Whitney, My Love (43 page)

"No, of course not."

Paul turned on his heel and walked over to the
fireplace. Propping his booted foot against the grate, he stared down into
the fire, leaving Whitney gazing helplessly at his back. Suddenly he
stiffened, and when he turned his face was white with shocked alarm. "What
do you mean he paid your father for you?" he demanded. "It is customary for
the father to dower the daughter, and not the reverse."

Whitney realized at once where his thoughts had drifted,
and her heart turned over in pity for Paul, and for herself. "I don't have
any dowry, Paul. My father had lost that and my inheritance as well."

Paul leaned his head back against the stone wall and
closed his eyes, his broad shoulders drooping despondently.

The time had come for Whitney to commit herself to the
path she had chosen, and she went to him with legs that felt like lead. Her
mind screamed that she didn't have to do this, but her heart wouldn't let
her desert him. Not now, not after seeing this tortured expression on his
face. "Paul, my father told me how difficult your circumstances are, and it
doesn't matter to me, please believe that. I will marry you anyway. But we
will have to act quickly. Clayton will be in London for six more days and in
that time, we can elope to Scotland. By the time Clayton discovers what-"

"Elope!" Paul's voice lashed out and his fingers bit
viciously into her arms. "Are you out of your mind? My mother and sisters
would never be able to hold up their heads."

"No," Whitney whispered hoarsely. "The shame will be
mine."

"Damn your shame!" he snapped, shaking her. "Don't you
see what you've done? 1 have just spent a small fortune on five horses and a
phaeton!"

How was that her fault? Whitney wondered, recoiling from
the blaze in his eyes. And then she knew. Bitter resentment twined around
her heart like sharp steel bands, wringing a ragged, choking laugh from her.
"You spent the 'fortune' you thought I had-the dowry you imagined I would
bring, didn't you?"

Paul didn't have to answer; she could see the truth in
his flaring eyes. Angrily flinging his hands away, she stepped back. "Five
minutes after I accepted you, you were mentally spending my money, weren't
you? You couldn't even watt to talk to my father first! You 'loved' me so
much that you didn't bother to stay here with me and ask his consent. All
you cared about was the money, and you didn't even spend it on important
things. Your lands are mortgaged, your house is in disrepair . . . Paul,"
she whispered, her green eyes glittering with tears, "what sort of man are
you? Are you so spineless and so irresponsible that you would have married
me just for money to spend on horses you don't even need?"

"Don't be an idiot!" Paul snapped, but his face was
flushed with guilty embarrassment. "I loved you. I'd never have asked you to
marry me otherwise." "Love!" Whitney scoffed bitterly. "None of you know the
meaning of the word! My father 'loves' me and he sold me to save himself.
All you care about is how much money I'm worth to you. At least Clayton
doesn't insult my intelligence by claiming to love me. He bought me like a
bondservant, and now he expects me to live up to the bargain, but he doesn't
pretend to 'love' me."

Paul's breath came out in a ragged sigh. "I'll think of
something, but eloping is out of the question. Will Westland . . .
Westmoreland . . . give you up?"

Whitney looked at nun and stubbornly lifted her chin.
"No," she said proudly, and at that moment, she would have given him that
answer even if she believed otherwise. Turning, she stalked to the door,
then paused to look at him over her shoulder. "Elizabeth Ashton is still
available," she said bitterly. "I'm certain her dowry could cover your
extravagances on this last trip. You'd better start thinking of ways to
regain her favor so that you can get your hands on her money."

"Shut up!" Paul snapped. "Or I'll do just that."

Whitney slammed the door on his last word, but not until
she gained the privacy of her own room did she allow the tears to come.
Sinking down onto her bed, she wept all her heartbroken disillusionment into
her pillow. She cried for herself, for her empty dreams and the misplaced
devotion she'd lavished on Paul all these years. She cried because she had
been willing to destroy her reputation for Paul, and all he had cared about
was his mother and sisters. But most of all, she cried with rage at her own
stupidity.

When Clarissa brought a dinner tray to her room that
night, Whitney's eyes were puffy and her chest ached, but the storm of
misery and animosity was mostly past. She ate alone, her thoughts in a
swirling, melancholy turmoil that began nowhere and ended nowhere.

By noon the next day, Whitney was no longer angry with
Paul. In fact, she was feeling strangely guilty. She had always imagined him
as her modern-day knight in shining armor, courageous, romantic, and
gallant, and it really wasn't his fault that he couldn't live up to that
illusion. She felt a growing sense of shame and responsibility for the
unwitting part she'd played in his worsened financial circumstances. She had
exerted every wile she possessed to make him offer for her, and by accepting
his offer, she'd inadvertently caused him to spend money she didn't have.

Late in the afternoon, as she wandered aimlessly among
the last blooms in the rose garden, Whitney's active mind turned from the
contemplation of problems to the consideration of solutions. Soon a hazy
plan took shape. Elizabeth loved Paul, of that Whitney was certain. Surely
there must be something Whitney could do to smooth things over with
Elizabeth, so that she would be receptive to Paul if he chose to renew his
interest in her.

Whitney hesitated and pulled her silk shawl tighter
around her shoulders. Considering the chaotic state of her own affairs right
now, she was the last person on earth capable of taking a guiding hand in
someone else's romance. Nevertheless, it was her responsibility, and
besides, she had never been able to stand meekly by and hope that fate would
make the right things happen.

With a vitality that had been dormant for many days,
Whitney decided to take matters into her own hands. She went into the house
and dashed off a note to Elizabeth, then she paced across her bedroom,
wondering if Elizabeth would flatly decline her invitation. There had been
so much competitive jealousy on Whitney's part in years gone by, so many
pranks and tricks, that poor Elizabeth would be understandably suspicious of
any overture by Whitney to befriend her at this late date.

Whitney was so convinced that Elizabeth would refuse to
come that she jumped when Elizabeth's soft voice spoke from the doorway of
the bedroom. "You-you asked me to come?" Her blue eyes were darting
nervously around the room, and she looked ready to bolt.

Whitney fixed a reassuring smile on her face and said
graciously, "Yes, and I'm so happy that you have. May I take your gloves and
bonnet?" As she reached out, Elizabeth nervously clapped both her hands to
the crown of her bonnet, clutching it protectively to her curls, and Whitney
recalled another bonnet of Elizabeth's-a little straw confection with pink
ribbons that Paul had once complimented years ago. Five minutes later, the
bonnet was discovered beneath the treads of the chair in which Whitney was
rocking. Elizabeth was thinking of it too, Whitney realized, and a flush
crept up her cheeks when she remembered poor Elizabeth's shriek of dismay.

"I-I prefer to keep it on," Elizabeth said.

"I don't blame you," Whitney sighed. For the next half
hour, Whitney served tea and kept up a one-sided conversation of
trivialities in an attempt to put Elizabeth at ease, but Elizabeth replied
in monosyllables and continued to perch on the edge of her chair as if she
were going to fly from the room at the first loud noise.

Finally, Whitney went to the point. "Elizabeth," she
said, finding it very awkward to confess her foibles to the female she had
always viewed as her archrival. "I owe you an apology for a grave injustice
I've done you recently, as well as for some horrid things I did to you when
we were young. About Paul-" she blurted out. "I know how you must hate me,
and I don't blame you, but I would like to help you."

"Help me?" Elizabeth repeated blankly.

"Help you marry Paul," Whitney clarified.

Elizabeth's blue eyes widened. "No! No, really, I
couldn't," she stammered, blushing gorgeously.

"Of course you could!" Whitney declared, passing her a
tray of little pastries. "You're a very beautiful girl and Paul has always .
.."

"No," Elizabeth contradicted softly, shaking her blond
head. "You are more in the way of being beautiful. I am only, well, pretty,
at best."

After taking this monumental step in befriending
Elizabeth, Whitney wasn't about to have her generosity outdone. "You have
beautiful manners, Elizabeth. You always do and say the proper thing at the
proper time."

"The properly dull thing," Elizabeth argued prettily.
"Not lively and interesting things like you say."

"Elizabeth," Whitney said, unable to suppress her
amusement, "I was always perfectly outrageous, while you were always
perfectly perfect."

Elizabeth relaxed back in her chair and giggled. "There,
you see! I would have only said thank you' but you always say unusual
things."

"Do not pay me another compliment," Whitney warned with
a laughing look. "I won't be outdone, you know, and we will be here all
night admiring one another."

Elizabeth sobered and said, "I'm very happy about you
and Paul." At Whitney's stunned glance, she explained, "Everyone knows your
betrothal is supposed to be a secret, but since everyone is talking about
it, I didn't think you would mind if I mentioned it."

"What do you mean, everyone is talking about it?"
Whitney said hoarsely. "Who else knows?"

"Well, let me think. Mr. Oldenberry, the apothecary,
told Margaret and me. He said he heard it from Lady Eubank's maid, who heard
it from Lady Eubank, who heard it from Paul's own mama. I suppose everyone
in the village knows."

"But it isn't true!" Whitney cried desperately.

Elizabeth's pretty face fell. "Please don't say it isn't
true!" she implored agitatedly. "Not now, not when Peter is almost to the
point of offering."

"Who is Peter going to offer for?" Whitney asked,
momentarily diverted.

"For me. But he won't if Paul is unattached. You see,
Peter is shy, and he's always believed I have a secret tendre for Paul,
which isn't in the least true. But even if it was, my papa would never
permit me to marry Paul because he's a shocking spendthrift and his lands
are mortgaged."

Whitney slumped back in her chair and gaped at
Elizabeth. "Peter Redfern shy?" she echoed. "Elizabeth, are we talking about
the same Peter Redfern? The one who tried to box my ears the day of the
picnic when you fell out of the tree?"

"Well, he's shy around me," Elizabeth said.

In speechless disbelief, Whitney pictured Peter's
freckled face and thinning red hair, and tried to imagine how he could have
won the heart of a fragile, ethereal beauty like Elizabeth, who had always
had Paul at her beck and call. "Do you honestly mean to tell me," Whitney
uttered, "that you've been in love with Peter all these years?"

"Yes," Elizabeth admitted brokenly. "But if you tell
everyone that you and Paul aren't going to be married, then Peter will just
stand back, the way he always has, and let Paul take his place. And then
I'll-I'll--" Elizabeth groped for her lacy handkerchief and promptly trailed
off into dainty tears.

Whitney cocked her head to one side. "However do you
manage to cry like that?" she asked admiringly. "I always gasp and snort and
my eyes spill over like fountains."

Elizabeth giggled tearily and dabbed at her eyes before
lifting them pleadingly to Whitney. "You said you'd done me injustices and
you were sorry. If you truly mean it, couldn't you wait just a few days
before crying off with Paul? Peter is going to say he wants to marry me any
moment now, I can tell."

"You don't realize what you're asking of me," Whitney
said, tensing. "If a certain person were to hear the gossip and believe I've
truly betrothed myself to Paul, my life wouldn't be worth a farthing."
Elizabeth looked on the verge of a fresh bout of tears and Whitney stood up,
torn between the certainty that a few days really wouldn't make a difference
and the inexplicable fear that they could result in disaster. "I'll give you
three days before I put a stop to the gossip," Whitney reluctantly conceded.

Long after Elizabeth's departure, Whitney sat in her
room, thinking and worrying. If everyone, including the servants, was openly
gossiping about her "betrothal" to Paul, Clayton would certainly hear of it
as soon as he returned. He had made it very clear that he wouldn't tolerate
people believing she had ever been betrothed to anyone but him, and Whitney
tried to think of some proof she could offer him that none of this was her
fault-that she had, in fact, told Paul she wouldn't marry him, exactly as
she had promised Clayton she would.

He had accepted her word and trusted her to keep it, and
Whitney wanted him to believe she had, but the only one who could prove it
was Paul, and Paul was in no mood to aid her.

Whitney bit her lip, concerned with more than just the
loss of her honor. Without the incentive of marrying Paul to give her
courage, she now felt a deep-rooted, genuine fear of Clayton's wrath. The
more she pondered it, the more convinced she became that the best way to
avert certain disaster was to go to London and explain to Clayton what was
happening here. He would be far less angry hearing it from her than from
strangers, and he would know she wasn't to blame. After all, if she was
truly planning to marry Paul, as the gossip had it, why would she return to
London to see Clayton?