Whitney, My Love (24 page)

After Martin had left, Clayton got up and walked over to
the window. Leaning his shoulder against the frame, he gazed at workmen
constructing a small rustic pavillion at the far end of the lawn near the
woods.

If Martin had come to him yesterday, rather than today,
and urged him to order Whitney to marry him, he might have given the idea
more consideration. Until last night, Whitney had simply been a possession
he had acquired-a valued possession, perhaps even a treasured one, but a
possession nonetheless.

On the night of the Armands' masquerade, he'd briefly
considered making Whitney his mistress, but deflowering a gently reared
virgin violated even his relaxed code of honor where women were concerned.
Then, too, it was his duty to marry and provide an heir, a responsibility of
which he had been constantly reminded from the day he came of age. And so,
as he gazed down into her radiant, laughing face in the Armands' garden, he
had arrived at a highly satisfactory solution to the dual problem of his
duty and his desire: He would marry Whitney Stone.

Until last night, Whitney had merely been the delightful
object of his lustful thoughts, and the future mother of his needed heir.
But last night, that had changed. Last night, she had touched a tenderness,
a protectiveness, within him that he never knew existed.

He had listened to her laughingly telling a story that
seemed more sad than funny to him, a story about a motherless young girl who
was made to play at a stupid musicale in front of a roomful of thoughtless
people and, for the first time, he had realized the pain and frustration,
the angry humiliation, she must have felt as a girl.

He didn't like most of her neighbors; they struck him as
small-minded, gossipy country bumpkins, and from the moment word had reached
them that Whitney was returning from France, they had regaled each other-and
him-with endless tales of her girlish antics and her youthful pursuit of
Paul Sevarin.

If showing them all that she could bewitch Sevarin was
the only way Whitney could regain her pride, then Clayton was wiling to
allow her to do it. Let her show the villagers she had captivated Sevarin
for a few days more. Clayton could wait that long . . . provided that
Sevarin didn't actually screw up the courage to ask her father for her hand.
Clayton's leniency toward Whitney did not extend to allowing her actually to
betroth herself to another man. That he would not tolerate.

His mind made up, Clayton went back to the table. Martin
was going to be gone for five days, and that was too long to wait to see
Whitney again. He needed some excuse to see her in the meantime, some ploy
to make her agree to see him. He considered the possibilities and, with a
satisfied grin, remembered she had challenged him to a race in which she
would ride Dangerous Crossing against him.

He picked up a sheet of plain stationery, then
deliberated over the correct phrasing; it had to be worded as a challenge,
not an invitation which she would only turn down.

"Dear Miss Stone," he wrote quickly. "I believe you
indicated a desire to test your skill with the stallion. I can be available
Wednesday morning for a race over any course you choose. If, however, you
regret your hasty challenge, be assured I shall attribute your change of
heart not to cowardice, but to a justifiable fear that the horse is too much
for you to handle. Yours, etc." He sprinkled fine sand over it and sealed it
with wax. With an elated sense of accomplishment, he gave instructions to
have it brought round to Miss Stone and to await a reply.

His footman returned a quarter hour later with Whitney's
response, written in the beautiful, curving hand of a scholarly monk, not
the illegible scrawl typical of so many well-bred but under-educated
females. There was no salutation. "Wednesday is perfectly agreeable," she
wrote. "I shall meet you at 10:00 in the morning at the northwestern edge of
Mr. Sevarin's property near the grove." That was all. But it was enough to
make Clayton grin as he got up and stretched. Whistling, he strolled through
the quiet house and went upstairs to change into riding breeches.

Chapter Fifteen

THE SPECTACLE THAT GREETED CLAYTON ON WEDNESDAY morning
when he crested the hill overlooking Sevarin's grove made him rein his horse
in sharply. Curricles were scattered everywhere below, occupied by women
holding brightly colored parasols and men in their Sunday best. Those less
affluent spectators who had no curricle were either mounted on horseback,
standing atop wagons, or milling about on foot.

All the scene below lacked to make it appear a
full-fledged country fair were a few acrobats in bright silk tunics, and a
juggler or two. Even as he thought it, someone raised a trumpet and blew two
long blasts, and the crowd turned in unison to watch him descend the slope.

Beneath carefully lowered lids, Whitney slanted a long,
considering look at Clayton's horse as he approached. She saw four finely
conformed legs and the muscled chest and rump of a strong hunter but, since
her view from this angle was restricted, the only other information she
could gamer was that the rider of the horse was wearing gleaming brown
leather riding boots and a pair of buckskin riding breeches which fit him to
perfection.

"Are you wishing this was pistols at twenty paces, Miss
Stone?" Clayton teased as he moved his horse into position at the starting
line beside her.

Whitney lifted her head, intending to treat him with
cool formality, but his grin was so boyishly disarming that she nearly
smiled. Two of the neighborhood men rushed up to offer him good wishes,
distracting his attention from her.

Whitney watched him as he talked and joked with them. He
looked so relaxed atop his great, powerful horse, and he spoke to the men
with such lazy good humor that she could hardly believe he was the same
relentless, predatory seducer who had stalked her at his house, who had held
her clasped to him while his hungry mouth devoured hers. It was as if he
were two people, one she could like very much, and one she feared and
mistrusted---with excellent reason.

Elizabeth's father blew another blast on the trumpet and
beneath her, Dangerous Crossing gave a frantic lurch. "Are you ready?" Paul
called to Whitney and Clayton. As he raised his pistol in the air, Whitney
leaned toward Clayton, smiled warmly into his surprised gray eyes, and said
very gently, "If you would care to follow me, sir, I shall be happy to show
you the way/'

Clayton gave a shout of laughter, the pistol fired, and
his horse bolted. He had to swoop down to recover the rein he had dropped in
his surprised mirth and, by the time he had brought his bolting animal
around, Whitney had gained a considerable lead on him.

His horse's hooves thundered over the hard green turf as
Warrior fought to close the gap, but Clayton held him slightly back, biding
his time as they turned west, galloping alongside the stream. "Easy now,"
Clayton soothed his lunging mount. "Let's see what she can do before we make
our move."

Ahead of them, Dangerous Crossing vaulted over a low
stone wall in perfect stride, and Clayton grinned approvingly. Whitney was
tight and lovely in the saddle, managing her novice hunter with expert
skill.

By the time they made the turn for the last leg of the
race, Clayton could tell that Dangerous Crossing was beginning to tire.
Deciding to overtake Whitney when he rounded the next sharp bend of the
woods, Clayton eased up and forward in the saddle, relaxing all tension on
the reins. Instantly, Warrior shot forward in long, ground-devouring
strides.

They galloped wide around the next curve-and Clayton's
breath froze in his chest. The black stallion was veering across his path .
. . without a rider. Hauling back viciously on Warrior's reins, Clayton
looked for her, his heart thundering in alarm.

And then he saw her. She was lying in a crumpled heap
beneath a large oak at the perimeter of the woods. Above her was a thick,
jutting limb which must have unseated her when she took the corner too
sharply.

Vaulting down from the saddle, he ran to her, more
frightened than he had ever been in his life. Frantically, he felt for a
pulse and found it throbbing steadily in her slim throat, then he began
searching her scalp for sign of a head wound. Panic shot through him as he
recalled stories of people who had suffered blows to the head, never to
regain consciousness.

When he found no cut or bump on her head, he ran his
hands over her arms and legs, looking for broken bones. Nothing seemed to be
broken, so he jerked off his jacket and placed it beneath her head. Sitting
back on his heels, he began chafing her wrists.

Her eyelids fluttered, and Clayton almost groaned with
relief. Gently smoothing the heavy, rumpled hair away from her forehead, he
leaned close to her. "It's all right now, little one. Where are you hurt?
Can you speak?"

Sea-green eyes opened, regarding him calmly and
steadily. She had such beautiful eyes, he thought as she gave him a shaky,
reassuring little smile. But her first words banished all tenderness from
his mind. "You will recall," she whispered, "that at the time of the mishap,
/ was in the lead."

Clayton could hardly believe his ears. He stood up on
unsteady legs and leaned against the trunk of the tree, staring at her in
amazed silence.

"Will you help me up?" she asked, after a minute.

"No," he said implacably, crossing his arms over his
chest. "I will not."

"Very well," she sighed, rising somewhat stiffly to a
standing position and straightening her skirts, "but it's most ungracious of
you."

"No more ungracious than it was of you to fake a fall
when you realized you couldn't hold the lead."

Giving him a queer look, she reached down and plucked
his jacket from the leaves, then she brushed it off and handed it to him.
Remorsefully, she shook her head, but Clayton saw the tiny smile that
touched her lips. "It has always been one of my most tiresome faults," she
admitted with an exaggerated sigh. "And it has caused me a deal of regret, I
assure you."

"What has?" Clayton asked, stifling a grin at the
complete absence of contrition on her lovely, upturned face.

"Cheating," she solemnly replied. "I do it when I cannot
win." She raked her fingers through her hair, grimacing at the leaves that
fell from the tousled tresses, and Clayton chuckled to himself. She could
turn her faults into virtues and her virtues into faults with a shrug of her
shoulders or a shake of her pretty head.

While Whitney searched amidst the leaves for her riding
crop, Clayton stalked over to his horse and swung up into the saddle.
Trotting over to Dangerous Crossing, he caught the stallion's reins and led
him back to Whitney, but when she reached for Crossing's reins, Clayton
deliberately led the horse a pace forward, out of her reach. "I am so
impressed by your honest confession, young lady," he explained when she
dropped her arms and frowned at him, "that I feel I ought to make a
confession of my own. You see, I am one of those perverse people who will go
to extraordinary lengths to prevent a cheater from winning. In fact, I
myself will cheat, to prevent it from happening."

Leading her horse, he trotted a few paces away, then he
turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Whitney was staring at him in
speechless indignation. "It isn't a long walk back," Clayton reminded her in
a laughing voice. "However, if you prefer to ride, someone is bound to come
along any moment now to see what has delayed us. But either way, you are not
going to remount your rested horse and attempt to finish the race."

Whitney watched through narrowed eyes as he trotted
away, leading her horse. In frustrated dismay, she slapped her leg with the
crop, then yelped at the sting she received. She sank dejectedly to the
ground to await rescue, but the longer she sat there, the funnier it all
seemed. She hadn't purposely fallen from her horse at all. If she was guilty
of anything, it was of foolishly looking over her shoulder to determine how
long it would be before Clayton overtook her tiring mount. When she turned
back around, a low limb was jutting out in front of her chest.

Whitney tried to stay angry with Clayton for leaving her
so ignominiously behind, but she couldn't sustain her ire. She kept
remembering how deeply alarmed he'd seemed as he bent over her. His voice
had been hoarse with concern, and his face ravaged with worry as he
whispered, "It's all right now, little one."

Whitney pulled out a fistful of grass and tossed it away
with a sigh. How she wished Clayton would settle for just being her friend.
He would make such a wonderful friend, she thought. He could be so charming
and entertaining, and he made her laugh. Perhaps when she was a married
woman, Clayton would stop looking at her as a possible conquest and then
they could be friends. Perhaps-

Whitney forgot about Clayton as Paul came galloping
around the bend and reined to a sharp halt beside her. When he saw her
sitting there, his expression changed from worry to annoyance. "Do you
suppose you could explain to me why it is that every time you and Westland
are together, the pair of you seem to vanish?" he demanded irritably.

The moment Clayton trotted into the grove leading
Dangerous Crossing, a cry of alarm went up from the spectators. They surged
forward with Lady Gilbert in the lead. "What happened?" Whitney's aunt
cried. "Where is Whitney?"

"She'll be along," Clayton called to her. Turning in his
saddle, Clayton watched Whitney coming into the grove, mounted sideways in
front of Sevarin. As he looked at her, he suddenly reversed his earlier
opinion of how she had become separated from her horse during the race.
However she'd come unhorsed, it hadn't been deliberate, he decided. It
simply wasn't in Whitney to quit.