Whitney, My Love (61 page)

"Now that settled it!" Stephen laughed. "Remind me to
ask Whitney if she has a sister," he added thoughtfully.

"Really, Stephen," her grace expostulated. "With half
the mamas in London trying to put their daughters in your way these past
five years, I can't imagine why you haven't already chosen a wife and-" she
paused as if struck with an idea. "I believe Whitney did say she has a
second cousin."

A lazy smile, very much like his brother's and just as
fatal to a lady's heart, flashed across Stephen's features. "If she's like
Whitney, I'll marry her out of hand and give you enough grandchildren to
make you blush."

"You can't possibly be serious!" the duchess gasped at
lunch, when Clayton announced his intention to be wed in eight weeks.

"I am perfectly serious." Rising from his chair, he
pressed a kiss on Whitney's forehead and lightly mocked, 'Til leave the
little details of the affair to the two of you." He strode toward the door,
turned back toward his mother and Whitney who were staring at each other,
overwhelmed, and took pity on them. "Just draw up a list of things to be
attended to, and give it to Hudgins. He'll be able to prevail upon the
various establishments to act with haste."

"Exactly who is Hudgins?" Whitney asked. "I've never
seen him."

"He's Clayton's secretary. And he's a wizard," the
duchess sighed. "Hell employ the magic of Clayton's name, and everything
will be ready in eight weeks, but I had so hoped to have more time for
parties and-"

Her sentence was interrupted by Clayton, who poked his
head back into the room and, grinning like a devil, said, "Well, is the list
ready yet?"

Chapter Thirty-one

IN RESPONSE TO WHITNEY'S NOTE, LADY ANNE GILBERT arrived
the following morning, ready to help with the wedding preparations, and an
almost instant friendship sprang up between her and the duchess.

For Whitney, the next four days drifted by in a haze of
comfort and togetherness, of smiles exchanged across the table, and stolen
moments of joy in each other's arms.

True to Clayton's mother's prediction, all the various
shops agreed to meet their eight-week deadline, despite the fact that the
fashionable modistes were already overburdened with orders for the next
season. Frequently, it was the proprietors themselves who arrived, carrying
large sketches and boxes of swatches, all of them eager to claim that they
had been of assistance to the future Duchess of Claymore in her wedding
preparations.

On the fifth day, however, Whitney received a rather
perfunctory summons from a footman who informed her that "His grace wishes
to see you in his study-at once." Trying to smother the apprehensive feeling
in her breast, Whitney hurried down the hall, nodded toward a
distinguished-looking man she passed who was carrying a large, flat, oblong
case under his arm, and entered Clayton's study. Closing the doors behind
her, she bobbed a funny little servant's curtsy and said teasingly, "You
rang for me, your grace?"

Clayton was standing in front of his desk, and he gazed
at her silently across the room, his expression very somber.

"Is-is something wrong?" Whitney breathed after a
moment.

Although he spoke gently, there was a strange new
gravity to his tone. "No. Come here, please."

"Clayton, what is it?" Whitney said, hurrying toward
him. "What has-"

He caught her to him in a crushing embrace. "Nothing is
wrong," he said in an odd, rough voice. "I missed you." With one arm still
around her waist, he turned aside and picked up a small velvet box from the
desk behind him. "I thought about an emerald," he said in that same gentle,
grave voice, "but it would be outshone by your eyes. So I decided on this
instead." He unsnapped the lid of the box with his free hand, and a
magnificent diamond shot prisms of color across the intricate plasterwork
scrolls at the ceiling.

Whitney stared at it in awed wonder. "I've never seen
anything so ..." She stopped as tears of poignant happiness welled in her
eyes.

Taking her hand, Clayton slid the exquisite gem onto her
long finger. Whitney looked down at her own hand which now bore the first
tangible proof that she was actually Clayton's. She belonged to him now, and
all the world would see the ring and know it.

No longer was she Whitney Allison Stone, her father's
daughter, Lord and Lady Gilbert's niece. She was now the promised bride of
the Duke of Claymore. In the space of one moment, she had lost her identity
and been given a new one. She wanted to tell him that his ring was
beautiful, that she worshiped him, but she only managed to whisper, "I love
you" before the tears came, and she turned her face into his chest. "I'm not
sad," she tried to explain as the reassuring strength of his arms encircled
her, "I'm happy."

"I know, little one," he whispered, holding her until
the same emotion that had unexpectedly rocked him when he'd chosen the ring
a few minutes ago, had passed through her.

Finally Whitney drew back, smiling a little sheepishly,
and held her hand out in front of her to admire the glittering splendor of
the single stone. "It's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen," she
said, "except for you."

A surge of hot desire swept through Clayton at the sound
of her words, and he bent his head to capture her mouth with his, then he
checked the motion-there was a limit to how much stimulation his body could
tolerate these days. Instead, be said ma tone of mock severity, "Madam, I
hope you'll not make a habit of crying whenever I give you a jewel, else
we'll have to send for buckets when you see the ones that belong to yon from
my grandmothers."

"Didn't this ring belong to one of your grandmothers?"

"No. Westmoreland duchesses are never betrothed with a
ring that has belonged to another-it's tradition. Your wedding band will be
an heirloom, though."

"Are there any other Westmoreland traditions?" Whitney
asked, her smile filled with love.

Clayton's restraint broke; he gathered her into his
arms, his mouth descending with hunger and need on hers. "We could start
one," he whispered meaningfully. "Tell me you want me," he said thickly, his
mouth fiercely tender as it ravaged hers.

"I love you," she answered instead, but Clayton felt her
intoxicating body straining automatically to be closer to his. A deep,
knowing laugh sounded in his chest as he drew back. "I know you love me,
little one," he said, tipping her chin up. "But yon want me, too."

Whitney conveniently remembered, then, that her aunt and
the seamstresses were waiting for her in the other room. Only half
reluctantly, she stepped away. "Win that be all, your grace?" she smiled,
bobbing another servant's curtsy.

Clayton's tone was politely impersonal. "For now, thank
you," he said, out when she turned, he gave her an affectionate smack that
landed squarely on her derriere.

Whitney halted. Over her shoulder she regarded him with
an expression of exaggerated severity, and warned, "If I were you, I'd not
forget what happened when you did that to me after the Rutherfords' party."

"At the Archibalds' house?" he clarified. "When I
brought you home?"

Her lips twitched with laughter, but she managed a slow,
haughty nod. "Precisely."

"Am I to understand," Clayton mocked, trying
unsuccessfully to keep his face straight, "that you're threatening to knock
these paintings off the wall?"

Puzzled, Whitney glanced at the portraits in heavy
carved frames hanging along the wall, and then at Clayton's laughing face.
"I thought I slapped you."

"You missed."

"I did?"

"I'm afraid so," he confirmed gravely.

Whitney muffled a giggle. "How provoking."

"Undoubtedly," he agreed.

Bemused, Whitney turned and started to walk away. His
second smack landed with a little more force upon her derriere than the
first, and although she managed to look quite disapproving, she couldn't
stifle her laughter.

That night after dinner, the family all retired to the
drawing room. The duchess and Aunt Anne were deeply engrossed in gossip,
white Stephen was regaling Whitney with hilarious versions of Clayton's most
infamous boyhood transgressions, to which Clayton was listening with
alternating expressions of extreme discomfort and bored disgust.

"Then there was the time when Clay was twelve and he
didn't come down to breakfast. When he wasn't in his room either, Bather and
the servants began combing the grounds. Late in the afternoon, Clay's shut
was found on the bank of the stream where the water is fast and deep. His
boat was still there, because Father had forbidden him to take it out for
one month..."

Breathless with laughter from the last story, Whitney
turned to her betrothed and gasped, "Why-why weren't you allowed to take
your boat out?"

Clayton glowered his displeasure at Stephen, then gazed
down into Whitney's vivid, laughing face and grinned in spite of himself.
"As I recall, I had not come down properly attired for dinner the night
before."

"Not properly attired?" Stephen hooted. "You appeared a
half hour late, in riding boots and hacking clothes positively reeking of
horse sweat and leather, with gunpowder on your face from sneaking out and
practicing with Father's old dueling pistols."

Clayton hurled a look of excruciating disgust at
Stephen, and Whitney dissolved with laughter. "Go on, Stephen," she gasped
merrily. "Tell me the rest about finding Clayton's shirt by the stream."

"Well, everyone thought Clay had drowned and they came
rushing to the scene, with Mother in tears and Father as white as a sheet,
when, around the bend came Gay on the most rickety, makeshift raft you have
ever seen. Everyone held their breath, expecting the raft to swamp when he
tried to bank it, but Clay guided it right in. With his fishing pole in one
hand and a stringer of prime fish in the other, he got off and looked around
at us as if he thought we were all odd for standing there, gaping at him.
Then he strolled up to Father and Mother, still carrying that huge stringer
of fish.

"Mother promptly burst into tears and Father finally
recovered his voice. He was in the middle of delivering a thundering tirade
about Clay's irresponsible behavior, his recklessness, and even his lack of
a shirt, when your future husband said very patiently that he did not think
it was seemly for Father to be dressing him down in front of the servants."

"Oh, you didn't!" Whitney whispered hoarsely, stomping
lower in her seat. "Then what happened?"

Clayton chuckled. "Father obliged me by sending the
servants away," he said, "and then he boxed my ears."

Into this utterly congenial atmosphere of charming
conviviality intruded the black-coated figure of the butler who intoned
magisterially, "Lord Edward Gilbert has arrived." This announcement was
immediately followed by the appearance of Lord Edward Gilbert himself, who
strode into the drawing room, glanced around, and beamed his general
approbation on all the occupants.

"Good heavens! It's Edward!" gasped Lady Anne, coming to
her feet and staring at her beloved husband. Afraid that her letters had
finally caught up with him and that he had hastened here to rescue Whitney
from an unwanted match with the duke, she thought madly for some concise
explanation to give him for the momentous events which had led to this
gathering at Claymore.

Whitney also lurched to her feet, her thoughts identical
to her aunt's. "Uncle Edward!" she burst out.

"Glad that everyone recognizes me," Lord Edward Gilbert
drily remarked, looking from Anne to Whitney in obvious expectation of some
more sentimental greeting than he had thus for received.

Unnoticed, Clayton rose and strolled over to the
fireplace, where he leaned an elbow upon the mantel, and with visible
amusement watched the unfolding scene.

Edward waited for someone to introduce him to the
duchess and Stephen, but when neither his wife nor his niece seemed capable
of speech, he shrugged and strode directly over to the duke. "Well
Claymore," he said, warmly returning Clayton's handclasp, "I see the
betrothal has come off without a hitch."

"Without a hitch?!" Lady Gilbert whispered in a
strangled voice.

"Without a hitch?" Whitney echoed as she slowly crumpled
to the sofa.

"Almost without a hitch," Clayton corrected mildly,
ignoring the gaping stares of the other occupants of the room.

"Good, good. Knew it would," said Lord Gilbert. Clayton
introduced him to his mother and Stephen, and when the civilities had been
exchanged, Edward finally turned again to his rigid wife. "Anne?" said he as
he advanced upon her and she retreated, step for step. "After months apart,
Madam, it strikes me that your greeting thus far has been less than
enthusiastic."

"Edward," Lady Gilbert breathed, "you clothhead!" "Can't
say that's much of an improvement over, 'Good heavens, it's Edward," he
pointed out with asperity.

"You knew about this betrothal from the very beginning,"
she accused, transferring her dark frown from Edward to a grinning Clayton,
who immediately smoothed his face into more suitably grave lines. "I have
been subjected to enough suspense to drive anyone to raving lunacy, and the
two of you have been in communication all along, haven't you?! I can't think
which of you I should more like to murder."

"Do you want your hartshorn, my dear?"

"No, I do not want my hartshorn," his lady replied, "I
want an explanation!"

"An explanation for what?" Edward asked, bewildered.

"For why you have not answered my letters, for why you
did not tell me you were aware of this betrothal, for why you didn't advise
me what to do ..."

"I only got one of your letters," he defended a trifle
brusquely, "and an you said was that Claymore was in residence near Stone's
place. And I can't imagine why you needed me to tell you what to do, when it
was perfectly obvious that all you had to do was chaperone two people whom
anyone could see were ideally suited to each other. And I did not tell you I
was aware of the betrothal because I was not aware of it until Claymore's
letter was brought to me in Spam a month and a half ago."