Whitney, My Love (22 page)

"I said," Whitney confessed with twinkling eyes, "that I
had taken to my bed with a case of cholera, but that he should go to the
musicale without me and ask everyone to pray for my recovery."

Clayton's shoulders began to lurch and Whitney said
severely, "I've not yet come to the humorous part of the story, Mr.
Westland." He smoothed the laughter from his face and Whitney continued,
"Father gave poor Clarissa a thundering scold for having failed to instill
in me a grain of respect for truth. The very next thing I knew, Clarissa was
thrusting me into my best dress which was much too short, because I'd told
her I wasn't going and she didn't need to let the hem down, and Father was
marching me into the carriage.

Of course, I hadn't learned my piece for the musicale,
which was nothing out of the ordinary, since I never had the patience to
plink and plank my life away at the pianoforte, and I pleaded with Father to
let me go back into the house and get my music, but he was too angry with me
to listen.

"Every neighbor for miles was gathered in the music room
at Elizabeth's house. Elizabeth played like an angel, which was always the
way, and Margaret Merryton's piece was judged quite agreeable. I was saved
for last." Whitney lapsed into pensive silence. For one brief moment, she
was again sitting in the third row of the crowded music room, just behind
Paul, whose eyes were riveted on Elizabeth's dainty, angelic profile as she
played the pianoforte. Paul had leapt to his feet, with everyone else, to
applaud Elizabeth's performance while Whitney stood behind him, tugging at
her short, unbecoming pink dress and hating her own awkward body which was
ail arms and legs and knees and elbows.

"You were the last to play," Clayton prodded, his
teasing voice rousing Whitney from her unhappy recollections. "And even
without your music, you played so well that they all cheered and called for
an encore?"

"I would say," Whitney corrected him with a tinkling
laugh, "that their reaction was more one of dazed silence."

Despite Whitney's offhand manner of telling the story,
Clayton found it more poignant than funny. At that moment, he could have
cheerfully strangled every one of these small-minded country bumpkins who
had ever embarrassed her, beginning with her music instructor and ending
with her stupid father. Deep inside, he felt a stirring tenderness, a
protectiveness toward her, that surprised and disturbed him, and he lifted
his glass, drinking from it to cover his own bewildering emotions.

Afraid that he might somehow feel sorry for her, Whitney
smiled and waVed her hand dismissively. "I've only told you this to give you
the background. The reason for my hilarity occurred later, while everyone
was enjoying a light luncheon out on the lawn. You see, a prize was to be
awarded after lunch for the best performance, and Elizabeth Ashton was to
receive it. Unfortunately, the prize vanished, and a rumor was circulated
that it had been hidden up in the largest tree on the lawn."

Clayton studied her, and his gray eyes lit with amused
speculation. "Did you put it there?"

Whitney pinkened. "No, but I started the rumor that it
was up in the tree. Anyway, everyone had just begun to eat when suddenly
Elizabeth came tumbling from the tree, crashing like a rock onto the table.
I thought she made a very fetching centerpiece, reclining amidst the
sandwiches and pudding in her pink and white ruffles, and I started to
laugh." Whitney smiled as she recalled the scene, then she remembered the
way Paul had run to Elizabeth's rescue, drying her tears with his
handkerchief, while he glared furiously at Whitney.

"I assume that when the adults saw you laughing, they
blamed you for hiding the prize in the tree?"

"Oh, no, the adults were much too busy trying to remove
Elizabeth from their lunch to notice that I was laughing myself into fits.
Peter Redfern did notice, though, and he assumed I was guilty, particularly
since he knew I could climb a tree faster than even he could. He threatened
to box my ears then and there, but Margaret Merryton told him I deserved a
whipping from my father instead."

"Which was your fate?" Clayton asked.

"Neither one," Whitney said, and her laughter reminded
Clayton of wind chimes. "You see, Peter was too angry to listen to Margaret,
and I was so positive that he wouldn't dare to hit me, that I didn't think
to duck until the very last moment. He hit Margaret instead," Whitney
finished merrily. "Oh lord! I shall never forget the look on poor Peter's
face when Margaret rolled over in the grass and sat up. She had the most
heavenly purple eye you could imagine."

Across the chess table, their laughing gazes held, the
happy silence punctuated by the cheery crackling of the logs burning on the
grate. Clayton put his glass down, and Whitney's smile began to fade as he
purposefully came to his feet. Darting a glance toward the door where the
servant had been standing earlier, Whitney realized that he was no longer
there. "It's dreadfully late," she said, hastily standing up as Clayton came
toward her. "I should be leaving at once."

He stopped an inch from her and said in a deep, velvety
voice, "Thank you for the most delightful evening of my life." She saw the
look in his eyes, and her heart began to hammer uncontrollably while a
warning screamed along her nerves. "Please don't stand so close," she
whispered desperately. "It makes me feel like a rabbit about to be pounced
upon by a-a ferret!"

His eyes smiled, but his voice was quiet, seductive. "I
can hardly kiss you if I'm standing across the room, little one." "Don't
call me that, and don't kiss me! I've just barely forgiven you for the last
time at the stream."

"Then I'm afraid you're going to have to forgive me
again."

"I warn you, I won't," Whitney whispered, as he drew her
into his arms. "This time I'll never forgive you."_

"A terrifying possibility, but I'll risk it," he
murmured huskily, and his mouth opened hungrily over hers. The shock of the
contact was electrifying. His hands moved down her shoulders and back,
molding her tighter and tighter to the hard length of his body. He kissed
her thoroughly, insistently, endlessly, and when her quivering lips parted
for his probing tongue, he crushed her into himself. His tongue plunged into
her mouth, then slowly retreated to plunge again and again, in some unknown,
wildly exciting rhythm that produced a knot of pure sensation in the pit of
Whitney's stomach.

The provocative caresses of his hands, the feel of his
mouth sensuously joined with hers, the hard strength of his legs pressing
intimately against her, brought Whitney's body to vibrant life in his arms.
She surrendered helplessly to the inflaming demands of his hands and mouth,
and as she did, her mind went numb. Dead. The longer the kisses continued,
the more splintered apart she became. It was as if she were two people, one
warm and yielding, the other paralyzed with alarm.

When he finally drew back, Whitney let her forehead fall
against his chest, her hands flattened against the crisp, starched whiteness
of his shirt. She stood there in a kind of disoriented, bewildered
rebellion, furious with herself and with him.

"Shall I implore your forgiveness now, little one?" he
teased lightly, tipping her chin up. "Or should I wait?" Whitney lifted her
mutinous green eyes to his. "I think I'd better wait," he said with a rueful
chuckle. Pressing a brief kiss on her forehead, he turned and strode from
the room, returning a moment later with her satin cape. He put it around her
shoulders, and she shivered when his hand touched her skin. "Are you cold?"
he murmured, folding his arms around her from behind and drawing her back
against his chest.

Whitney could not drag a sound through her constricted
throat. She was a roiling mass of shame, bewilderment, anger, and
self-loathing.

"Surely I cannot have rendered you speechless," he
whispered teasingly, his breath touching her hair.

She spoke, but her voice was a strangled whisper.
"Please let go of me."

He did not attempt to talk to her again until they drew
up beneath the arched carriage entrance at the side of her house. "Whitney,"
he said impatiently, grasping her arm when she opened the door and started
to go inside. "I want to talk to you. There are some things that should be
understood between us."

"Not now," Whitney said tonelessly. "Another time
perhaps, but not tonight."

Whitney lay awake until dawn, trying to understand the
turbulent, consuming emotions Clayton was able to arouse in her; how he
managed to take her in his arms and sweep away her plans and dreams of Paul,
her sense of decency and honor.

She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. From
this night forward, she would scrupulously avoid being alone with him again.
Any future contact with him would have to be brief, impersonal, and public.
Her mistake-and she would never, never make it again-was that she'd enjoyed
his company so much tonight, been so disarmed by his relaxed charm, that she
had started thinking of him as her friend.

Friend! she thought bitterly, rolling over onto her back
and staring up at the canopy. A boa constrictor would make a more
trustworthy friend than that man! Why, that lecherous libertine would try to
seduce a saint in church. He would go to any lengths to make another
conquest. The harder he had to try, the more difficult his prey made it for
him, the better he seemed to enjoy it. And Whitney knew now, beyond a doubt,
that she was his prey. He intended to seduce her, to dishonor her, and
nothing was going to deter him from trying.

For her sake, and for Paul's, the sooner their betrothal
was announced, the better, because even Clayton Westland wouldn't dare to
pursue a woman who was promised to another man. A man who happened to be an
outstanding shot!

Chapter Fourteen

WHTTNEY SMOOTHED HER HAIR, CAST A LAST CRITICAL
APPRAISAL over her soft green wool dress with white ruffles at the throat
and wrists, then straightened the velvet bow which held her dark hair
demurely caught at the nape of her neck. Her sleepless night had left
shadows beneath her eyes, but otherwise she looked pretty and young and
girlish. Not at all the sort, Whitney thought wryly as she turned away from
the mirror, to plan to entrap a man with a falsehood designed to force him
into declaring himself. Now--today.

Mentally she rehearsed her strategy as she walked
downstairs to the drawing room where Paul was waiting for her. She would
make him think she was returning to Paris with Aunt Anne when Uncle Edward
came for her. If that didn't prod Paul into offering for her, then nothing
ever would.

In the doorway of the drawing room, she hesitated. Paul
looked so wonderful, so handsome, that she was sorely tempted to throw
propriety to the winds and offer for him. Instead she said brightly, "It's a
lovely afternoon. Shall we walk in the garden?"

The moment they were within the sheltered seclusion of
the high, clipped hedges that surrounded the last of the blooming roses,
Paul took her in his arms and kissed her. "I'm trying to atone for all my
years of neglecting you," he teased.

It was exactly the sort of opening she needed. Stepping
back, she smiled gaily and said, "Then you'll have to hurry, because you
have a great many years to atone for and only a few weeks left in which to
do it."

"What do you mean, 'only a few weeks left?'"

"Before I go back to France with my aunt and uncle,"
Whitney explained, almost sagging with relief at the swift scowl that
darkened his face.

"Before you go back to France? I thought you were home
to stay."

"I have a home there too, Paul. In some ways, more of a
home than I have here." He looked so upset that Whitney felt guilty, yet all
he had to do to prevent her from going to France was propose, and he knew
it.

"But your father is here," he argued. "I'm here. Doesn't
that mean something?"

"Of course it does," Whitney whispered, looking away so
he'd not see just how much it did mean. Why couldn't he, why didn't he,
simply say "Marry me," she wondered. Turning her back on him, she pretended
to admire a scarlet rose.

"You can't leave," he said in a strained voice. "I think
I'm in love with you."

Whitney's heart stopped beating, then began hammering
wildly. She wanted to hurl herself into his arms, but it was too soon; his
declaration was lukewarm, inconclusive. She took a step down the path and
smiled flirtatiously over her shoulder. "I hope you'll write and let me
know-when you decide for certain."

"Oh no, you don't!" Paul laughed, capturing her arm and
drawing her back. "Now, Miss Stone, do you, or do you not, love me?"

Whitney stifled her wild avowal of eternal love. "I
think I do," she said, twinkling.

Instead of pursuing the issue, as she expected, Paul
abruptly dropped her arm, his expression turning remote, shuttered. "I have
some things to do this afternoon," he said coolly.

He was going to leave, she realized in shocked despair.
She had the most horrible, humiliating feeling that he had seen through her
ploy, that he knew she was trying to manipulate him, to force him.

They walked to the front of the house where his sleek
new carriage waited on the circular drive below. Paul stayed only long
enough to press a brief, formal kiss oa her fingertips, then he turned and
started to leave. One step away, he turned back again. "Exactly how much
competition do I have, besides Westland?" he demanded.

Whitney's spirits soared crazily. "How much would you
like?" she smiled.

His eyes narrowed; he opened his mouth to speak then
changed his mind, turned on his heel, and left.

Whitney's smile faded. In tortured misery, she watched
him bounding down the steps, her heart beating a funeral dirge in time to
each long stride he took. She had forced him to reveal his intentions, and
now she knew what they were. He intended to have a light, meaningless
flirtation with her, and nothing more. He hadn't wanted her before she went
away, and he didn't want her now.