Whitney, My Love (59 page)

Stephen arched a thoughtful brow. "I have two hands, and
they are neither of them promised, Miss Stone," he offered gamely.

"Stephen," Clayton said sternly, but with a slow grin,
"do not strain the bonds of brotherly affection beyond what you already have
this evening. I'll attend to freeing one of my 'hands' when I take Vanessa
home tonight."

"I should be leaving too," Whitney sighed, reluctantly
pulling out of Clayton's arms and smoothing her gown. "It will be very late
by the time I get back to Emily's."

"You, my love, are not setting foot out of this house.
I'll send a servant to the Archibalds' for your things when I leave with
Vanessa, and he can inform them that you will return in a week. Not one day
before."

Whitney knew perfectly well that Clayton was issuing
this edict because of her unexplained change in attitude between the time
she left him at the church and saw him again at the wedding banquet. Since
she wanted with all her heart to stay with him, Whitney acceded to his flat
command with a demure smile.

With one hip perched atop his desk, Clayton watched
while Whitney sat behind it and wrote a note to Emily. She assured her that
the duchess was in residence and asked that Clarissa and her clothes be
dispatched post haste to Claymore. Winsomely, Whitney added a postscript.
"This time, I'll send the invitations. This one is yours-will you please be
my matron of honor? I love you. Whitney."

Clayton took the note from her and, serenely ignoring
his brother's presence, pulled her to her feet and kissed her with tender
thoroughness. "I'll be back in two hours, perhaps a little more. Will you
wait up for me?"

Whitney nodded, but as Clayton started from the room,
she turned away from him, tracing her finger across his gleaming mahogany
desktop. "Clayton," she said softly, her voice threaded with tears, "when
Vanessa asked about my 'accomplishments' tonight, I forgot to mention that I
do have one. And it's-it's so splendid that it compensates for my lack of
all the others."

Stephen and Clayton grinned at each other, neither of
them hearing the emotion that clogged her voice. "What 'splendid
accomplishment' is that, little one?" Clayton asked.

Her shoulders hunched forward and began to shake. "I
made you love me," she whispered brokenly. "Somehow, some way, I actually
made you love me."

The laughter faded from Clayton's face, replaced by an
expression so intense, so profoundly proud, that Stephen quietly left the
two of them alone.

Clayton emerged from his study a few minutes later on
his way to face Vanessa in the salon and take her home. He flashed a quick,
grateful grin at Stephen, inclined his head toward the study doors and said
in a low, laughter-tinged voice, "Stephen, do not let her out of your
sight!"

While Clayton was leaving with Vanessa, Whitney sat
across from Stephen in the study, trying to vanquish her sudden
embarrassment over the earlier part of the evening. Finally she clasped her
hands in her lap and regarded him directly. "Whatever made you want me to
stay for dinner, when it was so obvious that Clayton didn't want me here at
all? What made you help me, when I could have been just any female who-"

"I knew you weren't Must any female.'" Stephen
corrected.

"Your name was Whitney and you had green eyes. And one
drunken night many weeks ago, my fair brother could talk of little else."

Two hours later, Clayton strode into the salon and
Stephen drily remarked, "I suppose Lord Standfield was not in the best humor
when you left?"

"He was reasonable," Clayton said briefly. He sat down
beside Whitney and, defying all the proprieties with his usual careless
elegance, he put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her dose. With a
meaningful look at his smiling mother and brother, he ungraciously hinted,
"I imagine you're both exhausted from your trip this morning and would like
to retire?"

"I happen to be exhausted from a good deal more than my
trip," the duchess said laughingly, and obligingly she bade them both good
night. Stephen, however, did nothing of the sort. Leaning back in his chair,
he crossed his arms over his chest and said, "I'm not in the least tired,
big brother. Besides, I want to hear about the wedding plans." Ignoring
Clayton's dagger look, he glanced expectantly from him to Whitney. "Well,
when's it to be?"

Clayton sighed, resigning himself to Stephen's continued
presence, and smiled at Whitney. "How long will it take you to get ready,
love?"

Gazing up into his compelling gray eyes, Whitney thought
she would much rather have his arms around her and feel his lips moving over
hers than discuss the wedding plans right now, but, like Clayton, she had no
choke except to answer Stephen's question. "I suppose it will be a huge
wedding?" she mused, considering Clayton's title, and the vast number of
friends and acquaintances she knew he had.

"Very large," Clayton confirmed.

"Then it will take a great deal of time to plan. There
are so many arrangements to make, the gowns to be chosen, endless
fittings-and the dressmakers take forever. The invitations must be prepared,
sent out, and acknowledged-" She paused. "About how many guests will there
be?"

"Five or six hundred, I imagine," Clayton said.

"Closer to a thousand unless you want to offend half the

ton and alienate our relatives," Stephen corrected,
grinning at Whitney's expression of stunned honor. Taking pity on her, he
added, "Westmoreland dukes are always married in a church, and the wedding
celebration is always here at Claymore. It's an ancient tradition, and
everyone will know it, so you needn't worry about anyone thinking it queer
that it's at Clay's home instead of yours."

"Always married in a church, and the celebration here?"
Whitney repeated, with an accusing look at her grinning fiance. "When I
think of how you threatened to abduct me and take me to Scotland!"

"The custom, Madam," Clayton chuckled, tracing the
elegant curve of her cheek and jaw with his forefinger, then tilting her
chin up, "began because the first Duke of Claymore abducted his lady from
her parents' castle, which was several days journey from Claymore. On the
way here was a monastery, and since my ancestor had technically compromised
her honor, one of the monks was more than willing to marry them, despite the
lady's temporary reluctance. The celebration," he emphasized, "took place
here because the young woman's outraged relatives were in no mood to
celebrate in their home an occasion which, at the time, they viewed as more
a reason to fight than to feast." His grin widened devilishly. "So you see,
had I carried you off to Scotland, married you there, then brought you back
here, I'd have been honoring the tradition almost to the original letter."

Having been silenced on that subject, Whitney returned
to the length of time required to prepare for the wedding. "Therese
DuVille's wedding was not even half so large, and it took a year to
accomplish . . ."

"No," Clayton said irrevocably. "Absolutely not."

"Six months?" Whitney offered to compromise.

"Six weeks," Clayton announced flatly.

His imperious tone didn't daunt Whitney in the least.
"If it's to be such a large wedding, it could scarcely be planned even in
six months."

Clayton winked conspiratorially at Stephen. "Very well,"
he sighed, "I'll give you eight."

"Eight months," Whitney agreed with a sad little sigh.
"It will barely be time enough, yet it seems like forever."

"Eight weeks," her fiance corrected with finality. "Not
one day more. My mother will help you and so will Hudgins. I'll put an
entire staff of assistants at your disposal. Eight weeks will give you
plenty of time."

Whitney shot him a dubious look, but since she didn't
want to wait eight months either, she happily agreed.

Clayton was sitting with his arm around Whitney's
shoulders, chatting amiably with Stephen, when the weight against his side
suddenly grew heavier and she didn't respond to his teasing remark. He
glanced down and saw her long lashes lying softly against her cheeks. "She's
asleep," he said quietly. Gently, he moved her aside, then scooped her up
into his arms. "It's been a more than exhausting day for you, sweetheart,"
he murmured as she stirred and snuggled into his chest. To Stephen he said,
"Wait for me here. I have some things I want to say to you when I come
down."

A few minutes later, after summoning a maid and seeing
Whitney sleepily installed in one of the guest rooms, Clayton strode back
into the salon and firmly closed the doors behind him. When he turned
around, Stephen thrust a glass of brandy into his hand and raised his own in
a silent toast. "I have two questions to ask you," Clayton said calmly when
they were both seated.

Grinning, Stephen stretched his long legs out in front
of him and crossed them at the ankles. "I rather thought you might, your
grace."

"How did you know who Whitney was? To me?"

"You told me. During a very drunken night at Grand Oak,
you told me all about her, including her green eyes-which, God knows, she
has."

Leaning forward, Clayton rested his forearms on his
knees, staring into his brandy glass as he rolled it between his palms. "How
much did I tell you that night?"

Stephen considered lying because it was kinder, but he
abandoned the idea when Clayton's disconcertingly perceptive gaze lifted to
his. "Everything," Stephen admitted with a sigh. "Everything including the
harm you did her. So, when she appeared here tonight, thinking you'd
received her note-which I understand Hudgins has-I took one look at her and
decided that since her loss had done such damage to you, I would restore her
to you."

Clayton nodded his acceptance of Stephen's explanation.
"I have one further question," he said gravely.

"You said you had two questions, and you've already
reached your limit," Stephen warned lightly.

Ignoring that, Clayton said in a low, solemn voice, "I
would like to know what I have within my power to give you, to express my
gratitude."

"Your money, or your life?" Stephen ventured with a
lopsided grin at his bandit's demand.

"They're yours for the asking," Clayton said quietly.

Later that night, he lay on his bed, his hands linked
behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He could hardly believe that
Whitney was here, that after fighting against him so fiercely, for so long,
she had come tonight and fought to recover what they had begun together.

He thought of the way she had faced him in the study,
daring him to deny that he still wanted her. And then he smiled in the
darkness, remembering the way she had crossed the long room to him, her head
held high, her eyes shining with love and surrender. That memory, that one
memory of her coming to him, casting aside her pride because she loved him,
would endure in his heart for as long as he lived. Nothing would ever mean
more to him.

Tomorrow he would insist on a complete explanation for
what had happened to change her attitude so drastically between the wedding
and the banquet. No, he corrected himself with a wry grin, he would ask her
for an explanation -that tempestuous beauty sleeping across the hall would
be for more likely to respond to a question than a demand.

Chapter Thirty

WHTTNEY AWOKE FROM A DEEP SLEEP, GROGGY WITH UNFINISHED
dreams, and rolled over, unwilling to relinquish them. She opened her eyes,
simultaneously recognizing her approximate location and Mary, the redheaded
maid who had helped her the last time she was here. "The master has been
prowling about below for over an hour, watching the stairs," Mary's Irish
voice gaily announced from the foot of the bed. "He said to tell you that
the day is unseasonably warm, and he asked that you dress for riding."

"That man thinks he's the King of England!" Clarissa
grumbled, bustling into the room with her mob cap askew. "He decides he
wants to marry my little girl, and we're shipped home from France. He wants
to go to a ball, and we're bounced off to London. This morning, he wants to
ride, and he has me hauled out of bed at dawn and carted here with the rest
of your luggage. Dawn!" she exclaimed sourly, pulling back Whitney's covers,
"when decent folks aren't even about on the roads!"

Whitney laughed, scrambling out of bed. "Oh Clarissa, I
love you!" She bathed quickly and put on the amber riding habit that
Clarissa had brought with her trunks that morning. Eager to see Clayton, to
reassure herself that he didn't regret letting her win last night,. she
pulled her lone hair back and caught it at the nape with a bow, then she
dashed out of the room.

She crossed the wide balcony and stopped. Clayton was
waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, the winter sun glinting down on
his dark hair through the domed glass ceiling three stories above. Dressed
in a soft chamois peasant shirt with a deep vee at the throat and
snug-fitting, coffee-brown riding breeches, he looked so masculine, so like
a tall, broad-shouldered god, that Whitney's pulse raced giddily.

Clayton watched her coming toward him down the broad
curving staircase. Warily he scanned her lovely face for signs that she
regretted her capitulation last night, or resented him for making it so
difficult for her.

And then she stood on the last step, gentled still,
smiling shyly into his searching gaze. "It's most embarrassing," she said
softly, "to know that everyone is going to say that the groom is much more
beautiful than the bride."

Clayton couldn't help himself. He caught her into his
arms, crushing her to him, burying his face in the fresh fragrance of her
hair. "My God!" he whispered hoarsely. "How will I ever wait eight weeks to
make you mine?"

He felt her whole body go momentarily rigid in his
embrace. That hadn't been what he meant at all, but he realized that Whitney
had just recoiled in fear from the thought of his making love to her. He
grinned against her hair; he had eight weeks to hold and caress her. Eight
weeks until his desire could run its natural course to fulfillment and, in
that time, she would come to want him too, and to realize that he would
never hurt her. And on her wedding night, even if the act itself frightened
her, she would trust him enough to let him make love to her. Then he would
show her how it was supposed to be, how it was meant to be. He would make
her wild with wanting, until she was clinging to him, writhing beneath him
in a sweet yearning to be taken.