Whitney, My Love

Chapter Thirteen

WHTTNEY GREETED THE NEWS THAT CLAYTON WAS TO DINE WITH them the following evening with all the enthusiasm she would have felt for a public flogging. Nevertheless, her father liked the man, and Whitney was prepared to endure him for her father's sake.

They dined at eight o'clock, with her father at one end of the long, damask-covered table and Lady Anne at the other. Which left Whitney sitting across from Clayton. Using the heavy silver candelabra in the center of the table as a barrier between herself and her unwanted dinner companion, she maintained a cool, formal silence. Several times during the meal, Clayton made inflammatory remarks which she knew were deliberately intended to rile her into entering the dinner table conversation, but she meticulously ignored him.

Surprisingly, the other three managed quite well without her, and the conversation became animated as the evening wore on.

As soon as dessert was cleared away, Whitney stood and excused herself, pleading an impending attack of the vapors. She thought she saw Clayton's lips twitch, but when her narrowed gaze searched his face, he seemed to be regarding her with polite concern and nothing else. "Whitney has the constitution of an ox," her father was reassuring his guest as Whitney walked out of the room.

During the next two weeks, Paul called for her every day. Her life took on a dreamlike quality, spoiled only by the frequency with which she had to endure Clayton's company in the evenings. However, she bore it without complaint for her father's sake. No matter what Clayton said or did, Whitney was unfailingly cool, polite, and distant. Her withdrawn formality pleased her father (who mistook it for ladylike reserve); irritated Clayton (who apparently never mistook anything); and, for no reason Whitney could understand, seemed to worry her aunt.

In fact, Whitney thought Anne was acting very peculiarly lately. She spent endless hours writing letters to every capital in Europe where she thought Uncle Edward might be, and her moods shifted constantly from nervous animation to dazed solemnity.

Whitney decided that the cause of her aunt's odd behavior was loneliness for her husband. "I know how dreadfully you must miss Uncle Edward," Whitney sympathized one evening two weeks later, when they were to dine with Clayton at his house for the first time.

Aunt Anne seemed not to have heard, as she concentrated on selecting a gown for Whitney to wear. Finally she chose a gorgeous peach-colored crepe, scalloped at the low neckline, with wider scallops at the hem. "I missed Paul dreadfully the entire time I was in France, so I know how you must feel," Whitney continued, her voice muffled by the peach gown which Clarissa was lowering over her head.

"Childhood romances," her aunt replied, "always seem so real, so enduring, when we are separated from the object of our affection. But usually, when we return, we find that our dreams and memories quite surpassed reality."

Whitney jerked around without a thought for poor Clarissa, who was busily applying a brush to Whitney's long hair. "You can't think Paul is a 'childhood romance.' Well, he was of course, but not any longer. We are going to be married, precisely as I always dreamed we would be. And very soon."

"Has Paul mentioned marriage to you?"

When Whitney shook her head and started to reply, Anne drew a long breath and interrupted her. "I mean, if it was his intention to offer for you, he's surely had sufficient time by now to do so."

"I'm certain he's only waiting for the right moment to declare himself. And I haven't really been home very long, a few weeks only."

"You've known each other for years, darling," Aunt Anne contradicted gently. "I've seen matches between two perfect strangers arranged in the length of time we've been back here. Perhaps Mr. Sevarin merely enjoys paying court to a lovely young woman who is all the rage, right now. Many men do, you know."

Whitney smiled confidently and planted a kiss on her aunt's cheek, "You worry too much for my happiness, Aunt Anne. Paul is on the verge of offering, you'll see."

But as their open carriage rocked along beneath the shadowy oaks toward Clayton's house, Whitney's optimism began to ebb. Idly, she toyed with a long strand of her hair which hung in gentle waves over her shoulders and midway down her back where it curled at the ends. Could it be that Paul merely enjoyed escorting the current neighborhood beauty? she wondered. Unemotionally, Whitney knew she had usurped that title from Elizabeth Ashton, although she didn't derive nearly as much satisfaction from the knowledge as she once thought she would. Invitations to local card parties and soirees were arriving with flattering regularity, and whenever Whitney accepted, Paul either escorted her or spent most of the evening at her side. In fact, the only person in the neighborhood who rivaled Whitney's popularity was Clayton Westland, and she saw him everywhere she went.

Whitney shrugged the thought of her despised neighbor aside. Why didn't Paul declare himself? she wondered. And why didn't he ever speak of love, if not marriage? Whitney was still searching for answers to those troublesome questions when they arrived at Clayton's home.

The front door was opened by a stiff-backed butler who eyed the trio down the length of his nose. "Good evening," he intoned majestically. "My master is expecting you." Whitney was at first shocked, then secretly amused by his lofty manner, which would have been far more appropriate if he were the butler of some grand personage, opening the front door of a magnificent mansion.

As Aunt Anne and her father were being divested of their outer garments, Clayton came striding down the hall into the small foyer. He went directly to Whitney. "May I?" he inquired politely, stepping behind her, his long fingers resting lightly on the peach-colored satin cape covering her shoulders.

"Thank you," Whitney said civilly. Pushing back the wide hood, she unfastened the satin frog closing at her throat, releasing the cape with as much speed as possible. The touch of his hands reminded her of the way he had held and caressed her the day of the picnic, the way he had promised to hold her much closer for far longer as if he were offering a sweet to a child. Conceited ass!

Her father detained her aunt to admire some carved ivory objects adorning a hall table while Clayton showed Whitney to a medium-sized room that apparently served as a combined salon and study.

A fire burned cheerily on the wide hearth, chasing away the night chill and adding its lively glow to the light of the candles in sconces above the mantle. The room was sparsely but rather grandly furnished to suit masculine tastes. One wall was taken up by a long, richly carved oak cabinet which bore a pair of massively splendid sterling silver candelabra, one at each end. The top of the cabinet was inlaid with marble squares, each of which was surrounded by strips of intricately carved wood. In the center stood an enormous sterling tea service unlike any Whitney had ever seen. It was so immense that Sewell, their butler, would never be able to lift it, let alone carry it with dignity. Whitney smiled a little as she visualized the ever-correct Sewell staggering into a room, laboring beneath the weight of the tray.

"Dare I hope that smile denotes a softening in your opinion of me?" Clayton drawled lazily.

Whitney snapped her head around. "I have no opinion of you," she lied.

"You have a very strong opinion of me, Miss Stone," he said, chuckling as he seated her in a comfortable wingback chair upholstered to soft burgundy leather. Instead of sitting down across from her in the other wingback chair, the man had the unmitigated gall to perch atop the arm of hers and casually stretch his right arm across the back of it.

"If there is a shortage of comfortable seating, I will be happy to stand," Whitney said coldly, already starting to rise.

Clayton's hands caught her shoulders, pressing her back into the chair as he compliantly stood up. "Miss Stone," he said, grinning, and gazing down into her angry upturned face, "you have the tongue of an adder."

"Thank you," Whitney said calmly. "And you have the manners of a barbarian."

Inexplicably, he threw back his head and shouted with laughter. Still chuckling, he reached down and affectionately rumpled the shining hair atop her head, which brought Whitney surging to her feet, torn between slapping his face and giving him a swift kick in the shin. Her father and aunt found them still standing face to face, Clayton's expression boldly admiring, while Whitney glared at him in frigid silence. "Well, I see you two are having a devilish pleasant chat," her father announced jovially, which made Clayton's lips twitch and Whitney almost, but not quite, burst out laughing. Dinner was a feast that would have done credit to a royal chef. Whitney toyed with the delicious lobster in light wine sauce, feeling vastly uncomfortable seated at the opposite end of the table from Clayton, as if she were mistress of his home. He was playing the host tonight with a natural, relaxed elegance that Whitney reluctantly admired, and even Lady Anne had unbent completely as she carried on an animated political discussion with him.

During the fifth course, Whitney broke her long-enduring, self-imposed silence. Clayton had taunted and goaded her all evening until she finally jumped into the conversation in order to argue in favor of educating females in the same manner as males. "What use is geometry to a woman who will spend her time embroidering handkerchiefs for her husband?" he had challenged.

Whitney accused him of thinking like his grandfather, and he laughingly retaliated by calling her a bluestocking.

"Blasted bluestocking," Whitney amplified with an amused smile. "It is what gentlemen such as you, who cherish antiquated ideas, call any female whose vocabulary contains more than the three acceptable phrases."

He grinned. "And what three phrases would those be?"

"The phrases are 'yes, my lord'; 'no, my lord"; and 'as you wish, my lord.'" She lifted her chin and said, "I find it sad that most of my sex have been trained from babyhood to sound exactly like witless female butlers."

"So do I," Clayton admitted quietly. Before Whitney had recovered from her astonishment, he added, "However, the fact remains that no matter how well-educated a woman is, she will someday have to submit to the authority of her lord and master."

"I don't think so," Whitney said, ignoring her father's anguished, quelling looks. "And what's more, I shall never, ever call any man my lord and master."

"Is that right?" he mocked.

Whitney was about to answer when her father suddenly launched into a monologue on the merits of irrigating farms, which surprised Whitney and visibly annoyed Clayton.

During dessert, Clayton again returned his attention to her. "I was wondering if there is any particular game you would enjoy playing after dinner," His gray eyes locked onto hers in silent, laughing communication as he added meaningfully, ". . . other than those little 'games' you and I have already played together?"

"Yes," Whitney said, boldly returning his gaze. "Darts."

A ghost of a smile flickered across Ms features. "If I had any darts, which I don't, I wouldn't care to be within your range, Miss Stone."

For a mere female, 1 nave an excellent aim, Mr. West-land."

"Which is why," he said pointedly, "I would not care to be within your range." Grinning, Clayton lifted his glass to her in a gesture of salute. Whitney accepted his tribute for their verbal swordplay with an exaggerated nod of condescension, then favored him with an irrepressible sidewise smile.

Clayton watched her, wanting more than anything to thrust his other two dinner guests out the front door and snatch Whitney into his arms, to kiss the laughing mischief from her lips until she was clinging to nun, melting with desire. He leaned back in his chair, absently fingering the stem of his wineglass, while he relished the knowledge that tonight he had finally battered down her wall of cold indifference. Just why Whitney had retreated behind it the day of the picnic, and remained aloof and distant until an hour ago, was still a question to which he would someday demand an answer. Darts! he thought with an inward grin. He ought to wring her lovely neck.

After the meal, a servant escorted Martin and Lady Anne from the dining room, but Clayton placed a restraining hand on Whitney's arm when she started to follow them. "Darts!" he chuckled. "What a bloodthirsty wench you are!"

Whitney, who had been on the verge of smiling back at him, went scarlet. "Your way with words must make you the envy of all your friends," she flared. "In our brief acquaintance you've referred to me first as a hussy and now as a wench. Think what you will of me, but to future, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your opinions to yourself!" Shamed and guilt-stricken because she felt she had earned both names, Whitney tried to pull her arm free, but his hand tightened.

"What the devil are you talking about? Surely, you can't think I meant an insult with either name?" He saw the flushed, hurt look which she tried to hide by turning her face away. "My God, that is exactly what you think," he said softly. Putting his hand against her cheek, he forced her to look at him. "I beg your forgiveness, little one. I've moved too long in circles where it is fashionable to speak boldly, and where the women are as frank as the men with whom they flirt."

Although she'd never been exposed to the daringly fast set, evidently he had, and Whitney knew that the women were shockingly outspoken and behaved with wanton abandon, flirting openly, and even taking lovers. Suddenly she felt foolish and unsophisticated. "It isn't just the names," she protested defensively. "It's the day of the picnic, too, and the way you …" Her voice faltered when she recalled that she had been a willing participant in the heated kisses they exchanged. "I'll strike a bargain with you," she offered after a moment. "You forget everything I've done, and I'll forget what you've done, and we'll start again. Providing, of course, that you give me your solemn word that you won't try to do what you did to me by the stream."

His brow furrowed in puzzlement. "If you're referring to the crop, surely you don't think-"

"Not that. The other."

"What? Do you mean kiss you?"

When Whitney nodded, he looked so utterly astounded that she burst out laughing. "Now, don't tell me I'm the first female you've ever met who didn't want you to kiss her?"

He lifted his shoulders in a brief shrug that dismissed her question. "I admit to being somewhat spoiled by women who seemed to enjoy my … attentions. And you," he added, smashing her momentary sense of triumph, "have been too long surrounded "by besotted fools who kiss the hem of your skirts, begging your permission to be your lord and master."

Whitney's smile was filled with confident amusement. "I told you, I will never call any man my lord. When I marry, I shall be a good and dutiful wife-but a fall partner, not an obedient servant." In the doorway of the salon, he glanced down at her with an odd combination of humorous skepticism and absolute certainty. "A good and dutiful wife? No, little one, I'm afraid not."

Shaken by an inexplicable sensation of prickling alarm, Whitney looked away. It was as if he believed he had some sort of power over her. From the very first moment she'd seen him watching her at the stream, from the first words he'd spoken to her there, she'd had this same peculiar feeling. Perhaps that was why it always seemed so important, so necessary to avoid or outmaneuver him whenever possible. With a start, Whitney realized that he was speaking to her.

"I asked if you would enjoy a game of whist, or if you'd prefer something else. Other than darts," he joked.

"I suppose we could play whist," Whitney said with more politeness than enthusiasm. Her gaze fell on the chess set in front of the fireplace, and she wandered closer to inspect it. "How beautiful," she breathed. Half the set was cast in a burnished gold, the other in a silvery metal. Each piece was nearly as tall as her hand, and when she picked up the heavy king and held it to the light, she caught her breath sharply. There in her hand she held the figure of King Henry II, his face so real and lifelike that Whitney could only marvel at the genius of the craftsman who had created it. The queen was Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitane. With a smile, Whitney put the queen down and picked up the bishop. "I knew it would be Becket." She smiled at Clayton over her shoulder. "Poor Henry, even on a chessboard the image of the Archbishop of Canterbury still plagues him." Gently and reverently, she put the piece down.

"Do you play?" Clayton asked, surprise and doubt in his voice.

He sounded so incredulous that Whitney immediately decided to entice him into playing with her. "Not very well, I'm afraid," she replied, lowering her eyes to hide her mischievous laughter. Only so well that Uncle Edward stoutly rued the day when he'd decided to teach her. Only so well that he used to challenge his most skilled opponents from the Consulate to come to the house and try to take a victory from her. "Do you play often?" Whitney inquired innocently.

Clayton was already drawing the burgundy leather wing-back chairs into place on opposite sides of the chess table. "Very infrequently."

"Good," Whitney said with a bright, vivacious smile as she sat down. "In that case, this won't take very long."

"Planning to trounce me, Ma'am?" he drawled, one brow arrogantly raised.

"Soundly!" Whitney told him.

She made her moves skillfully, confident she could best him, but careful not to underestimate his ability. He was bold at first, decisive and quick, but after forty-five minutes, the play had slowed considerably.

"It seems you mean to make good your threat," he chuckled, eyeing her in frank admiration as she captured his rook.

"Not nearly as easily as I'd hoped," Whitney said. "And I recognized your skill three moves before you became aware of mine. That alone should have cost you the game."

"I apologize for disappointing you," he mocked.

"You are absolutely delighted to 'disappoint me' and you know it!" Whitney laughed. She was just reaching for her bishop when her father suddenly stood up and announced that, inasmuch as his gout was troubling him, he would be grateful if Mr. Westland would escort Whitney home when their game was finished. With that, he seized his sister-in-law's hand and strode swiftly toward the door on what were obviously two perfectly healthy legs, hauling Anne in his wake.

Whitney was already on her feet. "We can have our game another time," she said hastily, hiding her wistful regret over being unable to go on playing.

"Nonsense!" her father declared stoutly, hurrying over and pressing a clumsy kiss on her forehead, while forcing her back into her chair. "Nothing Improper about the two of you going on with your game-there's a house full of servants for chaperones."

Having once been the object of scorn and ridicule in this neighborhood, Whitney had no desire to bring censure down on herself over such a trifling thing as a game of chess. "No, really, I couldn't, Father." Unable to rise with her father's restraining hand on her shoulder, she looked beseechingly to her aunt, who shrugged helplessly, then levelled her rapier gaze on Clayton. "I trust you will remember to conduct yourself as a gentleman, Mr. Westland?"

"Whitney will be treated with all the deep respect and affection I have for her," Clayton replied with tolerant amusement.

The second game was begun, the first having ended in a stalemate. For a while after her father and Aunt Anne departed, Whitney felt ill at ease, but she soon relaxed, and by the time they were well into the second game, both opponents were heckling one another outrageously.

With her elbows propped on the huge chess table and her chin cupped in her hands, Whitney watched Clayton reach for his knight. "Most imprudent," she advised him.

Clayton gave her a wicked grin, ignored her advice, and advanced his knight. "You are hardly in a position to counsel me on strategy after your last reckless move, Miss."

"Then don't ever complain that I didn't warn you," Whitney mused, tapping her long, tapered fingernail on an empty square, while she pondered his wily move of the knight. Leaning forward, she plunked her rook into position, then rested her chin on her hands again.

Each time she reached across the board, she unwittingly afforded Clayton glimpses of the thrusting fullness of her breasts above the scalloped bodice of her dress, until it required every ounce of his self-control to concentrate on the game. Long ago, she'd abandoned her slippers and now sat curled up in her chair with her legs tucked beneath her. With her luxuriant hair tumbling over her shoulders and her green eyes glowing with devilment, she presented such a captivating picture that Clayton was torn between the urge to shove the chess table aside, draw her onto his lap, and let his hands revel in the richness of his prize-and the equally delightful desire simply to lean back in his chair and feast his eyes on her.

At one and the same time, she managed to be an alluringly beautiful woman and a bewitchingly innocent girl. She was a study of intriguing and beguiling contrasts. In the course of one evening, she had treated him with cool disdain, tempestuous rebellion, blazing anger and now, with a jaunty impertinence and breezy impudence that he found utterly exhilarating. And to top it all off, she played one hell of chess game.

In the spirit of bald needling and relaxed affability which they'd been enjoying, Whitney raised her eyes to his and inquired with a radiant smile, "Are you contemplating your next move-or regretting your last, my lord?"

Clayton chuckled. "Aren't you the same young woman who informed me only hours ago that you'd call no man 'my lord'?"

"I only called you that," she informed him lightly, "to distract you so that you'd forget your strategy. However, you didn't answer my question."

"If you must know," he said, reaching for his king and attacking from an unexpected position on the board, "I was wondering what possessed me to play chess with a woman, when everyone knows chess is a game which requires a man's superior logic."

"You conceited beast!" Whitney laughed, cleverly sidestepping his attack on her bishop. "I can't imagine why I'm wasting my skill on such a weak opponent."

An hour later, Whitney's dark head was bent over the chessboard as she contemplated the success of her strategy. Three more moves, four possibly, and the game would be hers. "How perverse of you to maneuver me into such an impossible position," she complained, smiling to herself as he made the very move she'd anticipated he would.

"You think you have me trapped, I presume?" he observed with alacrity.

While Whitney carefully considered her next move, Clay-ton leaned around and nodded over his shoulder to a manservant who'd been standing at stiff attention near the door from the moment her aunt and father had left.

In response to the duke's silent command, the servant went to a table on which stood several crystal decanters and poured an amber liquid from one of them into a glass. He paused and looked inquiringly toward the duke for instruction as to the young lady's beverage. Clayton lifted two fingers, indicating that two brandies were to be served. The servant arranged the two glasses on a small silver tray and brought it over to the table beside the chessboard. He put it down, and at Clayton's brief nod of dismissal, bowed, and quietly withdrew from the room, closing the door behind him.

Whitney was oblivious to all this, but she looked up as Clayton politely handed a glass to her. The color was obviously not that of wine, and she glanced suspiciously from the amber liquid in her glass to Clayton's face.

Watching her with tranquil amusement, he explained, "At dinner tonight, you argued so eloquently against the restrictions placed upon females by society, that I presumed you would prefer to have whatever I drink."

He really was the most provoking man alive, taunting her this way, Whitney thought with a smile. Determined to brazen it out for as long as possible, she sniffed the pungent odor emanating from her glass. Uncle Edward's favorite drink. "Brandy," she said, favoring Clayton with a bland smile. "Perfect with a good cigar, is it not?"

"Most assuredly," he agreed straight-faced. Reaching out, he lifted an enameled metal box from the table beside them and snapped the lid open with his thumb. Holding the box toward her, he offered Whitney her choice of the cigars within it.

He was so supremely blase about it that Whitney's composure slipped another notch closer to laughter. Catching her lower lip between her teeth to still its treacherous trembling, Whitney studied the cigars as if trying to decide which she preferred. What would he do if she actually selected one from the box? Light it, no doubt! she thought with a silent giggle.

"May I suggest the longer one to your left?" he murmured courteously.

Whitney crumpled back into her chair, convulsed with silent mirth.

"A pinch of snuff perhaps?" he urged solicitously, sending Whitney into gales of musical laughter. "I keep it on hand for particularly discriminating guests such as yourself."

"You are impossible!" she laughed. When she finally caught her breath, she lifted her glass and, under his amused gaze, gingerly sampled her brandy. It burned a path straight down to her stomach. The second and third sips were not quite so awful, and after a few more, she categorized brandy as one of those things for which one must acquire a taste. Very soon after, she became aware of an unaccustomed, delicious warmth seeping through her, and she firmly put the glass aside, wondering just how potent a few sips of brandy could be.

"Who taught you to play?" Clayton asked.

"My uncle," Whitney replied. Leaning forward, she picked up her king and held it to the light to admire the splendid craftsmanship. "If one didn't know better, one would think these pieces were actually cast in gold and silver."

"If one didn't know better," Clayton said blandly, removing the solid gold king from her graceful fingers to prevent her from inspecting it any closer, "one would think you were trying to extricate yourself from my clever trap by contriving to place him in a safer position on the board."

Whitney was instantly alert. "Extricate myself? A safer position? Whatever are you talking about? My king isn't in jeopardy!"

A stow, roguish grin dawned across his features. Reaching out, he moved his bishop into position. "Check," he said.

"Check?" Whitney repeated in disbelief, staring at the board, trying to reassess her vulnerability. She was in check! And no matter which of the available moves she made, one of his men was poised to attack.

Slowly she raised her eyes to his, and Clayton basked in the unconcealed admiration lighting her beautiful face. When she spoke her voice was soft and filled with awe. "You blackhearted, treacherous, conniving scoundrel."

Clayton threw back his head and laughed at the contrast between her tone and her words. "Your flattery warms my heart," he chuckled.

"You have no heart," Whitney quipped, smiling dazzlingly at him. "If you did, you'd never abuse a helpless female by luring her into a game at which you are obviously a master."

"You lured me," he reminded her, grinning. "Now, shall we finish the game, or do you plan to deny me my triumph by claiming the game was incomplete?"

"No," Whitney said good-naturedly. "I surrender completely."

Her words seemed to hang portentously in the silence that followed. "I was hoping you would," he said quietly.

He unbuttoned his dark blue jacket, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his long legs out beside the table. Relaxed and comfortable, he turned his head slightly and gazed into the fire.

Whitney studied him surreptitiously as she sipped from her brandy. Sitting like that, he looked like an artist's portrait of the "gentleman of leisure." And yet, she had the strangest feeling that beneath his relaxed exterior there was a forceful-ness, a power, carefully restrained now, but gathered. Waiting. And if she made a wrong move, a mistake, he would unleash that force, that power on her. Mentally, she gave herself a hard shake. She was being foolish and fanciful. "I can't make out the time," she said softly, a while later, "but it's surely long past the hour for me to leave."

His gaze shifted from the fire to her. "Not until I hear you laugh again."

Whitney shook her head. "I haven't laughed that hard since the day of our spring musicale when I was twelve years old."

When he realized that she had no intention of elaborating, Clayton said, "Since you're obviously reluctant to share it with me, I claim the retelling of that story as my victory prize."

"First you lure me into a chess game," Whitney berated him, smiling. "Then you outwit me, and now you want to claim a reward from me for doing it. Have you no mercy?"

"None. Now go on."

"Very well," she sighed. "But only because I refuse to further flatter your vanity by pleading to be let off." Her voice softened as she looked back into the past. "It was a long time ago, yet it seems like yesterday. Mr. Twittsworthy, our local music instructor, decided that the village should have a spring musicale. All the females whose musical education was entrusted to his tutelage were to display their accomplishments by playing or singing a short piece. There were about fifteen of us, but Elizabeth Ashton was the most gifted performer, so Mr. Twittsworthy bestowed the honor of hosting the musicale on her mama and papa. I didn't even want to go, but. . ."

"But Twittsworthy insisted that you must, or the musicale would be a dismal failure?" Clayton speculated.

"Good heavens, no! Mr. Twittsworthy would have been delighted if I'd stayed away. You see, whenever he came to the house to listen to me play the pianoforte, his eyes began to bum and water. He complained to everyone that my playing was so offensive to his ears that it actually made him weep."

Clayton felt an unexplainable surge of anger at the music instructor. "The man must have been a fool."

"Indeed he was," Whitney agreed with a breezy smile. "Otherwise, he would have realized that I was sprinkling pepper in his snuffbox whenever he came to give me lessons. Anyway, the morning of the musicale, I pleaded and argued with my father that I shouldn't have to go, but he would have it to the very last hour that I absolutely must!

"Looking back, I think Father would have relented if I hadn't been seized with the unfortunate inspiration of sending Clarissa, my maid, down with a note for him."

Clayton grinned at her over the rim of his glass. "What did you say in the note?"

"I said," Whitney confessed with twinkling eyes, "that I had taken to my bed with a case of cholera, but that he should go to the musicale without me and ask everyone to pray for my recovery."

Clayton's shoulders began to lurch and Whitney said severely, "I've not yet come to the humorous part of the story, Mr. Westland." He smoothed the laughter from his face and Whitney continued, "Father gave poor Clarissa a thundering scold for having failed to instill in me a grain of respect for truth. The very next thing I knew, Clarissa was thrusting me into my best dress which was much too short, because I'd told her I wasn't going and she didn't need to let the hem down, and Father was marching me into the carriage.

Of course, I hadn't learned my piece for the musicale, which was nothing out of the ordinary, since I never had the patience to plink and plank my life away at the pianoforte, and I pleaded with Father to let me go back into the house and get my music, but he was too angry with me to listen.

"Every neighbor for miles was gathered in the music room at Elizabeth's house. Elizabeth played like an angel, which was always the way, and Margaret Merryton's piece was judged quite agreeable. I was saved for last." Whitney lapsed into pensive silence. For one brief moment, she was again sitting in the third row of the crowded music room, just behind Paul, whose eyes were riveted on Elizabeth's dainty, angelic profile as she played the pianoforte. Paul had leapt to his feet, with everyone else, to applaud Elizabeth's performance while Whitney stood behind him, tugging at her short, unbecoming pink dress and hating her own awkward body which was ail arms and legs and knees and elbows.

"You were the last to play," Clayton prodded, his teasing voice rousing Whitney from her unhappy recollections. "And even without your music, you played so well that they all cheered and called for an encore?"

"I would say," Whitney corrected him with a tinkling laugh, "that their reaction was more one of dazed silence."

Despite Whitney's offhand manner of telling the story, Clayton found it more poignant than funny. At that moment, he could have cheerfully strangled every one of these small-minded country bumpkins who had ever embarrassed her, beginning with her music instructor and ending with her stupid father. Deep inside, he felt a stirring tenderness, a protectiveness toward her, that surprised and disturbed him, and he lifted his glass, drinking from it to cover his own bewildering emotions.

Afraid that he might somehow feel sorry for her, Whitney smiled and waVed her hand dismissively. "I've only told you this to give you the background. The reason for my hilarity occurred later, while everyone was enjoying a light luncheon out on the lawn. You see, a prize was to be awarded after lunch for the best performance, and Elizabeth Ashton was to receive it. Unfortunately, the prize vanished, and a rumor was circulated that it had been hidden up in the largest tree on the lawn."

Clayton studied her, and his gray eyes lit with amused speculation. "Did you put it there?"

Whitney pinkened. "No, but I started the rumor that it was up in the tree. Anyway, everyone had just begun to eat when suddenly Elizabeth came tumbling from the tree, crashing like a rock onto the table. I thought she made a very fetching centerpiece, reclining amidst the sandwiches and pudding in her pink and white ruffles, and I started to laugh." Whitney smiled as she recalled the scene, then she remembered the way Paul had run to Elizabeth's rescue, drying her tears with his handkerchief, while he glared furiously at Whitney.

"I assume that when the adults saw you laughing, they blamed you for hiding the prize in the tree?"

"Oh, no, the adults were much too busy trying to remove Elizabeth from their lunch to notice that I was laughing myself into fits. Peter Redfern did notice, though, and he assumed I was guilty, particularly since he knew I could climb a tree faster than even he could. He threatened to box my ears then and there, but Margaret Merryton told him I deserved a whipping from my father instead."

"Which was your fate?" Clayton asked.

"Neither one," Whitney said, and her laughter reminded Clayton of wind chimes. "You see, Peter was too angry to listen to Margaret, and I was so positive that he wouldn't dare to hit me, that I didn't think to duck until the very last moment. He hit Margaret instead," Whitney finished merrily. "Oh lord! I shall never forget the look on poor Peter's face when Margaret rolled over in the grass and sat up. She had the most heavenly purple eye you could imagine."

Across the chess table, their laughing gazes held, the happy silence punctuated by the cheery crackling of the logs burning on the grate. Clayton put his glass down, and Whitney's smile began to fade as he purposefully came to his feet. Darting a glance toward the door where the servant had been standing earlier, Whitney realized that he was no longer there. "It's dreadfully late," she said, hastily standing up as Clayton came toward her. "I should be leaving at once."

He stopped an inch from her and said in a deep, velvety voice, "Thank you for the most delightful evening of my life." She saw the look in his eyes, and her heart began to hammer uncontrollably while a warning screamed along her nerves. "Please don't stand so close," she whispered desperately. "It makes me feel like a rabbit about to be pounced upon by a-a ferret!"

His eyes smiled, but his voice was quiet, seductive. "I can hardly kiss you if I'm standing across the room, little one." "Don't call me that, and don't kiss me! I've just barely forgiven you for the last time at the stream."

"Then I'm afraid you're going to have to forgive me again."

"I warn you, I won't," Whitney whispered, as he drew her into his arms. "This time I'll never forgive you."_

"A terrifying possibility, but I'll risk it," he murmured huskily, and his mouth opened hungrily over hers. The shock of the contact was electrifying. His hands moved down her shoulders and back, molding her tighter and tighter to the hard length of his body. He kissed her thoroughly, insistently, endlessly, and when her quivering lips parted for his probing tongue, he crushed her into himself. His tongue plunged into her mouth, then slowly retreated to plunge again and again, in some unknown, wildly exciting rhythm that produced a knot of pure sensation in the pit of Whitney's stomach.

The provocative caresses of his hands, the feel of his mouth sensuously joined with hers, the hard strength of his legs pressing intimately against her, brought Whitney's body to vibrant life in his arms. She surrendered helplessly to the inflaming demands of his hands and mouth, and as she did, her mind went numb. Dead. The longer the kisses continued, the more splintered apart she became. It was as if she were two people, one warm and yielding, the other paralyzed with alarm.

When he finally drew back, Whitney let her forehead fall against his chest, her hands flattened against the crisp, starched whiteness of his shirt. She stood there in a kind of disoriented, bewildered rebellion, furious with herself and with him.

"Shall I implore your forgiveness now, little one?" he teased lightly, tipping her chin up. "Or should I wait?" Whitney lifted her mutinous green eyes to his. "I think I'd better wait," he said with a rueful chuckle. Pressing a brief kiss on her forehead, he turned and strode from the room, returning a moment later with her satin cape. He put it around her shoulders, and she shivered when his hand touched her skin. "Are you cold?" he murmured, folding his arms around her from behind and drawing her back against his chest.

Whitney could not drag a sound through her constricted throat. She was a roiling mass of shame, bewilderment, anger, and self-loathing.

"Surely I cannot have rendered you speechless," he whispered teasingly, his breath touching her hair.

She spoke, but her voice was a strangled whisper. "Please let go of me."

He did not attempt to talk to her again until they drew up beneath the arched carriage entrance at the side of her house. "Whitney," he said impatiently, grasping her arm when she opened the door and started to go inside. "I want to talk to you. There are some things that should be understood between us."

"Not now," Whitney said tonelessly. "Another time perhaps, but not tonight."

Whitney lay awake until dawn, trying to understand the turbulent, consuming emotions Clayton was able to arouse in her; how he managed to take her in his arms and sweep away her plans and dreams of Paul, her sense of decency and honor.

She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. From this night forward, she would scrupulously avoid being alone with him again. Any future contact with him would have to be brief, impersonal, and public. Her mistake-and she would never, never make it again-was that she'd enjoyed his company so much tonight, been so disarmed by his relaxed charm, that she had started thinking of him as her friend.

Friend! she thought bitterly, rolling over onto her back and staring up at the canopy. A boa constrictor would make a more trustworthy friend than that man! Why, that lecherous libertine would try to seduce a saint in church. He would go to any lengths to make another conquest. The harder he had to try, the more difficult his prey made it for him, the better he seemed to enjoy it. And Whitney knew now, beyond a doubt, that she was his prey. He intended to seduce her, to dishonor her, and nothing was going to deter him from trying.

For her sake, and for Paul's, the sooner their betrothal was announced, the better, because even Clayton Westland wouldn't dare to pursue a woman who was promised to another man. A man who happened to be an outstanding shot!