "You look like an angel, and don't you
dare try to begin another flattery contest with me. Besides, as a bride,
you're supposed to be nervous. Isn't she, Emily?" Whitney whispered, looking
over her shoulder at her friend, who would follow her down the aisle.

"I believe so," Emily said absently. This morning she
had, confessed to Michael that Whitney and the duke had had a dreadful rift
(which was certainly the truth) and that she had invited the duke to the
wedding in hopes of bringing them back together. Michael's reaction had been
alarmingly unencouraging. He told her that she should not have interfered,
that she might be doing both parties an injustice, and that, in the end,
they might both despise her for her well-intentioned interference.

Now, Elizabeth was also involved in Emily's scheme. When
the guest list was originally prepared, "Mr. Clayton Westland" had been on
it, but at Whitney's panicked insistence, Elizabeth had removed his name.
Three days ago, Emily told Elizabeth that a secret romance had been
blossoming between Whitney and Mr. Westland, but that the couple had
quarreled (which was also the truth). Elizabeth had delightedly agreed that
sending him a secret invitation was a splendid way to effect a
reconciliation. She still did not realize, of course, that Mr. Westland was
actually the duke of Claymore, for despite her weeks spent in London, she
moved in very different circles from the duke.

Today, Emily cursed her plan as the worst idea she'd
ever had.

"You're next, Miss," Emily's maid told Whitney as she
bent down and straightened Whitney's train.

The other bridesmaids had cringed in nervous terror from
making the long, solitary walk down the aisle, but the prospect didn't
bother Whitney in the least. She'd done it a dozen times in Paris for
Therese DuVille and other friends, but today she felt especially joyous, for
she had played a very large part in bringing this wedding about. With a
breezy smile Whitney accepted her bouquet of yellow and white roses from the
maid. "Elizabeth," she whispered affectionately, "when next we speak, you'll
be married." And she stepped out into the aisle.

Clayton's gaze riveted on her the instant she stepped
into view, and the sight of her had the devastating impact of a boulder
crashing into his chest. Never had she looked so radiantly beautiful or so
serene. She was a shaft of glowing moonlight moving down the center of the
candlelit aisle.

He was standing only inches from her as she swept
gracefully past him, and he felt as if he were stretched on the rack. Every
muscle in his body tightened, straining to endure the torture of her
nearness. But it was a torture he welcomed, an agony he didn't want to be
spared.

Whitney took her appointed place at the front. She stood
quietly through the ceremony but when Elizabeth began softly repeating her
vows, the words held a poignancy for Whitney that she'd never felt before,
and sentimental tears suddenly stung the backs of her eyes. Without turning
her head more than an inch or two, Whitney could view half the audience in
the church, and as her gaze touched the crowded rows, she noticed that most
of the women were dabbing at their eyes. Aune Anne smiled a silent greeting.
Whitney acknowledged it with an imperceptible tip of her head, feeling a
surge of comfort at the sight of her aunt's reassuring face.

As the threat of tears passed, and the lump of emotion
in her throat began to dissolve, Whitney let her eyes drift back over the
rows of guests, past her father, past Margaret Merryton's parents . . . past
Lady Eubank who was wearing one of her outrageous turbans . . . past a very
tall, dark-haired man who . . . Whitney's heart gave a leap, missed a beat,
then began to thump madly as a pair of penetrating gray eyes looked straight
into hers. Paralyzed, she saw the bitter regret carved into his handsome
features and the aching gentleness in his compelling eyes. And then she tore
her gaze from his.

Dragging air into her constricted lungs, she stared
blindly ahead. He was here! He had finally come to see her, she thought
wildly. He couldn't be here to attend the wedding because he hadn't been
invited to it. He was here! Here, looking at her in a way that he had never,
ever looked at her before-it was as if he were offering himself to her!
Standing very straight and very tall, he was humbly offering himself to her.
She knew it, she could feel it.

Whitney wanted to scream, to drop to her knees and weep,
to hurt him as he'd hurt her. Fury, humiliation, and wild uncertainty all
collided into one another. This was her opportunity to repay him, she
thought hysterically, to show him with a single contemptuous glance that she
despised him. She might never have another chance. He hadn't tried to see
her before this, and he would leave after the wedding; he couldn't attend
the banquet without an invitation. Emily said he couldn't possibly approach
her without some sign from her, and he was asking her for that sign now.

Oh God! He was silently asking for her forgiveness,
standing there and offering himself to her. If her answer was no, he would
walk out of this church when the wedding was over. And out of her life.

Whitney closed her eyes in an agony of indecision, not
caring that Clayton would see her doing it and know the struggle raging
within her. He had abused her body and ravaged her soul and he knew it! Her
pride demanded that she look up at him and show him that she felt only
contempt for him. But her heart screamed not to let him walk out of this
church.

"Don't cry, darling," he whispered in her memory.
"Please don't cry anymore."

Whitney couldn't breathe; she couldn't move. "Help me!"
she prayed to someone. "Please, please, help me!" And then she realized that
the "someone" she was praying to was Clayton. And she loved him.

The moment Whitney stirred, Clayton knew that she was
going to face him, that his answer would be there. His knuckles whitened as
he gripped the bench in front of him, bracing himself. Her eyes lifted to
his and the gentle yielding in their melting green depths nearly sent nun to
his knees. He wanted to drown himself in her eyes, to pull her into his
shaking arms, to carry her from the church and beg her to say aloud the same
three words she had just spoken in silence.

Everyone rushed down the aisle behind the bridal
procession, pushing and jostling gaily for position on the broad crowded
steps outside. Clayton was the last to leave. He strolled slowly along
beneath the high vaulted ceiling, his footsteps echoing hollowly in his
ears. Outside the massive doors of the church, he stopped, watching Whitney
smiling and nodding, her hair shining in the late afternoon sunlight. He
hesitated, knowing that if he went to her now, they'd not be able to
exchange more than a few words, yet he couldn't bring himself to wait until
the banquet. Meeting as few eyes as possible to avoid being waylaid by any
of his former "neighbors," he stepped into the crowd, wending his way toward
Whitney until he was standing only an inch behind her.

Whitney instantly sensed his presence as if it were a
tangible force, something powerful and magnetic. She even recognized the
elusive, tangy scent of his cologne. But she scarcely recognized his voice;
it was raw with emotion, a hoarse, aching whisper. "Miss Stone-I adore you."

The shattering tenderness of the words sent a jolting
tremor up Whitney's spine, a reaction which was not lost on Clayton. He saw
her stiffen, and for one chilling second he thought he'd only imagined what
had passed between them in the church, but then she took an imperceptible
step backward. Very lightly, he felt her lean against him. His breath froze
at the exquisite sensation of her body pressing against him. He dropped his
hand to her waist, gently sliding it around in front of her, drawing her
nearer and tighter to him. And she made no resistance at all... but stood
quietly in his embrace. Clayton's mind flew to the cleric in the church. If
he led Whitney inside now, would she stand beside him like some gorgeous
greenhouse flower and repeat the same words Elizabeth had just said? Would
he need a special license?

With a sublime effort, he thrust the idea of marrying
her now, today, out of his mind. Whitney would be a breathtaking bride and
he'd not attempt to cheat her of her day of glory-he'd already cheated her
of so much!

Emily turned to Whitney without seeming to notice that
Clayton was standing shockingly close behind her friend, with his arm around
her waist. "They're signalling us to go now," she said.

Whitney nodded but Clayton sensed her reluctance to
leave him and he had to fight down the impulse to tighten his hand. Finally
she stepped away, and without a backward glance, she melted swiftly into a
flurry of bridesmaids.

Emily hesitated before climbing into the carriage behind
Whitney. Turning, she looked for the duke and found his inscrutable gray
eyes levelled on her. She smiled with shy uncertainty. He returned her
hesitant greeting with a deep, formal bow, then he grinned at her, a broad,
devastating grin filled with boyish gratitude.

"He was there!" Whitney blurted, twisting around in the
carriage, her gaze fastened on the waning vision of Clayton who was still
standing on the church steps, watching the Archibalds' carriage pull into
traffic. "Did you see him?"

Laughter trembled on Emily's lips. "Indeed I did. He was
standing right behind you with his arm around your waist."

"Please don't hate him for what he did," Whitney
whispered. "I couldn't bear it if you hated him. Emily, I love him so much."

"I know you do," Emily said gently.

Clayton watched her carriage until it had disappeared
from view, his heart filled to bursting. He knew why Whitney had never
turned to face him. It was for the same reason he'd not told her that he
loved her just now. Neither of them wanted to begin again, surrounded by a
group of strangers.

Although some of the guests weren't strangers at all,
Clayton finally noted, glancing around nun. There were several people here
whom he knew from London. Simultaneously, it dawned on him that the
murmurings of the crowd were rising to a fever-pitch. He walked down the
steps, past women who were beginning to curtsy to him and men who were
respectfully murmuring, "Your grace . . ."

Clayton stopped in his tracks, staring at his coach
which was pulled up smartly at the curb. The coach! In his agitated
preoccupation with seeing Whitney again, he'd forgotten to tell McRea to use
the plain black one which he'd purchased to use as Whitney's "neighbor."

Clayton turned to face his gaping former neighbors who
had known him as "Mr. Westland." He looked at them ruefully, with a faint
smile of wry apology for his deception. Then he climbed into a magnificent
midnight-blue coach with his ducal seal emblazoned in shining silver on the
door panel.

Whitney had arranged to spend the time between the
wedding and the banquet with her aunt at the Archibalds' so that she could
tell her aunt of the permanent estrangement between Clayton and herself. She
had dreaded this meeting for weeks, but now she could scarcely wait to see
her aunt. |