Whitney, My Love (44 page)

Resolutely, Whitney got up and went down the hall to her
aunt's room. She poured out the entire story, including the gossip about her
betrothal to Paul and her abandoned plan to elope. Aunt Anne blanched but
she remained silent until Whitney was finished. "What do you intend to do
now?" she asked then.

"I think it would be best if I went to London and stayed
with Emily. As soon as I arrive, I'll notify his grace I'm there, and he'll
naturally come to see me. Then I'U choose exactly the right moment to tell
him about the gossip here. I don't think he'll care so much about the talk,
so long as he believes it isn't my fault."

"I'll come to London with you," her aunt instantly
volunteered.

Whitney shook her head. "I wish you could, but there's a
slim chance that he might return to the village without my having been able
to see him in London. If he does, he'll hear the gossip and undoubtedly come
straight here to the house. I need you here to explain and calm him down."

"What a cheerful prospect," Lady Anne said drily, but
she was smiling. "Very well, I'll stay here. Now, assuming you reach him in
London, what reason will you give him for being there?"

Whitney's smooth forehead knitted into an irritated
frown. "I suppose I'll have to tell him the truth-that I was afraid he would
come back to the village and believe that despite his warning, I hadn't
refused Paul. Although, I find it excessively galling to have to tear off to
London like a rabbit frightened of incurring his wrath. That man walked into
my life a few months ago, and I've been like a puppet obliged to dance to
his tune ever since. I think I shall tell him that too!" Whitney finished
mutinously.

"While you're bent on being so honest about your
feelings," Aunt Anne suggested with a knowing gleam in her eyes, "why don't
you also tell him that you have developed a sincere affection for him and
you are willing now to honor the betrothal contract? It will please him
immensely to hear you say it."

Whitney shot up off the sofa as if she'd been scorched.
"I most certainly will not!" she declared hotly. "Considering that he never
cared whether I wanted to marry him, and has never doubted for a minute that
I would marry him, I fail to see why I should flatter his vanity now by
professing to want to marry him. Besides, I haven't made up my mind to marry
him."

"I think you have, darling."

Her aunt's quiet voice checked Whitney in mid-stride as
she headed for the door. "And if it will make it easier for you to admit
your own feelings, I will tell you that, in my opinion, that man loves you
with an intensity that would astonish him if he but recognized it-and very
likely flatter your vanity."

"You're wrong, Aunt Anne," Whitney said tonelessly. "He
has never even said he cares for me. I'm a possession he's acquired, nothing
more. Don't ask me to crawl to him; I have very little pride left as it is,
and I won't sacrifice it to soothe his temper or flatter his ego."

Elizabeth Ashton appeared at the house each afternoon to
report her progress, but by the end of the third day, there was still no
cause for celebration. Clarissa and Whitney were packing for the next day's
trip to London when Elizabeth trailed into the bedroom, a soldier returning
in defeat from a battle that should have been easy for her to win. "Peter is
no nearer declaring himself now than he was ten years ago," she said glumly,
flopping into a chair.

Whitney thrust an armload of underclothing into a trunk

and gazed at Elizabeth in perplexed dismay. "Are you
certain?"

"Positive," Elizabeth said morosely. "I suggested we
dine at my house tonight, without my parents, and do you know what he said?
He said"-Elizabeth sighed heavily-"that he likes dining with my parents."

"That idiot!" Whitney burst out irritably. Slowly she
began to pace back and forth. "You may be ready to accept defeat, but I'm
not-at least not from Peter Redfern, of all people! That dolt has worshiped
you since we were children. What he needs is some sort of motivation to
force him into declaring himself without delay." Idly, Whitney shoved the
fully packed portmanteau out of the way with her foot and frowned at the
luggage scattered everywhere around the room. "I have it!" she burst out,
whirling on Elizabeth with an impetuous, daring gleam in her green eyes that
Elizabeth well remembered from days gone by. Terrified, she shrank back into
her chair: "Whitney, whatever you're thinking, we aren't going to do it."

"Oh yes, we are!" Whitney hooted triumphantly. "Miss
Ashton, I hereby invite you to come to London with me."

"But I don't want to go to London," Elizabeth sputtered
desperately. "I want Peter."

"Good, and you're going to get him tonight. Now repeat
after me, 'Yes, I will go to London with you.'"

"Yes, I will go to London with you," Elizabeth parroted.
"But I don't want to."

"Perfect, because you aren't going to. But I have just
asked you and you've accepted. This way, when you tell Peter you've agreed
to come with me, you won't be lying to him." Advancing purposefully on a
bewildered Elizabeth, Whitney caught her hand and pulled her over to the
writing desk. "Now, write and tell Peter to join you here for dinner with me
tonight. Tell him . . ." Whitney hesitated, her forefinger pressed to her
lips, then chuckled at her own stroke of genius. "Tell him that you and I
are planning to do the most extraordinary thing together. That should
petrify him."

"Peter isn't going to like our going to London
together," Elizabeth said.

"He'll detest the idea!" Whitney agreed proudly, "Even
though I've grown up, Peter still watches me as if he expects me to do
something outrageous at any moment."

For the first tune in her sweet, acquiescent life,
Elizabeth displayed a stubborn streak. "If Peter won't approve, I won't go."

Stung by Elizabeth's lack of appreciation for her
brilliant plan, Whitney said, "You aren't going. Don't you see, Peter will
be appalled at the idea of our going off together. He doesn't think I've
truly changed. He still thinks of me as the same hoyden who used to smile
Reverend Snodgrass's old mare on the rump with a slingshot."

"You did that?" Elizabeth gasped.

"That, and a great many other things Peter knows about,"
Whitney admitted impenitently. "He'll try to dissuade you from coming with
me, but you are to tell him that I am insisting. I'll be right there to
insist, and when Peter can't talk either of us out of it, he'll do the only
thing he can do."

"What?" Elizabeth asked, looking intrigued but dubious.

Whitney threw up her hands. "Why, he'll propose, you
widgeon!" Taking Elizabeth's trembling hand in an affectionate, reassuring
grasp, Whitney said, "Please, please trust me. Nothing wrings an offer so
quickly from a man as the fear that you are going to leave him. And nothing
makes a man quite so brave and bold as the opportunity to rescue an innocent
female from 'unsuitable companions,'-in this case, the unsuitable companion
is me. Nicolas DuVille scarcely paid any attention to me unless he objected
to some gentleman who was courting me, then he swooped down like an avenging
angel to protect me from some man who was not nearly as dangerous a flirt as
he! It was vastly amusing, I can tell you. Now please write that note.
Before this night is over, Peter will propose, you just wait and see."

Reluctantly Elizabeth did as she was bidden and the note
was dispatched to Peter with a footman.

Three hours later, against her protests, Elizabeth was
draped in Whitney's most daring gown, which had been temporarily shortened,
and her golden curls had been tamed into a sleek chignon. Still objecting,
she was led to a mirror by Clarissa and Whitney.

"Go ahead," Whitney urged. "See how lovely you look-"

Elizabeth's timid gaze travelled up the clingy folds of
the elegant silk gown, past her sum hips and dainty waist, then riveted in
shock on her exposed decolletage. Her hands flew to cover the tops of her
breasts swelling above the bodice of the gown. "I can't," she gasped,
blushing.

Whitney rolled her eyes. "Yes, you can, Elizabeth. Why
in France, this gown would be considered only a tiny bit daring."

A nervous giggle trilled from Elizabeth as she slowly
lowered her hands. "Do you think Peter will like it?"

"Not," Whitney predicted happily, "when I tell him that
I think your gowns are much too demure and that when we're in London I
intend to make certain you buy more like this one to wear at the parties we
shall be attending."

At eight o'clock Peter strode into the candlelit drawing
room and joined the two young women who were waiting for him. After a brief
nod in Whitney's direction, he looked around the room for Elizabeth, who was
staring out the window with her back to him.

"What is this 'extraordinary thing' the two of you are
planning to do?" he demanded.

Elizabeth slowly turned and an expression of comical
incredulity froze Peter's features. With slackened jaw and glazed eyes, he
gaped at her.

Elizabeth, who had evidently hoped he would take one
look at her and fail to his knee to propose matrimony, waited in expectant
silence. When he neither spoke nor moved, her dainty chin lifted with
stubborn determination and for the first time in her twenty-one years,
Elizabeth consciously began to use the feminine wiles with which she was
born. "Whitney is taking me for an extended trip to London tomorrow," she
explained, while strolling back and forth, parading her blond loveliness
before a staggered Peter. "Whitney thinks I shall be all the rage in London
once I have new clothes and a new hair style. She is going to teach me how
to flirt with gentlemen too," ad-libbed Elizabeth with wide-eyed innocence.
"Of course," she finished with a spurt of inspiration, "I do hope I shan't
have changed so much by the time we return that you won't recognize me ..."

Whitney's lips trembled with admiring laughter which she
quickly suppressed as Peter's outraged glower swung toward her. "What the
devil do you think you're doing?" he snapped furiously.

Somehow Whitney managed to look almost as innocent as
Elizabeth. "I'm only trying to take Elizabeth under my wing."

"Elizabeth would be safer under an axe!" he exploded. "I
won't permit-"

"Now Peter," Whitney soothed, struggling desperately to
keep her face straight. "Be reasonable. All I intend to do is take Elizabeth
to London and introduce her to some of the gentlemen I met at a ball there
this week. They are a most charming, eligible group, and all of them have
impeccable backgrounds and unexceptionable reputations. They may be a little
fast, but I'm quite certain Elizabeth won't fall violently in love with more
than one or two of them. It's time for her to marry, you know. She's a year
older than I."

"I know how old Elizabeth is!" Peter raked his hand
through his hair in frustration.

"Then you should also know that you have no say in what
she does. You aren't her papa, nor her husband, nor even her fiance. So do
stop arguing and admit defeat. I'll just go and see about dinner," she
finished, hastily turning away to hide her brimming laughter.

Whitney was absolutely certain that Peter would propose
when he took Elizabeth home. She was wrong; they were standing hand-in-hand
when she returned to the drawing room ten minutes later.

"It grieves me to upset your plans," Peter mocked, "but
Elizabeth will not be accompanying you to London. She has agreed to become
my wife. Well," he demanded irritably, "what have you to say to that?"

"Say?" Whitney repeated, lowering her eyes to hide her
delighted smile. "Why . . . how very provoking of you,

Peter. I had so wanted to ... give Elizabeth a glorious
taste of London."

Peter, who was innately good-tempered, glanced with
smiling tolerance at his future wife and said in a friendlier voice, "Since
you're so bent on being with Elizabeth in London, you can shop for her
trousseau with her. If her papa accepts me tonight, I expect she'll want to
leave tomorrow, and she has already informed me that she wants you to be a
bridesmaid."

Chapter Twenty-three

UPON ARRIVING AT THE ARCHIBALDS' TOWNHOUSE, WHTTNEY was
greeted by a flustered Emily, her brown hair covered with a kerchief, her
cheeks smudged with dirt. "You look like a chimney sweep," Whitney laughed.

"You look like a godsend!" Emily countered, embracing
her. "Can a knight be seated beside an honorable at dinner?" she burst out
desperately.

Whitney blinked in surprised confusion.

"It's this wretched party," Emily explained in the salon
after Whitney had taken off her pelisse and Clarissa had been shown to her
room. "Michael's mama said that I must begin to entertain as suits Michael's
station in life. Have you any idea how much fuss the ton can make over the
simple act of sitting down to dinner? Here, just look at what I've been
going through." She went over to a desk and plucked up a seating diagram for
the dining tables that evening. It was obvious she had repeatedly scratched
out names to rearrange them. "Can you, or can you not, seat an honorable
beside a knight? Michael's mama lent me a dozen books on etiquette, but
they're so filled with contradictions and exceptions to rules that I know
less now than I did before I read them."

Whitney scanned the seating diagram and then promptly
slid into the sabre-legged chair at the desk. Dipping the quill into the
inkpot, she deftly rearranged the guests, then sat back and flashed a sunny
smile at her stunned friend. "Thanks to Aunt Anne's training, 1 can do that
when there are nobles from five different countries present," she said.

Emily sank down on the sofa, her eyes still clouded with
worry. "This is our first formal party and Michael's mama is going to be
here watching every move I make. She's a stickler for formalities. She was
less than pleased when her son married A Nobody, and I want more than
anything to show her I can have the most perfect, grandest party she's ever
attended!"