Whitney, My Love (73 page)

Clayton slowly walked into his dressing room and opened
the leather case where his shirt studs were kept. He took out the ruby ring
she had given him and turned it in his fingers so that he could catch the
inscription inside. With a ragged sigh he read the two beloved words: "My
Lord." He hesitated, torn between putting it on now or waiting until Whitney
could place it on his hand as she had the night they were married. She had
put the ring on his finger, then she had kissed his hand and held it softly
to her cheek. He put the ring on himself-he didn't want to wait any longer.

He felt better now that her ring was on his hand where
it belonged, and he sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of
nun, slowly sipping brandy white he stared in silence at the big four-poster
bed they had shared. He knew he had to come to grips with her betrayal now,
before he found her. Otherwise he would take one look at her, and his temper
would erupt and destroy them both again.

Very well, Whitney had given herself to another man
before their marriage. If he didn't let himself wonder who the man was, it
was easier to bear. It was he himself who had deprived Whitney of her
virginity, he who had probably driven her into the arms of that other man.
So whose fault was it that she had given herself once to someone else in a
moment of loneliness and despair? Once. He would allow her that much-one
time. With a sigh, Clayton leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Or a
hundred times-because no matter what she had done before, he could not face
living without her now.

In a state of frenetic restlessness, Clayton rode for
miles the next day. He rode Whitney's horse because Khan was something that
belonged to her-as Whitney had haughtily reminded him. Ultimately he arrived
at the same high ridge where he had brought her the day after she'd come to
Claymore. Sitting down, he propped his shoulders against the same tree trunk
where he had sat that day with Whitney cradled on his lap. He gazed idly out
across the valley where brilliant sunlight danced and glanced off the wide
stream that meandered through it.

With one knee drawn up, he idly tapped the side of his
boot with his riding crop, remembering how Whitney had wanted to ride down
into that valley because she was afraid he was going to try to make love to
her. God, that was almost eight months ago. Eight months! Eight of the most
glorious, wonderful, tormented, miserable months of his life.

He smiled a little sadly. Eight months. If Whitney had
had her way the night she came to Claymore, they would just be getting
married in the next week or two. She had insisted she would need eight
months to make the wedding preparations and... eight months! Swearing
savagely under his breath, Clayton surged to his feet, his mind in a
turmoil. Whitney had wanted eight months to prepare for the wedding. Even
she was not that naive! If she'd believed she was pregnant, if she'd come to
nun because she was, or thought she was, pregnant, she'd never have wanted
to wait eight goddamn months.

Hating himself with a virulence that nearly strangled
his breathing, Clayton pushed her fleet-legged gelding to the limits of
Khan's endurance. Whitney wasn't naive enough to want to wait eight months
to get married if she'd thought she was pregnant-but she must have been
naive enough to think he could have gotten her with child the night he
abducted her. And she was proud enough to consider using that as a ploy to
bring him to her. .. and honorable enough to give up the idea and come to
him at Claymore herself.

"Cool him down," he snapped at the groom as he flung
Khan's reins at the surprised servant and began half running, half walking
toward the house. "Tell McRea to have the bays

put to and be out in front in five minutes," he called
over his shoulder.

Two hours later, Emily Archibald received a smoothly
worded invitation from Clayton, which she correctly construed as an "order"
to accompany his servant down to the coach which would carry her to his
house in Upper Brook Street She obeyed the summons with a mixture of concern
and trepidation.

The butler showed her into a spacious, panelled library
at the side of the house where the Duke of Claymore was tending, staring out
the windows with his back to her. Ho Emily's surprise, he didn't greet her
with any of his usual open friendliness, nor did he turn around and face her
as he said in a cool, remote voice, "Shall we indulge in polite trivialities
for the next five minutes, or shall I come directly to the point?"

A shiver of fear danced up her spine as he slowly turned
and studied her. Never before had Emily seen this Clayton Westmoreland. He
was, as always, implacably calm, but now he positively emanated ruthless
determination. She stood there, staring at him.

With a brief, almost curt inclination of his head toward
the chair beside her, he told her to sit down. Emily sank into the chair,
trying to equate this man with the one she had known.

"Since you seem to have no preference, I win come
directly to the point. I presume you know why I have asked you here?"

"Whitney?" Emily guessed in a whisper. She gave her head
a slight shake and cleared her parched throat.

"Where is she?" he demanded abruptly. And then with a
touch of his former gentleness, he added, "I have not approached you before
this because I did not want to put you in the position of betraying her
confidence, and because I had every reason to believe I could find her
through my own sources. Since that hasn't been the case, I am going to have
to insist that you tell me."

"But I-I don't know where she is. I never thought to ask
her where she was going. I never dreamt she would stay away so long."

A pair of cool gray eyes held hers captive, measuring
her response, judging it for truth.

"Please believe me. Now that I've seen you I'd never be
so unkind as to keep her from you, if I knew where to find her."

He drew a long breath and nodded slightly, his
expression no longer coldly forbidding. "Thank you for that," he said
simply, "I'll have my driver take you home."

Emily hesitated, still vaguely intimidated by his aura
of command, and yet grateful that he had trusted her enough to accept what
she said as truth. "Whitney said you found that awful note." With a
whimsical smile she shook her head. "You know, she couldn't quite decide at
the time whether to send it to you as 'dear sir* or . . ."

Naked pain flashed across his handsome features, and
Emily trailed off into silence. "I beg your pardon-I shouldn't have
mentioned it."

"Since we seem to have no secrets from one another," he
said quietly, "do you mind telling me why Whitney wrote the note in the
first place?"

"Well, it was her pride she was trying to save. She
hoped, no, preferred, to bring you to her, if possible. And she thought that
with a note like that-I suppose it was really terrible of her even to
consider it, but. . ."

"The only 'terrible' thing Whitney has ever done in her
life was marrying me," Clayton interrupted.

Tears sprang into Emily's hazel eyes as she arose to
leave. "That's not true. Whitney adored. . . adores you, your grace.

"Thank you again," he said humbly.

For a long time after Emily left, Clayton stood there,
feeling the minutes ticking by and knowing that, as each moment passed,
Whitney's hurt and anger would be hardening into hatred.

The Dowager Duchess of Claymore dined quietly with her
daughter-in-law that evening, mentally berating her eldest son for his
tardiness in coming to fetch his wife, who was growing more lost and forlorn
with each day. When Whitney had arrived eight days ago and asked if she
could stay here until Clayton had time to think things through and come for
her, Alicia Westmorland had considered urging her to return at once to her
rightful place beside her husband, insisting upon it, in fact And yet, there
was something about Whitney's hurt, determined look that had reminded the
dowager duchess of herself, many years before-of Clayton's father striding
across her parents' drawing room, where he had found his wife after an
absence of four days: "Get into that carriage immediately," he had ordered
her. And then, "Please, Alicia." Having thus made her point, Alicia
Westmoreland had dutifully and obediently done as she was bidden.

But Whitney had been here for eight days, and Clayton
had not made the slightest effort to come for her. Lady Westmoreland wanted
grandchildren, and she could not see how she was likely to have any if these
two willful, stubborn young people were living miles apart. Really, the
entire thing was preposterous! Never had two people loved each other more
than they did.

It was over dessert that evening that a thought occurred
to the dowager duchess that brought her half out of her chair. Accordingly,
she sent word to Stephen in London that very night to present himself to her
at the first possible hour the next morning.

"The thing is," she told a frowning, but faintly amused
Stephen the next day in a very private meeting with him, "I'm not certain it
has occurred to Clayton to come for Whitney here. Assuming he wants to come
for her."

Stephen, who had been completely unaware of the
arrangement, flashed a wicked grin at his mother. "Darling, this reminds me
of some of the tales I've heard about you and Father."

The dowager duchess bent a quelling look upon her
completely impervious son and continued, "I want you to find Clayton. I
rather imagine he'll be staying at his London house. But find him tonight if
you can. Then drop a 'hint' that she is with me-as if you automatically
assumed he would know that. Do not let him think he is being urged to come
for her. Under those circumstances, I'm certain Whitney would reject any
half-hearted effort of his at reconciliation."

"Why don't I just take Whitney back to London with me
now and have it whispered about that I'm madly in love with her? That'll
draw Clay's fire," Stephen grinned.

"Stephen, don't be flippant; this is serious. Here is
what I want you to say . . ."

At seven o'clock that evening, as Clayton lounged in a
chair at his club, he was only faintly surprised to look up from his cards
and find his brother sitting down across the table from him and stacking his
chips as he prepared to join the play. Clayton eyed Stephen with wary
friendliness. He didn't want him to ask about Whitney because he couldn't
very well explain that he'd "misplaced" his wife, any more than he could
ever bear to tell Stephen of the estrangement itself. So it was with a sense
of relief that he heard Stephen open the conversation with, "Are you losing
or winning tonight, your grace?"

"He's cleaning us all out," Marcus Rutherford answered
good-naturedly. "Hasn't had a losing hand in the last hour."

"You look like hell, brother," Stephen remarked in a
grinning undertone.

"Thank you," Clayton answered drily as he tossed his
chips onto the mounting pile in the center of the table. He took that band
and the next two.

"Good to see you, Claymore," William Baskerville said,
bending a cautious eye upon the duke who had left so abruptly the last time
they'd been playing cards here. Baskerville was on the verge of politely
asking after the young duchess, but the last time he'd mentioned seeing her
at the Clifftons' party, he'd caused a quarrel, so he thought it best to
avoid mentioning her. "Mind if 1 join you?" he asked the duke instead.

"He doesn't mind at all," Stephen said when Clay-ton
appeared not to have heard Baskerville. "He's perfectly willing to take your
money along with everyone else's."

Clayton gave his brother a mildly sardonic look. He
couldn't stay home or the worry would drive him out of his mind. And yet the
cheerful conversation of his brother and the others was already wearing on
his ragged nerves, and he'd only been playing for an hour. He was on the
verge of suggesting to Stephen that they both adjourn to his house and
indulge in an orgy of drunkenness, which was more suitable to his frame of
mind anyway, when Stephen remarked to him, "Didn't really expect to find you
here. Thought you'd be attending the little affair Mother is having for our
relatives tonight."

Managing an excellent imitation of a man who has just
said something he shouldn't have, Stephen shook his head and added
apologetically, "Sorry, Clay. I forgot that with Whitney staying with her
and naturally planning to attend the party, you wouldn't. . ."

Baskerville, who overheard the gist of this, forgot his
earlier resolution and said with his usual unaffected cordiality, "Lovely
young woman-your lady duchess. Give her my best and . . ." Baskerville's jaw
slackened as he watched in horrified surprise while Clayton Westmoreland
came slowly erect and rigid in his chair. "I haven't seen her anywhere,"
Baskerville hastily assured him.

But the duke had already risen to his feet. He stood
there, staring down at his brother with a mixture of incredulity, amazement,
and something else poor Baskerville was too confused to identify. And then,
without so much as picking up the huge stacks of chips that represented his
winnings, or bidding a civil goodbye to anyone, the duke turned on his heel
and headed for the door with long, purposeful strides.

"Oh I say!" Baskerville breathed to Stephen as they both
watched Clayton's retreating form. "You've really put your foot in it! I
could have told you-your brother don't like for his duchess to attend
parties without him."

"No," Stephen agreed with a wide grin. "I don't think he
does."

The drive to Grand Oak, which normally took four hours,
was accomplished in three hours and a half from the front door of Clayton's
club. Whitney had been staying with his mother! With his mother, for
Christ's sake! The one person alive who should have had sense enough to
order his wife home to him. His own mother had collaborated in putting him
through this torment!