Whitney, My Love (72 page)

Damn her! How dare she take off her betrothal ring! She
was a schemer, a liar, and a fraud. But she was also his wife. And right
now, she was young and afraid and pregnant with his child. To Clayton's
intense disgust, he realized that he could not bring himself to make the
overture which he knew would be welcome to Marie. He would take another
woman as his mistress, someone who would create less notoriety.

"Marriage does not seem to agree with your wife either,"
Marie was observing quietly. "She is very beautiful-and very unhappy."

"Marriage agrees with both of us," Clayton said grimly.

A slow, provocative smile trembled on her lips. "If you
say so, Clayton."

"I say so," he said irritably. If Marie had noticed that
Whitney was unhappy and distressed, others in the ballroom may have noticed
that as well. He didn't want Whitney shamed in front of their friends. It
was one thing for him to hate her and humiliate her in private, another
entirely for society to be taking notice of it. And he was thoroughly
incensed to discover that he even gave a damn.

"In that case," Marie mused, displaying the perspicacity
that Clayton had always enjoyed in her, "it might be wise if you now went
back into the ballroom. Because I am of the opinion that Esterbrook's intent
in bringing us together in front of your wife, was to make himself available
to console her later." She saw Clayton's shoulders stiffen and the dangerous
glitter in his eyes. A winsome smile touched her lips. "I've never seen you
look like this before. You are terrifying-and devastating attractive-when
you're angry. And jealous."

"Leave it at angry," Clayton replied in a clipped voice
which be softened as he bid his former mistress farewell.

When he strode back into the ballroom, he looked first
for Esterbrook, then for Whitney. Esterbrook was there, Whitney was not.
With a feeling of relief, Clayton noted that no one seemed to have observed
his absence with Marie, and judging by the boisterous level of conversation
in the room, whatever gossip had begun at their public meeting had died a
polite death. Clayton was glad of that because these people were Whitney's
friends as well as his, and she would need to know that she didn't have to
cringe from seeing them the next time.

Except that Whitney wouldn't know that. Because the
duchess, as the butler solemnly explained, had already left. Damned little
fool! Clayton thought savagely. What was she thinking of, walking out on him
like this? Now there would be hell to pay! He couldn't go back in there
without her, or everyone would immediately realize that she had left in
distress or anger, and that would cause gossip. Personally, he couldn't have
cared less about the talk, but Whitney would be the one who had to face it,
and who had left because she couldn't. And he couldn't leave either, dammit-because
she had taken the carriage.

Emily and Michael Archibald solved that problem within
seconds by walking into the entryway and asking to have their carriage
brought round so that they could leave. Without question or comment, they
provided him with a ride to his London townhouse, where Clayton spent a very
angry, uncomfortable night. He kept seeing Whitney in that glittering golden
gown that displayed her ripe breasts to such glorious advantage. She'd worn
it deliberately to provoke him and, by God, she'd succeeded! Hadn't he had
to stand beside her all night, watching men's gazes lingering lustfully on
the tantalizing display of her creamy flesh?

If she hadn't worn that damned gown and taken off her
betrothal ring, if her hair weren't so thick and lustrous with that shining
gold chain entwined in it, if she hadn't looked so heart-breakingly
beautiful and desirable, he'd never have accepted Marie's silent invitation
to join her on the terrace in the first place.

Chapter Thirty-five

CIAYTON DID NOT RETURN TO CLAYMORE THE NEXT DAY OK THE
day after, or the day after that. Nor did he spend the three days entwined
in naked splendor with Marie St. Allermain as Whitney's feverish, tortured
imaginings told her. He spent the three days in London, in alternating
states of righteous fury and quiet thoughtfulness. He spent the nights at
his club with his friends.

Very late on the third night, as he sat staring out the
window of his bedroom overlooking a fog-shrouded courtyard, Clayton arrived
at a few conclusions. In the first place, he did not see why the hell he
should have to go to the inconvenience of choosing a mistress and setting
her up in a discreet home of her own, which he would have to do now that he
was married. He was married to a shit, but she had a ripe, tantalizing body
that intoxicated his mind and fitted his own body to perfection. So why
should he take a mistress when he had Whitney? And he was not going to
continue living like a damned monk, nor was he going to remain living like a
guest in the east wing of his own house, either.

He was going home and he was moving back into his own
bedroom. And when his body had need of her, Whitney would service him. She
would be a servant, nothing more, a well-dressed servant whose duties were
to act as his hostess on the occasions when he required one, and as his
unpaid whore when he needed one. It was almost what she was anyway, he
thought with a fresh surge of boiling wrath. Except that her price had been
very high-a fortune in money, and his name, to boot! But he owned her.
Permanently.

With those tender thoughts and several more of a similar
nature, Clayton ordered his town carriage around on the morning of the
fourth day and impatiently endured the hour and a half drive through an
English countryside decked out in all its lush, summer glory. He scarcely
noticed the passing landscape as he contemplated the scene that was going to
take place as soon as he arrived at Claymore. First he was going to explain
to Whitney her future status and duties in the crudest possible terms. Then
he intended to tell her what he thought of her treachery and deceit, her
outrageous temper, and her rebellion against his authority. And when he was
done with that, he was going to cram that note down her lovely
throat-figuratively speaking.

The carriage had scarcely pulled to a stop in the drive
in front of the house before Clayton was striding swiftly up the steps,
through the front doors and up the staircase to Whitney's rooms. He flung
the door to her bedchambers open with a force that sent it crashing against
the wall and brought Mary flying around in surprised alarm. Without a word
to the staring servant, he strode quickly through the adjoining dressing
room into his old chambers. But Whitney wasn't there. Because the duchess,
as Mary tearfully explained, had left. Yesterday.

"Left for where?" Clayton snapped impatiently.

"S-she wouldn't say, your grace. She said she left a
note for you in her desk." His formerly loyal housekeeper began to sniffle,
but Clayton ignored her as he strode stiffly to Whitney's desk. It was
empty, save for a single crumpled ball of blue writing paper in the top
drawer. Clayton hated even to touch it, but he smoothed it out and made
himself look at it in case she had written something else. She hadn't. It
was just her way of telling him she had discovered the reason for his anger.
He crammed the despised note into his pocket and turned in the doorway.

"I'm moving back into my own rooms," he said in a soft
snarl to Mary. "Get her things out of there."

"And where shall I put them next?" Mary asked in a
mutinous tone.

"Back in here, dammit!" Clayton was aware that the Irish
housekeeper found something to smile about in his reply, but he was too
furious at being cheated of his true prey to bother chastising a servant for
her impertinence. Besides, he was in the mood for murder, and little
gratification would be had in murdering Mary.

He was halfway down the hall on the way to the east wing
when it dawned on him what had seemed vaguely different about the note in
his pocket. It was stained now as if droplets of water had splashed on it.
Tears! he thought with a mixture of disgust and an uncomfortable feeling of
guilt. A great many tears.

For the next four days, Clayton waited like a caged
tiger for his errant wife to return. He was positive she would come back
when she realized he was not going to pursue her in a frenzied state of
alarm over the danger to her delicate condition. She would have to come
back. After all, who would shelter her from her own husband, in violation of
the law of England? Her father was much too sensible a man not to order
Whitney back to her husband's side where she belonged, Clayton decided in an
abrupt change of attitude toward Martin Stone.

When she wasn't back by the fifth day, Clayton knew a
wrath that was beyond anything he had ever felt in his life. She couldn't be
visiting anyone for this length of time. By God! She had actually left him!
He could scarcely contain his fury; it was one thing for him to have
considered leaving her or sending her away-he was the injured party, after
all. Besides, he hadn't actually done it. But Whitney had! She had obviously
gone home to her father, and that stupid bastard was letting her remain.

He ordered the travelling chaise made ready and the
horses put to and snapped at McRea, "I want to be at Martin Stone's house in
six hours. Not one minute more!" Based on McRea's knowing grin, Clayton
almost wondered if his driver had been lying about not knowing where Whitney
had gone. It was McRea's story that Whitney had had him take her to the
first posting house on the way back to London, where she had, according to
the proprietor of the posting house, rented a hack. What in the hell was she
doing traipsing all over the countryside, alone and pregnant with his child?
The little fool! Obstinate, infuriating little fool! Beautiful little fool.

Martin Stone came out to greet Clayton himself, smiling
openly as Clayton alighted. "Welcome, welcome," he said expansively, looking
expectantly toward the open door of the coach. "How is my daughter? Where is
she?"

Clayton tasted bitter defeat. "Whitney is fine, Martin.
She wanted me to come and tell you that we are expecting a child," Clayton
said, improvising quickly. After all, Martin Stone was a decent sort, and
Clayton didn't want to worry him by admitting that he had driven his
daughter away with Ms surly temper.

"The Hodges place," Clayton snapped at McRae a half hour
later, which was the earliest possible moment he could escape from Martin
without either looking ridiculous or nosing the man's suspicions. Whitney
was not staying in seclusion at the Hodges place. And McRea was not smiling
when Clayton acidly ordered the chaise back to Claymore.

According to the investigation Clayton instigated the
following morning, Whitney was not staying with the Archibalds. She had in
fact vanished somewhere between the posting house and no-one-knew-where.

Clayton was no longer angry, he was worried. And when it
was reported that she had not crossed the Channel on a packet for France,
his worry became alarm.

Alone in his elegant bedroom suite a week after he had
returned to Claymore and found her missing, Clayton considered the
possibility that Whitney had gone to the man who had been her lover before
they were married. Perhaps the bastard had been unwilling or unable to offer
her his name before, but now was willing to keep her neatly tucked away and
available to him.

That was an agonizing thought and an infuriating one.
But only for a minute, because in the purple light of deepening dusk,
Clayton couldn't actually believe that Whitney would go to another man. It
might have been the mellowing effect of the half bottle of brandy he had
consumed during the last two hours, but it seemed to him ... it seemed
somehow that Whitney must have grown to love him. A little. He thought of
the way she had preferred to sit curled up in a chair La his study during
the day while he worked and she read, or wrote letters, or went over
household accounts. She had liked being near him. And she had damn well
liked being in bed with him. No woman alive would have melted in his arms,
and tried in every way to give him as much pleasure as he was giving her, if
she weren't at least infatuated.

He had loved her desperately on the day they were
married; she hadn't loved him. Then. But surely in the months afterward, in
the shared hours of quiet talk and laughter and unbridled passion, surely
she must have come to love him.

Restlessly, Clayton got up and wandered from his empty,
lonely room into hers. It wasn't pretty and alive without her. She was gone
and with her, his reason for living each day. He had driven her away,
finally broken her spirit and defeated her. And she had so much spirit! So
damned much spirit. She had stood up to his rage that day she'd taken her
horse out, and then defied him openly by going to the Clifftons' party in
that glorious green dress that made her eyes turn the color of emeralds. And
when he had been waiting here, in this very room in the dark, to confront
her with it, she had stood up to him then too. No woman alive but Whitney
would have dared to gaze boldly up into his eyes and flatly refuse to be
confined to her rooms unless he stayed there with her! And why would she
have wanted him to stay with her, if she didn't care for him?

Walking back into his room, Clayton leaned a shoulder
against the broad expanse of mullioned glass that ran the length of it on
one side. Staring out into the dark night, he thought about what she had
said when he had grabbed her and shaken her, trying to silence her. "I can't
stop." she had whispered, flinching from his harsh grip. "Because I love
you. I love your smile and your eyes ..." Oh Christ! How could she have said
that to him when he had been deliberately hurting her? "I remember exactly
how your hands feel against my skin when you touch me," she had said, "and
the things you have whispered to me when you are so deep inside of me that
you have touched my heart."