Whitney, My Love (67 page)

One day shortly thereafter, as Whitney went upstairs to
change for their daily break-neck gallop across the open countryside,
Clayton stopped her on the steps. "Khan is favoring his right leg a little,"
he said with a peculiar gravity, mingled with profound gentleness in his
voice. "Suppose we go for a walk Instead, little one."

Whitney hadn't noticed Khan favoring his leg at all, and
there were dozens of other splendid mounts at the stables, but she didn't
question his decision. She was a little relieved because they always rode at
such a hell-for-leather pace that she shuddered to think of what might
happen if she fell, and she hadn't been able to think of a way to suggest
they slow down without telling Clayton why.

That night, Clayton's lovemaking took on a new pattern
that repeated itself consistently thereafter. He would arouse her until she
was delirious with wanting his possession, and then enter her with
painstaking gentleness, penetrating deeply, but slowly, withdrawing
lingeringly. It prolonged the inevitable moment of joyous release unbearably
. . . and very pleasurably. It also provided Whitney with the
rationalization that such a gentle invasion of her body could not possibly
be harming their baby.

The next week she took herself firmly in hand and told
herself she was being ridiculous. In the first place, she was bursting with
her news. In the second, if she delayed much longer, her own body would
provide nun with the announcement of his impending fatherhood. Accordingly,
Whitney went to London and purchased six tiny items of infant apparel at a
particular shop. Immediately upon her return, she set to work in earnest
with the embroidery thread in the privacy of her rooms.

She summoned Mary and Clarissa for an opinion of her
needlework and said with a sigh as she produced her handiwork, "Amazing, is
it not, that I could master Greek and not this?" Mary and Clarissa, who were
both secure in their positions in the household, took one look at her
embroidery, then looked at each other and collapsed on the bed amidst
shrieks of laughter.

By dinner the next evening, Whitney was finally
satisfied with a "W" she had embroidered in blue on the collar of an
unbelievably tiny baby gown. "This will have to do," she sighed to Clarissa.

"When are you going to tell his grace that my baby is
going to have a baby?" Clarissa asked with fond tears sparkling at the
multiple creases at the comers of her eyes.

"That isn't quite what I planned to say to him," Whitney
giggled, giving Clarissa a pat on her wrinkled cheek. "Actually, I'm not
going to tell him at all-I'm going to let this tell him," she said,
indicating the little infant gown. "And I think tonight after dinner will be
a perfect time." With a gay, conspiratorial smile, Whitney tucked the little
gown into the drawer of her desk beside her stationery and trooped
down-states for dinner.

She waited until Clayton had finished his port after the
meal and they were sitting in the white-and-gold salon. Feigning absorption
in her book, Whitney sighed. "I can't think why I have been feeling so tired
lately." She did not look up and so missed the look of gentle pride and
laughter that Clayton beamed on her.

"Can't you, sweet?" he asked cautiously. He thought she
knew she was with child but he wasn't certain, and if there was a chance she
feared childbearing, he wanted to spare her the worry as long as possible.

"No," Whitney said in a musing tone. "But I wanted to
answer my aunt's letter tonight and I have just realized that I left it in
the drawer of my writing desk upstairs. Would you mind terribly getting it
for me? Those stairs seem like a mountain to climb lately."

Clayton got up, pressed a light kiss on her forehead,
affectionately rumpled her heavy hair, and strode briskly up the curving
marble staircase.

He went into her room and grinned to himself as he
looked about him. A faint scent of Whitney's perfume lingered there. Her
combs and brushes were on her dressing table. Her presence filled the airy
room and made it seem pretty and fresh and vibrant. Like she was.

Wondering again if she knew she was with child, and
wondering why in the world, if she did know, she wasn't telling him, he
pulled open the drawer of her rosewood writing desk. Clayton took some
stationery off the top of the thick stack for Whitney to use, then rummaged
through the drawer, looking for her aunt's letter. Unable to find it, he
pushed aside what he thought was a white handkerchief and flipped through
the stack of unused stationery. Near the very bottom he finally discovered a
folded letter. Uncertain if it was the one Whitney wanted, he unfolded it
and scanned the words Whitney had written many months ago at Emily's house,
in a foolish-and discarded-attempt to force Clayton to come back to hen

"To my very great mortification, I find I am with child.
Please can at once here to discuss what can be done. Whitney."

To her very great mortification? Clayton repeated to
himself with a bewildered frown. What an odd way for her to feel about the
living culmination of the exquisite joy they had found in one another. And
what a peculiar way for her to choose to give him the news. "Please call at
once."

In the space of the next three seconds, three
realizations stunned him: The note was dated two months before they were
married-in fact, it was written on the day before he had brought Vanessa
here and found Whitney waiting for him ... there was no name on it to
indicate who the note had been intended for . . . and the note was in
Whitney's elegant, scholarly hand and signed by her. God help him . . . She
had written it to some man she believed had made her pregnant.

Clayton's mind registered disbelief, it started to shout
denials. . . even while something inside of him slowly cracked and began to
crumble. He felt as if he were shattering and all of his pieces flying
apart. Whitney had been playacting the night she came here to him. After all
those months of treasuring the memory of the way she had surrendered her
pride and crossed the study to come to him, it had been a lie, a
contemptible, filthy lie! That tender scene in which she had whispered, "I
love you" had been an act! She had played it because she believed she was
pregnant, and whoever this note was intended for either refused his
responsibility or couldn't accept it. Perhaps the son of a bitch was already
married.

Whitney had come to Claymore that night to get herself a
father for someone else's brat-Christ! They had probably concocted the
scheme of her coming here together. Except in the end, she hadn't really
needed a father for her bastard. She must have miscarried, Clayton thought
with feverishly clear hindsight. No wonder she had looked so tired and wan
in the weeks preceding the wedding.

And what a goddamned act on their wedding night! By then
she had to have known she wasn't pregnant, but she must have been so
horrified by her near calamity that she was willing to go ahead and marry
him anyway. Perhaps it made it more convenient for her lover and her if
Whitney were married. No one would think a thing about her becoming pregnant
now. And then Clayton recalled all the times in the last months when she had
gone to London on "shopping trips" and to "visit friends." Bile surged up in
his throat. This child she was carrying now was as likely someone else's as
his.

That bitch! That tying, deceitful little ... No, he
couldn't call her that again, even in his twisted torment. He had loved her
too much, until a minute ago, to curse her. But he had loved a sham, a
consummate actress, a hollow shell of a woman. A body. Nothing more. And the
body wasn't even his alone.

What an instinct for survival she had, you had to give
her that! She had faced him in that study with Vanessa in the same house,
borne his fury and pressed her body against his, kissing him as if her whole
heart were in it. Because she was pregnant! Clayton wanted to believe the
baby might have been his. He even tried to convince himself of mat for a
moment. But he knew better-the night he had ravaged her, there had been no
more than a moment's penetration. The act had never been consummated. The
chance of the child's having been his was too minuscule even to consider.

Their lives were a charade. Each word she spoke, every
look on her face, the way she was in bed-all of it was a performance she put
on every day. It was all an obscene,

His hand tightened on the piece of blue stationery,
slowly crumpling it into a tight, hard ball. The pain inside of him began to
dull as a cold, black rage swept over bun. He dropped the crumpled note
blindly into the desk drawer and slammed it shut, but it wouldn't close. A
tiny white garment with a small "W" embroidered in blue threads on the
collar had jammed between the drawer and the desk, half in and half out of
it.

Clayton stared at it, then gave it a vicious jerk. This
was what he had been meant to find, he realized with fury. How very touching
of her to tell him this way! What a flair for tender drama she had!
Distastefully, he dropped the tiny garment on the floor and deliberately
ground it beneath his heel as he turned to walk away.

"I see you found it," Whitney whispered from the
doorway, her gaze frozen in misery on the little gown crushed beneath his
foot.

"When?" he said icily.

"In-in about seven months, I think."

Clayton stared at her, violence emanating from every
pore. With deliberate cruelty he carefully enunciated each vicious word. "I
don't want it."

Clarissa and Mary, who had been hovering on the balcony
to have a look at their employer's beaming countenance when be heard the
news, recoiled in amazement as he passed them on the way down the stairs,
moving with an unleashed savagery that threatened to strike down anything in
his path. The front door crashed into its frame behind him, and Clarissa
slowly turned and walked into Whitney's room, then froze in horror at the
sight that greeted hen

Whitney was kneeling on the floor near her desk, her
shoulders jerking spasmodically with her silent weeping. Her head was thrown
back and tears were streaming from her tightly closed eyes.

And in her hands was a tiny white gown with a little "W"
she had lovingly embroidered in blue.

"Here, don't cry so, darlin'," Clarissa said in a
suffocated whisper as she bent down to help her up. "You'll harm the babe."

Whitney thought she would never be able to stop. She
cried until her sobs were dry and choked. She cried until there were no more
tears left to weep and she felt dry and barren. "I don't want it!" The four
words coiled around her heart, squeezing and twisting until she couldn't
breathe.

When dawn came to lighten the sky, Whitney turned onto
her side, staring out into the early gray tight. She was alone in her bed,
atone all night for the first time in their marriage. Clayton didn't want
her baby. Their baby. Did he mean to disown it? Oh God, no! He couldn't-he
wouldn't-why would he? Squeezing her eyes closed, she turned her head into
the pillow. He was going to make her give up the baby. That's what he meant
to do. He was going to get a wet nurse as soon as it was bom and send the
child away to have it raised on one of his other estates, out of their way.
Was his need for her so selfish then, so consuming that there was no room
for their child?

A few hours ago, she might not have known how she felt
about her pregnancy, but she did now. Clayton's rejection of her baby had
brought on a tidal wave of protectiveness in her so fierce that it shook her
to the roots of her being. She would never let him send their baby away.
Never!

Whitney awoke very late. Her head was aching and she
felt horribly sick and dizzy, but she made herself go down to breakfast.
Clayton's place across from her was still set. "His grace said he had no
appetite for breakfast, my lady," the servant informed her. Whitney ate a
Spartan meal for the sake of the baby then went outdoors for a long walk.

She didn't know where Clayton was; he hadn't come into
his room until just before dawn.

She walked through the formal rose gardens, vibrant with
separate beds of red, white, pink and yellow roses, and then across the lush
manicured banks of the immense lake where swans floated aimlessly upon the
tranquil surface. Her steps carried her to the white pavilion on the far
bank overlooking the lake, and she went inside and sat down on the brightly
colored pillows strewn across the benches.

She sat there for two hours while her thoughts tumbled
over each other, trying to reconcile the fact that she was the same person
she had been only yesterday, that this was the same lifetime she had
inhabited.

She went back to the house and slowly walked up the
staircase, only to find Clayton's valet and three servants busily moving his
clothing out of his room. "What are they doing?" Whitney breathlessly begged
Mary. "Mary, tell me why they are moving my husband's things." She felt as
if she were teetering on the brink of insanity.

"His grace is moving into the east wing," Mary
explained, forcing herself to sound both brisk and unconcerned. "We'll move
your things into his room, and your room will make a nice nursery when the
time comes."

"Oh," Whitney whispered faintly, knowing she could never
bear to be in that suite without Clayton. "Would you show me where his new
rooms are? I'll have to ask him about tonight. We were to go out." Mary led
her to an elegant suite at the far end of the east wing and kindly left her
alone there.

Whitney walked slowly into the room. Clayton had been
there today, but he was gone now. His shirt was thrown over a chair and a
pair of gloves lay on the bed where he had tossed them. She wandered into
the dressing room and ran her fingers over the onyx backs of his brushes and
had to swallow back a fresh onrush of tears. She opened a wardrobe and
tortured herself by touching his shirts and jackets. You could tell what
broad shoulders were needed to fill those jackets. Such broad shoulders, she
thought. She had always loved his broad shoulders. And his eyes.