Whitney, My Love

Chapter Nineteen

THE NEXT MORNING, WHITNEY DASHED OFF A SECOND NOTE TO her betrothed, going into more detail about the agonizing pain she was suffering from her clumsy tumble down the staircase, and begging rather prettily to be excused from seeing him today. Although it meant having to spend another long day alone in her room because she couldn't risk being caught downstairs with her relatives should Clayton decide to inquire personally about her ankle, Whitney felt the enforced solitude was more than worth it-not only because she could avoid Clayton, but because she had the equally great satisfaction of outwitting him!

"Do you really think this is wise, darling?" Anne frowned, reading Whitney's clever note. "If you anger him needlessly, I can't think what he'll do."

"There's nothing he can do, Aunt Anne," Whitney reassured, sealing the note and handing it to Clarissa to deliver. "You've already written to Uncle Edward asking him to come quickly. When he arrives, he'd help me think of some way out of this. In the meantime, I'll continue with this farce about my knee for as long as I can, then I'll think of something else. Maybe I can bore his grace into going away," Whitney laughed.

Clarissa returned to report in a harassed voice that the duke had scanned the note, and looked at her in an exceedingly odd way.

"Clarissa, please, can't you be more specific than that?" Whitney begged impatiently. "What sort of 'odd' way?"

"Well, he read it," Clarissa recounted. "Then he looked as if he were about to smile. But he didn't exactly smile, and he asked another one of his high-and-mighty servants to show me out."

Whitney bit her lip as she puzzled over Clayton's baffling reaction, then with a smiling shrug, she dismissed the entire matter. "The three of us really should stop worrying about his every word and gesture. After all," she said breezily, flopping down on the settee, "whether he thinks I'm lying or not, what can he possibly do about it?"

The answer to that question arrived shortly after luncheon in a sleek, black-lacquered Westmoreland travelling coach drawn by four prancing black horses in silver harnesses. A somberly garbed, portly gentleman alighted from the conveyance and proceeded briskly toward the house. In his left hand he carried a large black leather bag; in his right a small engraved card which he handed to Sewell. "I am Dr. Whitticomb," he said to the butler. "I have been brought here from London and instructed to ask for Lady Gilbert."

When Anne greeted him in the salon, Dr. Whitticomb smiled politely into her puzzled eyes and explained, "His grace, the Duke of Claymore, has sent me to examine Miss Stone's knee."

Lady Gilbert turned so white that Dr. Whitticomb feared she might be ill, but after bidding him to wait, she left the room, snatched up her skirts, sprinted down the hallway, and vaulted up the staircase with a speed and agility that would have been remarkable in a healthy female half her years.

"He's done what?" Whitney shrieked, jumping to her feet and sending the volume of Pride and Prejudice in her lap thudding to the floor. "Why that low, vile . . ."

"There'll be tune enough for all that later, if we survive this," Anne panted, already unfastening Whitney's dress with shaking fingers and jerking it unceremoniously over her head.

Clarissa was hauling back the bedcovers, then flying to the wardrobe from which she snatched a fleecy dressing robe.

"Couldn't you have told him that I was asleep or something, and sent him back to London?" Whitney implored as she dived into bed and pulled up the covers.

"Dr. Whitticomb," Anne said, trying to catch her breath, "is no fool, believe me. He's been sent here to treat your knee, and he intends to do exactly that." Casting a quick, critical eye over Whitney, she said, "Clarissa, bring two pillows and place them beneath Whitney's knee. Then fetch some hartshorn from my room and put it on the bedside table. That will be a nice touch, I think." She started for the door. "I'll forestall Dr. Whitticomb for as long as I can to give you time, but don't count on more than a few minutes."

Clarissa remained rooted to the floor, her eyes glassy, her bands gripping the back of a chair. "Clarissa!" Lady Anne said sharply. "Do not even consider fainting!"

"I thank you, Lady Gilbert, but no," Dr. Whitticomb said, refusing for the third time the refreshments which, in an apparent excess of polite solicitude, Lady Gilbert was again trying to press upon him. He had already replied to her inquiries about the weather in London, the weather outside, and the pleasantness of his journey from London. When she tried to engage him in a discussion over how much snow they ought to expect this winter, Dr. Whitticomb said bluntly, "I wonder if I might see Miss Stone now."

Lady Gilbert led him upstairs and down the hall to the fourth door on the left. After a curiously long interval, the door was finally opened by a stout, elderly maid whose mob cap sat crazily askew atop her wiry gray head. Dr. Whitticomb, who was no stranger to the temperaments of wealthy, pampered young ladies, immediately assumed that Miss Stone was spoiled and had harassed her poor maid until that woman looked ready to swoon dead away.

This conclusion was reinforced by the appearance of the patient herself, a young lady of stunning good looks and high color who was reclining upon a large canopied bed, eyeing his approach with ill-concealed antagonism. A pair of jade-green eyes narrowed briefly on his face, wandered momentarily along his black frockcoat, then riveted in alarm on the black bag he carried.

Trying in his compassionate way to distract his patient from her terrified preoccupation with his instrument case, Dr. Whitticomb put it down beside her bed and said soothingly, "His grace, the Duke of Claymore, is most deeply concerned about you."

Two bright spots of color appeared on her high cheekbones. In a strangled voice, she whispered, "He is the embodiment of kindness and solicitude."

"Quite so," Dr. Whitticomb agreed, not able to believe the sarcasm he thought he heard. "As I understand it, Miss Stone," he began briskly, "you took a nasty fall down the staircase." Reaching for the bedcovers, he said, "Let's just have a look at that knee, shall we?"

"Don't!" she yelped, clutching the bedcovers to her pretty chin and eyeing him mutinously.

For a moment he stared at her in amazement, but then he realized what was distressing her and his expression gentled. Drawing up a chair beside the bed, he sat down. "My dear girl," he said kindly, "we are no longer in the dark ages when a female denied herself the ministrations of a competent physician merely because he was a man and she a woman. I applaud your modesty-God knows we see it all too seldom in young ladies these days-but this is not the proper time for it, as I am sure your aunt would tell you. Now then . . ." Reaching out, he tried to draw the sheets back, but his patient's tightly clenched fists exerted equal pressure to draw them in the opposite direction.

Dr. Whitticomb reared back and frowned with frustrated annoyance. "I am a competent physician with a score of female patients, including Her Majesty, if that will reassure you, Miss Stone."

"Well, it doesn't reassure me in the least!" his patient fired back in a voice remarkably strong for one supposedly in excruciating pain.

"Young woman," he warned, "I am under specific orders from his grace to examine your knee and prescribe the proper care. And," he added ominously, "he instructed me to have you restrained, if necessary, in order to do so."

"Restrained!" Whitney burst out. "Of all the unmitigated, unbelievable gall! Just who does he think would dare to do such a …" She choked back her outburst, already visualizing Clayton striding into her bedchamber in defiance of every law of decency and propriety, and forcibly pinning her to the bed, so that Dr. Whitticomb could examine her knee.

Frantically, she groped for some way to deter the physician from examining her. Excessive modesty was her only hope. Her lids fluttered closed, then opened to regard the man in charming embarrassment. Shyly, she plucked at the sheets. "I know how silly and foolish I must seem to you, Dr. Whitticomb, but I would simply the of mortification to be so exposed … to a perfect stranger, no matter how fine a doctor you are."

"My dear girl, we are only talking about 'exposing' your knee, after all."

"But I can't help the way I feel," Whitney protested virtuously. "You don't know me, but surely his grace, who does know me, should have considered my tenderest feelings in this. I'm quite shocked by his callous disregard of my . . . my .. . ?"

"Maidenly sensibilities?" the doctor offered automatically, thinking to himself that Claymore was going to have his work cut out for himself on his wedding night with this young woman, and that it was a very good thing that the duke was no novice where females were concerned.

"Exactly! I knew you would understand."

Reluctantly Dr. Whitticomb capitulated. "Very well, Miss Stone, I will not examine your knee on one condition: You must permit a local physician to examine it."

"Immediately!" Whitney agreed, beaming a bright smile on him.

Leaning over, he snapped his bag shut and picked it up "Do you know of someone who has experience with sprains and breaks-someone with whom you could feel comfortable?"

"Someone with experience with sprains and breaks?"

Whitney repeated, searching madly for some name to give him. "Why yes. Yes, I do," she announced triumphantly.

"Who?" Dr. Whitticomb persisted, standing up. "What is his name?"

"Thomas," Whitney provided promptly, smiling widely at her own inspiration. "I trust him implicitly, as does everyone for miles around-whenever there's a sprain or a break, it is always brought to Thomas for treatment." With a gracious smile, she said, "Goodbye, Dr. Whitticomb. I do thank you for coming, and I'm most dreadfully sorry for the inconvenience you've been caused. Clarissa will show you out."

"No need to bid me farewell just yet," Dr. Whitticomb assured. "I'll be up to see you after I've spoken with Dr. Thomas."

"Oh dear God!" Clarissa gasped, blindly clutching the bedpost for support.

Dr. Whitticomb ignored her outburst. Reaching into his waistcoat pocket, he withdrew a heavy gold timepiece, glanced at the time, then snapped it shut. "His grace's driver and coach are waiting, so if someone will be so kind as to direct me to Dr. Thomas, I'll meet with him and assure myself of his credentials, then bring him back with me."

Whitney levered herself up on both elbows. "Whatever for? I mean, I've just assured you that he's qualified. You can take my word for it."

"No, I'm sorry, but I can't. Even if I were willing to entrust your health to some unknown colleague, which I'm not, I can assure you that the duke would never permit it. Actually, we discussed calling in Grundheim from Germany; he's a good man with injuries to the joints. And there's Johannsen in Sweden-"

"He wouldn't dare!" Whitney retorted.

"Actually," Dr. Whitticomb admitted ruefully, "it was my idea to have them come to examine your knee. Claymore thought it best if I saw you first. He had certain-ah-doubts about the severity of your injury. Lady Gilbert," he said, "would you be so kind as to give me directions to Dr. Thomas?" He started for the door, but stopped in his tracks when, from the occupant of the bed, there came a stifled moan, followed by a series of blistering remarks about someone's character and integrity, liberally salted with words such as "scoundrel, wretch, blackguard, and hypocrite."

Dr. Whitticomb turned in surprise. Gone was the shy, demure young lady who'd sighed and languished in her bed but a moment before. His lips twitched with laughter and admiration as he beheld the tempestuous beauty who was now sitting bolt upright against the pillows, positively emanating stormy wrath.

"Dr. Whitticomb," the beauty snapped at him, "I really cannot endure another moment of this. For the love of God, look at my knee before that man has every leech in Europe at my bedside!"

"I personally do not condone leeching," Dr. Whitticomb remarked as he walked back to the bed and put his instrument case down. This time there was no resistance when he drew back the bedcovers. He parted her dressing robe well below the thigh, exposing a pair of long, shapely limbs, one of which was propped upon a pile of pillows.

"That's odd," he said, suppressing a smile as he glanced at his rebellious patient. "Yes indeed-I wondered about the lump created by this pile of pillows."

Whitney frowned at him. "I can't see anything the least bit 'odd' about two pillows propping up an injured knee."

"I quite agree with you there." Dr. Whitticomb's eyes twinkled. "But unless I misread your note to his grace, it was your left knee which was injured. Yet it is your right knee which we see here upon these pillows."

His finger pointed accusingly to the wrong leg and Whitney pinkened. "Oh that," she said hastily. "We propped the right leg up to keep it from bumping the left."

"Very quick thinking, my dear," Dr. Whitticomb said with a chuckle.

Whitney closed her eyes in chagrin. She wasn't fooling him at all.

"There doesn't appear to be any swelling." His fingers gentry felt first her right knee, then her left, then the right again. "Do you feel any pain here?"

"Dr. Whitticomb," Whitney said with a resigned smile trembling on her lips, "would you believe, even for one second, that I am in any pain?"

"No. I'm afraid not, actually," he admitted with equal candor. "But I must say I admire your knack for knowing when the time has come to throw in your cards and call the game lost." He replaced the bedcovers and leaned back in his chair, gazing at her in thoughtful silence.

He couldn't help admiring her spirit. She'd concocted a scheme and she'd done her level best to see it through. And now, when she was defeated, she conceded the victory to him without rancor, no missish sulks and sullens, no tears or begging. Damned if he didn't like her for it! After a moment, he straightened and said briskly, "I expect we should discuss what I am going to do next."

Whitney shook her head. "There's no need to explain. I know what you're obligated to do."

Dr. Whitticomb gave her an amused look. "First of all, I'm going to prescribe absolute, undisturbed bedrest for the next twenty-four hours. Not for you"-he laughed at Whitney's joyous expression-"but for your poor, beleaguered maid behind me, who's been torn between grabbing the nearest heavy object and bludgeoning me unconscious or swooning dead away." Plucking the hartshorn bottle from the bedside table, he passed it to Clarissa. "If you will take some free advice from an extremely expensive physician," he told her severely, "you will not involve yourself in any more of this lovely hoyden's intrigues. You haven't the constitution for it. Besides, your face quite gave your mistress away."

When Clarissa closed the door behind her, Dr. Whitticomb turned his gaze upon Lady Gilbert, who'd gone round the bed and was standing beside Whitney, waiting like a condemned man in the box to share her niece's sentence. "You, Lady Gilbert, are not in much better condition than that maid. Sit down."

"I'm quite all right," Lady Anne murmured, but she sank to the bed.

"Much better than all right," Dr. Whitticomb chuckled

"Quite splendid, I should say. You never betrayed your niece by even the flicker of an eye." Whitney was the next object of the doctor's penetrating gaze. "Now then, how do you think your future husband is going to react to this deception of yours?"

Whitney closed her eyes against the frightening image of an enraged Clayton, his gray eyes icy and his voice vibrating with cold fury. "He'll be furious," she whispered. "But that was the risk I took."

"Then there's nothing to be gained by confessing the deception, is there?"

Whitney's eyes snapped open. "Me confessing? I thought you were going to tell him the truth."

"The truth I have to tell, young lady, is this: An injury to a joint, any joint, can be difficult, even impossible, to diagnose. Despite the absence of swelling, I could not definitely rule out the possibility that your knee was injured precisely as you claimed. Beyond that, any further revelations will have to come from you. I am here as a physician, you know, not an informant."

Whitney's spirits soared. She snatched a pillow from beside her and hugged it to her chest, laughing with relief and gratitude. After thanking him three times, she said, "I don't suppose that you could tell his grace that I should stay in bed?"

"No," Dr. Whitticomb said flatly. "I cannot and would not do so."

"I quite understand," Whitney said generously. "It was just a thought."

Reaching out, he took Whitney's hand in his and smiled gently. "My dear, I have been a friend of the Westmoreland family for many years. You are soon to become a Westmoreland, and I would like to think we are also friends. Are we?"

Whitney was not going to become a Westmoreland, but she nodded acceptance of his offer of friendship.

"Good. Then allow me to presume upon this new friendship of ours by telling you that denying your fiance' your company in order to gain whatever it is you want, is not only foolish but risky. It was obvious to me that his grace has a great affection for you, and I truly think he would give you anything you want if you simply gave him that lovely smile of yours and asked him for it."

More emphatically he said, "Deceit and deviousness do you no credit, my child, and what's more, they will get you absolutely nowhere with the duke. He has known females far more skilled in deception and trickery than you, and all those ladies ever got from him was the opportunity to amuse nun for a very brief tune. While you, by being direct and forthright as I sense that you are, have gained the very thing those other females most desired. You," he said, "have gained the offer of his grace's hand in marriage."

Fireworks exploded behind Whitney's eyes; bells clanged in her ears. Why did everyone act as if she'd just been offered the crown jewels because Clayton Westmoreland had stepped down from his lofty pinnacle and deigned to make poor little lucky her an offer of marriage? It was insulting! Degrading! Somehow she managed to nod and say, "I know your advice is well meant, Dr. Whitticomb. I-I'll think about it."

He stood up and smiled at her. "You'll think about it, but you don't plan to follow it, do you?" When Whitney made no reply, he reached down and patted her shoulder. "Perhaps you know best how to deal with him. He's quite taken with you, you know. In fact, I never thought to see the day anything or anyone would unnerve him. But you, my dear, have come very close. When I arrived from London this morning, I found him wavering between anger and laughter. One moment, he was quite prepared to break your pretty neck for pulling this 'stunt,' I believe he called it. The next minute he was laughing and regaling me with stories about you. The man is torn between merriment and murder."

"So when he couldn't choose between the two, he sent you here to teach me a lesson," Whitney concluded darkly.

"Well, yes," Dr. Whitticomb said, chuckling. "I rather think that was his intent. I confess that I felt a certain annoyance when I discovered that the patient I'd been hauled out of my house and bounced across half of England to treat was most likely shamming. But now that I've been here, I daresay I wouldn't have missed it for the world!"

Gaiety, Whitney thought testily as she dined with her houseguests that evening, was not a balm for misery, it was an irritant. But then, nothing seemed to help. In an attempt to bolster her drooping spirits, she had taken extra care with her appearance and had even worn one of her new gowns-a soft powder-blue confection. At her throat and ears were blue sapphires encircled with diamonds which she'd bought her last day in Paris. Her hair was pulled back off her forehead and fastened with a diamond clip, leaving the rest to cascade naturally over her shoulders and down her back.

I am a kept woman, she thought as she listlessly pushed at a stuffed oyster with her fork. He had paid for the clothes she was wearing, the jewels, even her underthings. To add to her unwholesome feelings about herself, her cousin Cuthbert's slavering gaze kept slithering sideways as he tried to steal a glimpse of what her bodice concealed.

Her father, she noted, was behaving with artificial joviality, proclaiming to his guests how happy he was that they'd come, and how sad he was that they were departing tomorrow. Whitney thought that he probably was sorry to see them go. After all, he had been using them as a shield to insulate himself from her impending wrath. So much the better, Whitney thought. She didn't want a confrontation with him. All she felt for him now was a frigid core of nothingness.

After the gentlemen had enjoyed their port and cigars, they joined the ladies in the drawing room, where tables were set up for whist. The instant Cuthbert saw her, he started toward her table. He was pompous, balding and, to Whitney, wholly repulsive. Mumbling a quick excuse to Aunt Anne about not wanting to play whist, Whitney hastily stood and left the room.

She wandered down the back hall and into the library, but could not find anything of interest among the hundreds, of books lining the shelves there. The salons were being used for parlor games, and Cuthbert was in the drawing room. Under no circumstances could Whitney endure another moment near him, which left her the choice of either returning to her bedroom and the plaguing problems that would haunt her there, or else going into her father's study.

She chose the latter and, after Sewell brought her a pack of cards and added a log to the cheerful fire burning in the grate, Whitney settled into a high-backed chair beside the fire. I am becoming a hermit, she thought, slowly shuffling the deck, then laying the cards, one at a time, on the parquet table in front of her. Behind her, she heard the door open. "What is it, Sewell?" she asked without looking around.

"It isn't Sewell, Cousin Whitney," chanted a singsong voice. "It is I, Cuthbert." He sauntered over and stood beside her chair where he could avail himself of this new view of the creamy swells above her bodice. "What are you doing?"

"It's called solitaire," Whitney explained in a cool, ungracious voice, "or Napoleon at St. Helena. It can only be played by one person."

"I never heard of it," said Cuthbert, "but you must show me how."

Gritting her teeth, Whitney continued to play. Every time she leaned forward to place a card on the table, Cuthbert leaned forward too, feigning interest in the play while his gaze delved into her bodice. Unable to endure it a moment longer, Whitney slapped the cards down and leapt to her feet in irritated resentment. "Must you stare at me?" she snapped. "Yes," Cuthbert rasped, grasping her arms and trying to pull her toward him, "I must."

"Cuthbert," Whitney warned ominously, "I'll give you just three seconds to take your hands off of me before I start screaming the house down."

Unexpectedly, Cuthbert did as she commanded, but as his arms dropped, his body followed. Falling to one knee, he placed a hand over his heart, preparatory to proposing matrimony. "Cousin Whitney," he murmured hoarsely, indulging himself in a visual fondling of her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head and back down. "I must tell you what is in my heart and mind-" "I know what is in your mind," Whitney interrupted scathingly. "You've been ogling me for hours. Now get to your feet!"

"I have to say it," he persisted in rising tones. His pudgy hands felt the hem of her blue gown and Whitney snatched her skirt away, half convinced that he intended to lift it and peak beneath it. Deprived of her hem, his hand returned to cover his heart. "I admire you with every fiber of my being. I have the deepest regard for-" Gulping, he broke off, his widened eyes riveted on a point behind her. "I sincerely hope," drawled a lazily amused voice from the doorway, "that I am not interrupting a devoted man at his prayers?" Strolling to Whitney's side, Clayton looked down at an angry Cuthbert until Whitney's cousin finally staggered to his feet.

"My cousin was teaching me a new game of cards, and only one can play," he said.

The indulgent amusement in Clayton's expression vanished. With a curt nod toward the door, he said, "Now that you have learned, go and practice."

Cuthbert clenched his fists, hesitated, took a second look at the coldly determined line of his opponent's jaw, and left. Whitney watched the door close behind him and looked up at Clayton with relieved gratitude. "Thank you, I-"

"I ought to break your neck!" Clayton interrupted.

Too late, Whitney realized that she shouldn't have been standing all this time on her "injured" knee.

"Allow me to congratulate you on a fine day's work, Madam," he said sternly. "In less than twelve hours, you've brought Whitticomb to your side and Cuthbert to your feet."

Whitney stared at him. Although his tone was very grave, one corner of his mouth was quirked into something that looked suspiciously like a grin. To think she'd been quaking with fear because she thought he was furious! "You devil!" she whispered, torn between laughter and anger.

"I would hardly describe you as an angel," Clayton mocked.

All day, Whitney's emotions had been careening crazily between anger, dread, fear, and relief, rebounding from one near calamity to the next narrow escape. And now, gazing up at the darkly handsome man who was amused instead ot enraged, as she'd expected, the last vestige of her control slipped away. Tears of exhausted relief sprang to her green eyes. "This has been the most awful day," she whispered.

"Probably because you've been missing me," he said with such ironic derision that Whitney's shoulders trembled with mirth.

"Missing you?" she giggled incredulously. "I could cheerfully murder you."

"I'd come back to haunt you," he threatened with a grin.

"And that," she said, "is the only reason why I haven't tried." Without warning, what had started as a giggle became a choked sob, and tears came spilling down her cheeks.

Clayton's arm slid gently around her. He was offering her comfort, and Whitney accepted it. Turning into his arms, she buried her face against his dove-gray jacket and wept out her troubles in the embrace of the man who was responsible for causing them. When the tears finally subsided, Whitney remained where she was, her cheek resting against the solid, comforting wall of his chest.

"Feel better now?" he murmured.

Whitney nodded sheepishly and accepted his proffered handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes. "I can't remember crying after I was twelve years old, but since I came back here a few weeks ago, it seems as if I'm forever weeping." Glancing op, Whitney surprised a look of panted regret in his eyes. "May I ask you something?" she said softly.

"Anything," Clayton replied.

"Within your power, and within reason, of course," Whitney reminded him with a teary half smile.

He accepted her mild jibe with an amused inclination of his head.

"Whatever made you do this Gothic thing?" she asked him quietly, without rancor. "Whatever made you come to my father, without speaking to me first, scarcely knowing me?" Although there was no change in his expression, Whitney felt his muscles tense, and she quickly explained, "I'm only trying to understand what you could have been thinking of. We didn't get along well at the Armands' masquerade. I mocked your title and rebuffed your advances, yet you decided you wanted to marry me, of all people. Why me?" "Why do you think I chose you?" "I don't know. No man offers for a woman merely to make her miserable and ruin her life, so you must have had another reason."

Despite the unintended insult in her words, Clayton grinned. She was letting him hold her, and he was feeling extremely tolerant. "You can't condemn me for wanting you, unless you condemn every other man who has. And arranged marriages may be Gothic, but they have been a custom in the best families for centuries."

Whitney sighed. "In yours perhaps, but not in mine. And I can't believe that in those marriages there wasn't at least a chance that both people would eventually come to like one another, even to develop an affection for each other."

"Can you honestly say that you haven't occasionally felt a liking for me?" he persisted gently. "Even against your will?" There was no mockery or challenge in his tone to justify an argumentative denial, and Whitney's innate fairness prevented her from attacking without provocation. She shrugged uncomfortably and looked away. "Occasionally." "But always against your will?" Clayton teased. In spite of herself, Whitney smiled. "Against my will, and against my better judgment." His eyes warmed and Whitney cautiously changed the subject. "You promised to tell me why you wanted to marry me, and you haven't."

"How could I have known when I came here that you would set out to despise me the moment you saw me?" he countered.

"Clayton!" Whitney burst out, then froze in surprise at the sound of her voice using his given name. Hastily, she corrected her error. "My lord duke-" "I liked it much better the other way." "My lord duke," she persisted stubbornly as the quiet intimacy of their truce began to crumble, "you answer all my questions with questions! What in heaven's name possessed you to come here and offer for me?" At last Whitney realized that his arms were around her, and she jerked away. "And don't bother trying to tell me that you thought you loved me."

"I didn't," Clayton agreed equably. "As you have just pointed out, I hardly knew you at the time."

Whitney turned her back on him, unable to understand why his answer hurt her. "Wonderful!" she said bitterly. "Now it is all perfectly clear. You met me a tune or two and, knowing nothing about me-caring nothing about me-you came to England and purchased me from my greedy, penniless father, who drove a sound bargain and then sent for me to hand me over to you!" She swung around, ready-eager- for battle, but Clayton simply stood there, calm and impervious, refusing to take up the gauntlet.

In angry despair, Whitney sank back down into the chair she'd occupied earlier, and picked up the cards. "This is solitaire," she said, dismissing him as she resumed the game she'd left unfinished. "It's all the rage in France, but it can only be played by one person "

Clayton watched her. "In this instance, my lady, it would seem to require two." Leaning down he deftly made four obvious plays which Whitney had overlooked because Cuthbert had been hanging over her shoulder.

"Thank you," Whitney said. "But I would rather play this alone."

Turning, he went to the door, and Whitney thought he was finally leaving. Instead he spoke to a servant in a tow tone, and a moment later he came back to the table and placed an intricately carved rosewood box, belonging to her father, before her. Flipping up the lid, he exposed stacks of wooden chips. Whitney recognized them as the same sort of chips which Uncle Edward and his friends used when they gambled at cards.

A quiver of excitement shot through her as she realized that Clayton apparently intended to teach her how to use them. What a shocking, scandalous thing for him even to contemplate. .. but it was such an intriguing idea that Whitney made no protest. She watched as Clayton shrugged out of his jacket and draped it carelessly over her father's desk. Sitting down across from her, he unbuttoned his gray waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, and inclined his head toward the deck of cards. "Deal," he said.

Whitney was so nervous about the severe breach of propriety she was committing, that she knew she'd never be able to shuffle the cards properly. She gathered them together and pushed the deck toward Clayton. Fascinated, she watched the cards spring to life in his hands, flying into place with a whoosh and a snap as he shuffled them. Her voice was tinged with reluctant admiration. "I'll bet you're acquainted with every gaming hall in London."

"Intimately," he agreed. Palming the deck face down on the table, he raised a dark, challenging brow at her. "Cut the cards," he said.

Whitney hesitated, trying unsuccessfully to maintain a cool, disdainful attitude toward him, but how could she when he looked so outrageously handsome and elegantly dissolute? Lounging nonchalantly in that chair, with his waistcoat open at the front, he was the personification of the well-bred gentleman at the gaming table-and he was going to teach her how to play. Besides, she knew in her heart that he was trying to cheer her and distract her from her troubles. "I hope you know," she said, leaning forward, her hand hovering uncertainly over the deck, "that if anyone sees me doing this, my reputation will be destroyed."

Clayton gave her a long, meaningful look. "A duchess can do as she pleases."

"I am not a duchess," Whitney returned.

"But you're going to be," be said with absolute finality.

Whitney opened her mouth to argue, but he nodded toward the deck. "Cut the cards."

Gambling, Whitney thought two hours later as she stacked the chips away, made one feel deliriously wicked and decadent. Despite her unfamiliarity with the games, she had played very well and lost only a little money. She sensed that Clayton was proud of how quickly she learned, yet any other gentleman of her acquaintance, even Nicki, would have been horrified that she seemed to possess such a penchant for gaming. Why, she wondered absently, watching Clayton button his waistcoat and pull on his jacket, did he admire in her the very things that would shock or intimidate her other suitors? When she was with Paul, she had to be very careful to stay well within the bounds of feminine propriety, yet Clayton seemed to tike her best when she was being her most outrageously impertinent self. If Paul knew she had gambled at cards, he would be shocked and displeased, yet Clayton had taught her to play and grinned at her in open admiration when she did it well.

Her thoughts scattered as Clayton leaned over her chair and pressed a light kiss on her upturned forehead. "We'll go for a drive tomorrow at 11 o'clock if the weather permits," he said. And he left.

Dr. Hugh Whitticomb was seated before the fire enjoying a glass of his host's excellent brandy when Clayton returned. "How did you find my young patient?" he asked with pretended casualness as Clayton poured himself a nightcap.

Sitting down, Clayton propped his feet on the low table between them, and gazed dispassionately at the physician. "I found her much the same as you probably did this afternoon -standing on her own two feet."

"You don't sound very pleased about it," Dr. Whitticomb remarked evasively.

"I found her," Clayton clarified with a grim smile, "receiving a proposal of marriage from one of her cousins."

Dr. Whitticomb made an impressive show of choking upon his brandy while he struggled to keep his face straight. "I can understand how that might have surprised you."

"I have long passed the point where anything Whitney does surprises me," he said, but his irritated tone completely denied his philosophical words.

After a moment's hesitation, Dr. Whitticomb said, "I am a detached observer and not inexperienced in dealing with the female mind. If you will pardon the presumption of an old family friend, perhaps I might be able to offer some advice?" Taking the duke's silence for consent, Dr. Whitticomb continued, "I have already gathered that Miss Stone wants something you aren't wilting to give her. What is it that she wants?"

"What she wants," Clayton replied sardonically, "is to be released from the betrothal contract."

Dr. Whitticomb gave a bark of horrified laughter. "My God! No wonder she glowered at me when I offered subtle suggestions on how she ought to comport herself in order to keep you." Conflicting thoughts chased across his mind- amazement that the young lady could find fault with an offer from England's most eligible, most sought after bachelor; admiration for Clayton's patience in dealing with her rebellion; and bewilderment over why the most eagerly awaited betrothal announcement in a decade was being kept hushed. "What objection does the lovely widgeon have to your offer?" he said finally.

Leaning his head against the back of his chair, Clayton closed his eyes and sighed. "That I neglected to consult her first."

"I can't see why she should fault you for that. But then, knowing her independent temperament as you must have done, why didn't you consult with her first?"

Clayton opened his eyes. "Since she didn't even know my name at the time, I felt that it might be awkward to discuss marriage with her."

"She didn't know your . . . You can't mean to tell me that with half the females in Europe throwing themselves at you, you offered for a young woman you didn't even know!"

"I knew her. She did not know me."

"And you automatically assumed that once she learned of your wealth and title, she would naturally consent," Dr. Whitticomb speculated, his eyes dancing with amusement. The duke's quelling frown temporarily silenced him. "Who," he asked as a sudden, unsettling recollection struck him, "is Paul Sevarin?"

Clayton scowled. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I stopped in the village this afternoon after seeing Miss Stone, and spoke with the apothecary. He's a chatty fellow-the sort who tells you everything you didn't ask before he answers a simple question, and follows that with half a dozen questions of his own. Eventually he discovered the name of my patient, and he said some things which at the time I dismissed as nonsense."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that this Sevarin has been dangling after Miss Stone in earnest, and the village seems to be hanging on tenterhooks in expectation of a betrothal announcement. They seem to think the betrothal has already been arranged, and is entirety pleasing to Sevarin and your future wife."

"Frankly," Clayton drawled, "I don't give a blessed damn."

"About the gossip?" Hugh Whitticomb persisted carefully. "Or about Sevarin? Or about the girl?" When Clayton didn't answer, Hugh leaned forward and asked bluntly. "Are you, or are you not, in love with that young woman?"

"I am going to marry her," Clayton said stonily. "What else is there to say?" With that, he bid his guest good night and in four long strides, quit the room, leaving Hugh Whitticomb gazing at the fire in amazed alarm. After a moment, however, the physician's expression cleared. He began to chuckle and then he laughed aloud. "God help him." He chortled. "He doesn't realize he loves her. And even if he did, he wouldn't admit it."

In his small bedroom, Clayton jerked off his jacket, flinging it onto a chair. His waistcoat followed. Loosening the top buttons of his shirt, he stalked over to the window and jammed his hands into his pockets.

He was furious that the villagers believed a betrothal had already been arranged. True, he had wanted Whitney to have the satisfaction of showing them that she could make Sevarin pursue her, but he had never dreamed things would go this far. Whitney had never been betrothed to any man but him, and he would not allow anyone to think otherwise. She didn't love Sevarin, regardless of what she thought. She simply had some idiotic notion, some girlish dream, of winning him away from the Ashton girl.

She didn't love him either, but Clayton wasn't concerned about that. "Love" and all the obsessive behavior associated with it, was an absurd emotion. He was amazed that Hugh

Whitticomb had mentioned the word to him tonight. No one in his set ever professed to feeling anything stronger than a "tendre" or a lasting attachment even for their spouses. Love was a silly, romantic notion that had no place in his life.

Much of his anger evaporated as he considered the last few hours with Whitney. He could sense that she was slowly yielding to him. She had sought the comfort of his embrace of her own accord, and she had even admitted to a fondness for him. All that really stood between them now was her fading absorption with Paul Sevarin, and her understandable resentment over the way her stupid father had told her of her betrothal to Clayton. Just thinking of that night infuriated Clayton. Because of Stone's callous insensitivity, Clayton had been deprived of the pleasure of courting and winning Whitney. Despite its turbulent ups and downs, he had been enjoying his bizarre courtship, including Whitney's haughty rejections. She made him work to gain an inch, but each gain was a heady victory, more meaningful because it was so hard-won.

Yet there were times lately when his patience almost lost out in the battle against his desire. When she sniped at him and sparred with him, it took his last ounce of restraint not to snatch her into his arms and subdue her rebellion with his hands and mouth. He was neglecting his estates and his business interests, yet just when he decided that she would have to accustom herself to their betrothal after they were married, she'd look at him with those unbelievably green eyes of hers, and he could not quite bring himself to exert the power he held over her by forcing her to marry him.

Sighing, Clayton turned away from the window. Not for a moment did he ever doubt that Whitney would marry him. She would marry him either willingly, or unwillingly. In the latter case, the balance of their courtship and combat would have to take place in his bed.