Whitney, My Love

Chapter Twenty-four

CLAYTON TOSSED THE REPORTS HIS BROTHER HAD ASKED HIM TO read onto the opposite seat of his coach and leaned his head back, impatient with himself for returning to the village a day ahead of schedule.

The horses slowed as they neared the cobbled street of the village, and he leaned sideways, glancing out the window. Heavy clouds roiled overhead, nearly obliterating the struggling sunlight of the early Saturday afternoon. The road through the village was temporarily rendered impassable by an overturned wagon and several abandoned vehicles whose owners were trying to right the wagon and catch the fleeing sheep. "McRea!" he called irritably, "when we get close to that snarl, stop and lend a hand. Otherwise we'll be here all day."

"Aye, your grace," McRea called from his perch atop the coach.

Clayton glanced at his watch and his mouth twisted with wry derision. He was behaving like a besotted idiot, racing back here a day early. Driven by a ridiculous eagerness to see Whitney, he had left his brother's house at six o'clock this morning and headed straight here, instead of spending the day in London as he'd originally planned. For seven hours, he'd been travelling as if his life depended upon reaching her, stopping only to change horses. He should never have given her this week by herself, he told himself for the hundredth time. Instead of offering her solitude, he should have offered her firm but gentle moral support. By now she had probably worked herself into a fresh fit of rebellion because he had forced her to turn down Sevarin. What a stubborn little fool she was to persist in believing she loved that weakling. A beautiful, spirited, magnificent little fool. If she cared a snap for Sevarin, she could never respond to his own caresses the way she did.

Clayton's loins tightened as he recalled the way she had j kissed him and pressed herself against him after the Rutherfords' ball when he took her back to the Archibalds'. The champagne had loosened her maidenly inhibitions, but the sweet desire she felt for him had been there for many weeks. She wanted him, and if she weren't so damned stubborn, and so young, she would have known it long ago. She wanted him all right-and he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his Me. He wanted to fill her days with joy and her nights with pleasure, until she loved him as much as he loved her.

Loved her? Clayton scowled darkly at the thought, and then with a long, derisive sigh, he admitted the truth to himself. He was in love with Whitney. At four and thirty years of age, after more women and more affairs than he wanted to count, he had fallen victim to an outrageously impertinent, gorgeous girl-woman who blithely incurred his displeasure, mocked his title, and flatly refused to yield to his authority. Her smile warmed his heart and her touch heated his blood; she could enchant, amuse and infuriate him as no other woman had ever been able to do. He couldn't imagine his future without her at his side.

Having admitted all that to himself, Clayton was even more eager to reach her, to feast his eyes on her again and hold her in his arms, to hear her musical voice and to know the exquisite sensation of her slender, voluptuous body curved against his.

McRea pulled the coach to a stop in front of the apothecary's shop and climbed down to help capture the last of the loose sheep and put them in the righted wagon. Unable to endure the confinement of the coach any longer, Clayton climbed down and joined the knot of spectators who were watching the men scrambling after the loose sheep. A smile touched his lips as the baker made a frantic lunge for one of the woolly beasts, missed his target, and plowed into another villager who had just captured one.

"Quite a comic spectacle, isn't it?" Mr. Oldenberry said, coming out of his shop to stand beside Clayton and the other onlookers. "You've missed the real excitement though," he added with a sly poke in the ribs. "Whole town is buzzing with the news. Betrothals," he added.

"Really," Clayton said indifferently, his attention on the wagon which was finally being pulled from the street.

"Yes, indeed," Mr. Oldenberry said. "You won't be able to felicitate the brides-to-be, though; they're both in London." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "Personally, I thought the Stone girl would choose you, but she's wanted Mr. Sevarin forever and now she got him. They're betrothed. No sooner did I hear that than Miss Ashton announced her betrothal to Mr. Redfern. Amazing how nothing seems to happen and then-"

Clayton's head jerked toward the speaker, and Mr. Olden-berry's voice froze at the murderous look in those gray eyes. In a low, deadly voice, Clayton said, "What did you say?"

"I-I said Miss Stone and Miss Ashton both got themselves betrothed while you were gone."

"You're lying or you're mistaken."

Mr. Oldenberry stepped back from the furious blast of those gray eyes and hastily shook his head. "No-no, I'm not. Ask anyone in the village, and they'll tell you it's true. Miss Stone and Miss Ashton both left here yesterday morning within an hour of each other. On their way to shop for wedding finery in London-Mrs. Ashton told me so herself," Mr. Oldenberry reassured a little desperately. "Miss Stone is staying with Lady Archibald and Miss Ashton with her grandparents," he added to prove how fully informed he was.

Without a word, Clayton turned on his heel and headed toward the coach.

Mr. Oldenberry turned to his fellow villagers who had gathered to watch the sheep being captured and remained to eavesdrop on his conversation with Mr. Westland. "Did you see the look he gave me when I told him Miss Ashton was in London buying her wedding finery?" he asked them, his eyes glazed with awe. "And all this time I thought he fancied the Stone girl."

"The Stone estate," Clayton snapped at McRea and leapt into the coach.

As they pulled up before Whitney's house, a footman ran out. "Where is Miss Stone?" Clayton said, his icy voice checking the servant's hand as he reached out to lower the steps.

"In London, sir," the footman replied, stepping back.

Before the horses came to a full stop in front of his temporary residence, Clayton flung open the coach door, and vaulted out. "Have fresh horses pat to," fee snapped at his astonished coachman. "And be ready to leave for London in ten minutes." Rage boiled inside of Clayton like fiery acid, destroying his tender feelings for her. To think that while he was racing back to her like a besotted fool, she was in London buying her trousseau, which-he reminded himself with a fresh surge of blazing wrath-he was paying for!

"Damn her conniving little heart!" Hs ground the words om savagery as he swiftly changed his clothing. As soon as he could get a special license, he was going to drag her to the altar, by the hair if necessary.

No, by God, he wouldn't get a special license! Why the hell should he wait for that? He'd haul her to Scotland tonight and marry her there. When they came back, she could endure the scandal of an elopement as her punishment for deceiving him.

Bitterly, he cursed himself for having denied himself the pleasure of her body because he was waiting and hoping she would admit she wanted to marry him. The hell with what she wanted! From now on things were going to be the way he wanted them. Henceforth, Whitney could either bend to his will or he'd break her to it-and he didn't give a damn which way she chose to have it.

Precisely ten minutes later, after changing his clothes, he bounded out of the house and hurled himself back into the coach. Clayton endured the long trip back to the city in alternate states of deadly calm and barely leashed fury. It was after midnight when the horses drew to a stop in front of the brightly lit Archibald house where a party was obviously in progress.

"Wait here. I'll be right out," he snapped at the coachman, and as Clayton stalked swiftly up the steps to the front door, the rage boiling inside of him turned to cold, hard resolve. He had been cuckolded by a spiteful, willful brat! Brat? She was worse, much worse than that. She was a scheming, lying bitch! He thought murderously as he strode past the astonished butler toward the music and laughter.

The chilly night air cooled Whitney's heated face as she turned a dazzling, artificial smile on the gentlemen who had followed her out onto Emily's terrace where she had fled to escape the overcrowded ballroom. Despite her bright smile, her green eyes were somber as they scanned the milling crowd indoors, searching hopelessly for Clayton, even though she knew it was too late now for him to arrive. Perhaps he hadn't gotten her invitation; perhaps he had gone directly to her home without stopping in London. Whitney shivered, wishing she hadn't written to Aunt Anne and suggested that she make her postponed visit to her relatives, since Whitney had everything under control in London. She should have waited until Clayton had acknowledged receiving her note.

No, she decided miserably, Clayton's secretary had been very positive about his employer's travel plans. There was no point in deceiving herself; Clayton had cavalierly ignored her invitation. Her indignation gave way to deep hurt.

She had worn her hair loose about her shoulders because Clayton had said he liked it best that way. She had even dressed especially to please him in an alluring ivory satin gown heavily embellished with pearls. She had done everything to please him, and he hadn't even bothered to come or to decline her invitation.

Perilously close to tears, Whitney tried to convince herself that this aching disappointment she felt was merely because she had finally gathered the courage to tell Clayton that she would willingly marry him whenever he wished, but her lonely dejection sprang from something much deepen she had missed him. She had been longing to see his smile, to be able to teU him she was surrendering in this battle of wills that had raged between them, and then to have him take her in his arms and kiss her. She had hoped tonight would be a beginning for them. Whitney blinked back her tears and determined to enjoy what was left of her ravaged evening.

Clayton nodded curtly to those few guests with whom he was acquainted, while he waited like a panther, watching for a glimpse of his prey. He saw DuVille going toward the terrace doors, carrying two glasses of champagne. Clayton's eyes tracked him across the room, his jaw clenching into a tight line of rage when he saw Whitney standing outside on the terrace, surrounded by at least half a dozen men.

With deceptive casualness, Clayton strolled toward them. His eyes turned icy with contempt when he realized that the men were pretending to play musical instruments while his "betrothed" was giving a charming little imitation of leading them with her invisible baton. The role, Clayton thought scathingly, was eminently suited to her-leading men on. He was about to let himself out the doors beside the ones through which DuVille had just gone, when a detaining hand was laid on his arm,

"What a pleasant surprise to find you here," Margaret Merryton said.

All Clayton's attention was riveted on Whitney. He started to pull his arm away, but Margaret's fingers tightened. "Disgraceful, isn't she?" she remarked, following the direction of his gaze.

Thirty-four years of strict adherence to certain rules of etiquette could not be completely disregarded, and Clayton turned, albeit angrily, to acknowledge the woman who was addressing him-except he was so furious that it took several moments for nun even to identify her. Too angry to attempt to hide his insulting lack of recognition, Clayton stared blankly into her worshipful hazel eyes while their expression changed from adoration to insulted hatred. Laughter burst from the terrace and Clayton's head jerked in the direction of the sound.

Margaret's hand tightened convulsively on his arm as she looked toward Whitney Stone, and wounded pride hoarsened her voice. "If you're so eager to have her, go and get her. You needn't worry about DuVille or Paul Sevarin. Neither of them will ever actually marry her."

"Why is that?" Clayton demanded, pulling his arm away.

"Because Paul has just discovered what M. DuVille has known for years-neither of them was her first!" She saw Clayton's face blanche and the muscle leaping in his, clenched jaw. Turning on her heel, she hissed brokenly over her shoulder, "In case you're interested, a stableboy was the first! That's why she was seat to France."

Something shattered inside of Clayton, splintering his emotions from all rational control. At another time, he would have shrugged off Margaret's words, for he was well enough acquainted with female jealousy to recognize it when he saw it. But this wasn't another time. This was the day he had realized that Whitney had been playing me for a fool, that she was a treacherous liar.

He paused, waiting while DuVille departed, then he reached down, grasped the handle of the door and jerked it open. He stepped onto the terrace directly behind Whitney just as one of her drunken admirers dropped to one knee.

"Miss Stone," the young man joked, his words slightly slurred. "It occurs to me that two talented 'musicians' such as you and I ought. . . ought to form a permanent duet. May I have the honor of your arm . . . no, your hand in…" Suddenly he stopped and swallowed audibly, his alarmed gaze fixed on something behind Whitney.

Dissolving with laughter at the young man's comic antics, Whitney glanced over her shoulder, then half turned toward Clayton. Happiness soared through her and she smiled joyously at him, but Clayton's attention was frozen on poor Carlisle, who was still kneeling on one leg.

"Get up!" Clayton snarled. With withering sarcasm he added, "If you intend to request Miss Stone's hand in marriage, you will have to wait until she grows another. At present, she has only two, and she has already pledged them both." With that he caught Whitney's wrist in a vice-like grip and turned on his heel, dragging her with him.

Whitney ran, trying to keep up with him as he strode around the wide balcony and down the front steps to his coach waiting below a street lamp.

"Stop this, you're hurting me!" she panted, stumbling on the hem of her gown and falling halfway to her knees. Clayton jerked her up with such cruel force that a pain shot from her wrist to her shoulder blade, then he snapped a command at his driver, grabbed her by the waist and flung her into the coach.

"How dare you!" Whitney hissed, angry and embarrassed at being so ignominiously hauled from Emily's house, and then manhandled to boot. "Who do you think you are?" The horses bolted from the curb and the coach lurched violently, sending Whitney reeling against the back of her seat

"Who do I think I am?" Clayton jeered. "Why, 1 am your owner. By your own words, your father sold you, and ' bought you."

Whitney stared at him, her mind in a complete turmoil. She couldn't imagine why Clayton was so angry over Carlisle's mock proposal when he'd interrupted her cousin, Cuthbert, in the midst of a serious one, and had been laughingly good-natured about it. She had believed that tonight would be a time for sweet reconciliation between them, and it was harshly disconcerting to now find herself the target of Clay-ton's fury instead of his ardor.

Even so, she was absurdly happy that he hadn't ignored her invitation, and she couldn't really blame him for losing his temper when he discovered yet another gentleman offering marriage to her. Very gently, she said, "Mr. Carlisle was quite foxed, you see, and his proposal was only a joke. He-"

"Shut up!" Clayton snapped. His head twisted toward her, and for the first time, in the flickering light of the coach lamp, Whitney actually saw the savage, scorching fury that was emanating from the man beside her. His handsome jaw was taut with rage, his mouth was drawn into a ruthless, forbidding line, and his expression was filled with cold loathing. His contemptuous eyes raked over her . . . and then he turned his head away, as if he couldn't stomach the sight of her.

Never in her life had Whitney witnessed such controlled, menacing fury, nor had anyone ever looked at her with such scathing contempt, not even her father. She had hoped so much to see laughter, or warmth, or affection in those penetrating, soul-searching gray eyes of his tonight; she had never imagined he could look at her with this alarming, malicious hatred. Her shock faded to hurt, and very slowly, the first glimmerings of fear were born in her heart. Silently, she stared out the window until the lights of the city began to glimmer less frequently and the long stretches of lonely darkness lengthened. "Where are you taking me?" she asked unsteadily. He was coldly silent. "Clayton?" she almost begged. "Where are we going?"

Clayton turned and stared down at her beautiful, frightened face. He wanted to put his hands around her slender white throat and strangle her for defiling her body with other men, for betraying his own love and trust, and for finally calling him "Clayton" now, when he knew her for what she was-a "lying, deceiving liitle bitch who had freely shared her lush, ripe body with any rutting pig who asked her to. He tore his mind from thoughts of her coupling with other men and, without answering her question, pointedly looked away.

Whitney tried to combat her mounting alarm by concentrating on where they were and in which direction they were travelling. North! she realized as they turned off the main road. They were heading north. Now she was frantic. Drawing a quick breath, she swallowed what was left of her pride and said, "I was going to tell you that I'm willing to marry you. It isn't necessary to take me to Scotland to marry me. I'll-"

"Not necessary to marry you?" Clayton interrupted with a short, bitter laugh. "So I have heard. However, I have no desire to elope, nor have I any intention of pushing my horses much further. They've already chased across half of England today in pursuit of you."

Abruptly, the coach turned west onto a smooth, but less traveled road, at the same moment the full import of his words slammed into her. If he'd been on the road all day "in pursuit" of her, then he must have returned to the village today and heard the gossip about her betrothal to Paul. Pleadingly, Whitney laid her hand on his arm. "I can explain about Paul. You see-"

His fingers clamped down on her slim hand, wringing a gasp of pain from her. "I'm delighted that you're so eager to touch me," he drawled sarcastically, "because in a short while, you are going to have an opportunity to do exactly that." Distastefully he removed her hand from his arm and dropped it into her lap. "However, since this is not the place for you to demonstrate your affection, you will have to control your passions until then."

"Control my-?" Whitney gasped, and then hopefully she blurted, "Are you foxed?"

His lips twisted with cynical amusement "I am not drunk, so you needn't worry that I will be unable to perform …" He emphasized the last word, making it sound ominous. Then almost pleasantly he added, "You should sleep now. You've a long and exhausting night ahead of you."

Frightened by his taunting and hurt by the disgusted revulsion in his eyes whenever he looked at her, Whitney tore her gaze from his. She had no idea what he was talking about. She was on the verge of hysterical terror, and he was sitting here telling her to control her passions, assuring her that he would be able to "perform." In the darkness of the coach, the vulgar crudity of his remark finally penetrated the turbulent agitation of her mind, and her eyes grew huge with fear. Now she understood his plans!

Whitney searched the starlit night for sign of a village, a house, anywhere she could seek refuge. There were a few lights up ahead on her side of the road-a posting house or an inn, she thought. She didn't know what kind of injury she would sustain by jumping from the coach and she didn't care, so long as she would be able to get up and run . . . run to the lights beside the road.

Biting her trembling lower lip, Whitney inched her hand cautiously along her skirts toward the handle that would open the door. She stole a final, parting look at the granite profile of the man beside her and felt as if something were dying within her.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to clear them of the burning tears that would blind her when she hurtled from the coach. She edged her fingertips along the padded leather of the door until they closed around the hard, cold metal of the handle. A few more seconds until they were even with the open gates of the inn yard, and the horses slowed against the strain of the incline. Whitney's fingers tightened . . . She screamed as Clayton's hand clamped around her arm, jerking her away from the door.

"Don't be so impatient, my sweet. A common roadside inn is hardly the proper setting for our first coupling. Or do you prefer inns for your little trysts?" With a sharp twist of his arm, he flung her onto the seat across from him. "Do you?" he repeated savagely.

With pounding heart, Whitney watched the distance widen between the coach and the inn, and with it went her hope of escape. She couldn't possibly take him by surprise again, nor could she overpower him.

"Personally," Clayton continued almost sociably, "I have always preferred the comforts of my 'dingy' home to the questionable cleanliness and worn bed linen one usually finds in these places."

His cool mockery finally snapped her fragile self-control. "You-you are a bastard!" she burst out.

"If you say so," he agreed indifferently. "And if I am, that makes me eminently well suited to spend the night in bed with a bitch!"

Whitney squeezed her eyes closed and leaned her head back against the seat, trying desperately to bring her emotions under control. Clayton was infuriated about Paul, and somehow she had to explain. Swallowing convulsively, she whispered into the darkness, "Mrs. Sevarin is to blame for the gossip you heard. Despite what you think, as soon as Paul came home, I told him that I couldn't marry him. I couldn't stop the gossip at home, so I went to London-"

"The gossip followed you there, my sweet," he informed her in a silky tone. "Now stop boring me with your explanations."

"But-"

"Shut up," Clayton warned with deadly calm, "or I will change my mind about waiting until we nave a comfortable bed, and I'll take you right here."

Tendrils of fresh terror wrapped themselves around Whitney's heart.

They had been travelling for nearly two hours when the coach slowed and passed through gates of some sort. The dazed exhaustion which had blessedly numbed her mind vanished, and Whitney stiffened, staring out the window at the lights of a large house looming in the far distance.

By the time they pulled up before the house, her heart was hammering so wildly she could scarcely breathe. Clayton climbed down, then reached in and dragged her from the coach.

"I am not going into that house," she cried, writhing and twisting in his grasp.

"It's a little late for you to start trying to protect your virtue," he jeered, swinging her up into his arms. His hands bit into her thigh and waist as he carried her into the dimly lit house and up the endless, curving staircase.

A red-haired maid rushed out onto the balcony and Whitney opened her mouth to cry out, then choked on the cry as Clayton's fingers dug agonizingly into her flesh.

"Go to bed!" he snapped at the woman who watched them pass with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"Please, please stop this!" Whitney begged frantically as he kicked open the door to a bedroom and strode inside. Her mind dimly registered the splendid furnishings and a fire burning in the grate of an enormous fireplace across the room, but the object that claimed all her wild-eyed attention was the large four-poster bed on a dais to which Clayton was carrying her.

He dumped her unceremoniously in the center of the bed, then turned on his heel and headed across the room toward the door. For one relieved moment, Whitney thought he intended to leave. Instead he reached out and rammed the bolt into place with the finality of a death blow.

In a frozen paralysis, she watched him stride past the bed toward the fireplace across the room. He flung himself into one of the sofas at right angles to the fireplace, and minutes passed while he sat there, looking at her as if she were some strange, captive animal, a curiosity, deformed and loathsome to his sight.

The silence was finally shattered by his order rapped out in a cold, unfamiliar voice. "Come here, Whitney."

Whitney's whole body jerked. She shook her head and inched backward along the bed toward the pillows, her gaze flying to the windows, then the other doors. Could she possibly reach one of them before he could stop her?

"You can try," Clayton commented. "But I promise you'll never make it."

Swallowing a panicked sob, Whitney sat straighter, struggling against the hysteria welling up in her throat. "About Paul-"

"Say his name one more time," Clayton lashed out furiously, "and I'll kill you, so help me God!" And then he became frighteningly polite. "You may have Sevarin if he still wants you. But we can discuss all that later. Now, my love, are you going to walk over here to me unaided, or must I come and assist you?"

He lifted a dark brow at her, permitting her a moment to think it over. "Well?" he threatened, half rising from his chair.

Refusing to beg, or to give him the added satisfaction of subduing her, Whitney rose from the bed. She tried to hold her head high, to look scornful and proud, but her knees felt like water. Two paces away from him, her shaking legs refused to move again. She stood there, staring at him with tear-brightened eyes.

He surged to his feet. "Turn around!" he snapped. Before Whitney could utter a protest, he caught her by the shoulders and whipped her around. With one vicious jerk, he ripped her dress down the back and the sound of tearing fabric screamed

in Whitney's ears, while satin-covered buttons scattered across the carpet to shine in the firelight, He turned her back toward him and smiled malevolently. "I own the dress too," he reminded her. He settled back in his chair, stretched his long legs out, and for several moments watched Whitney's clumsy attempts to keep the slippery satin bodice clutched to her breasts. "Drop it!" he ordered.

The satin bodice slid from her fingers and he watched impassively as yards of fine ivory satin swooshed down her hips and slender legs, landing in a heap at her feet.

"The rest?" he said blandly.

Choking on her humiliation, Whitney hesitated, then stepped woodenly out of the stiff petticoats, standing before him clad only in her thin chemise. He was waiting for her to remove the chemise, Whitney knew-because he intended total nakedness to be her final humiliation. He meant to punish her for the gossip about Paul by terrifying her like this. Well, she was terrified and degraded enough already, punished for whatever she'd done or thought of doing. In mute rebellion, she started to back away.

Clayton was on his feet before she could take the second step. His hand shot out and twisted tightly in the thin fabric at the neckline of her chemise, drawing it taut over her thrusting breasts. Her chest rising and tailing in rapid, harsh breaths, she stared down at the strong, well-manicured hand at her breasts, the same hand that had once caressed her with gentle passion. Abruptly the hand tightened and with one sharp jerk he split the thin garment in two, flinging it away from her body. "Get into the bed," he ordered coldly.

Desperate to hide her nakedness, Whitney fled to the big four-poster and quickly pulled the sheets up to her chin, as if they could protect her from him. In a blur of unreality, she saw Clayton strip off his jacket. He unbuttoned his shut and pulled it off, and she stared blindly at the rippling muscles of his powerful shoulders and arms. When his hands went to the waistband of his pants, Whitney twisted her head to the wall and squeezed her eyes closed. His footsteps bore down on the bed, and she opened her eyes to see him towering menacingly above her.

"Don't cover yourself from me!" He caught the sheets and tore them from her clenched fists. "I want to see what I paid so handsomely for." Pain slashed across his features as his gaze swept over her naked body, then his jaw hardened.

In a shivering trance of fear, Whitney stared at his hard, ruthless face while her tortured mind superimposed other, gentle memories of him. She saw him bending over her the day she fell from her horse, his face white with alarm. She saw him gazing tenderly into her eyes the day she had kissed him near the stream-"My God you are sweet" he had whispered. She thought of the night he had taught her to gamble with cards and chips. She remembered the way he had stood beside her only a few nights ago at the Rutherfords' and proudly introduced her as his fiancee.

Aunt Anne had been right; Clayton did love her. Love and possessiveness were driving him to do this terrible thing to her-she had driven him to it, by denying her feelings for him for so long, by her blind determination to marry Paul, He was deliberately compromising her so that she would have no choice except to marry him and not Paul. He loved her, and in return she had caused this proud man to become an object of public ridicule.

The bed shifted beneath his weight as he stretched out beside her, and Whitney's fear gave way to a deep, shattering remorse. Her eyes aching with unshed tears, she turned her face to his and hesitantly laid her trembling fingers against his rigid jaw. "I-I'm sorry," she whispered chokily. "I'm so sorry."

His eyes narrowed, then he leaned toward her, his weight supported on an elbow, his free hand gliding over her bare arm to boldly cup her breast. "Show me," he invited, teasing her nipple with his thumb. "Show me how sorry you are."

Overriding the shrieking protest of her conscience, Whitney complied, letting his fingers send shooting sensations from her breast to the pit of her stomach. She didn't struggle She was prepared to show him she was sorry-she was prepared to let him do this to her.

His mouth came down on hers, parting her lips in a deep, languorous kiss, and Whitney tried to kiss him back with all the love and contrition in her aching heart. "You're very lovely, my sweet," he murmured as his hands began boldly to explore her body. "But then I suppose you've heard that before." His mouth burned a hot trail down her throat to the pink tips of her full breasts, his tongue teasing, flicking and then circling. Suddenly his lips closed tightly around her nipple, drawing hard, and Whitney gasped with startled pleasure. Instantly his hand moved down her thighs, then up between them to cover the soft mound of hair and she gave a leap of instinctive shock. He ignored her, his questing fingers parting her and then intimately exploring her, sending melting, tingling sensations racing along her raw nerve endings.

Nuzzling her neck, he continued the arousing movement of his hand against her most sensitive place, his skillful fingers moving with unerring certainty to linger and teasingly caress the precise places where his touch could send shock waves of desire shooting through her.

Whitney yielded helplessly to the hot, searing need he was expertly building within her, while a nameless panic slowly began to grip her. Something was different, wrong, in the way he was kissing her, touching her! For a man driven by possessive, unrequited love, his kisses lacked his usual smoldering ardor, his caresses were without tender urgency . . .

His fingers moved within her and she moaned in her throat.

"So you like that, do you?" he taunted in a low whisper, then he stopped. "I don't want you to enjoy this too much, my love," he explained abruptly and shifted his weight on top of her, wedging his knee between her legs. He grasped her hips, lifting them, at the same moment the cynical inflection in his voice pierced the thick, sensual haze engulfing her. Her eyes flew open. She saw his harsh, bitter expression just as Clayton drew back and then rammed himself full-length into her tight, virginal passage. Searing pain ripped through her and she screamed, burying her face in her hands, her back arching. Above her a savage curse exploded from Clayton's chest. He withdrew, and she stiffened hysterically, trying to brace herself for the next agonizing pain that would come when he entered her again . . .

But the pain never came; he remained withdrawn, motionless.

Whitney's hands fell limply from her face. Through a blurring haze of tears, she saw him above her. Clayton's head was thrown back, his eyes clenched shut, his features a mask of tortured anguish. As she stared at his ravaged face, her body jerked with suppressed sobs until the burden of holding them back was more than she could bear. She wanted to be held, to be comforted, and irrationally, she sought this comfort from her own tormentor. Shuddering on a lonely, convulsive cry, Whitney reached her arms up around Clay-ton's powerful shoulders and drew him down against her.

With aching gentleness, Clayton gathered her into his arms, and shifted to lie beside her. Without a word, she turned her face into his bare chest and wept, cried her heart out in harsh, racking sobs that shook her slender body with such violence that Clayton thought they would surely tear her apart. He lay there, holding her defiled, naked body cradled against him, stroking the rumpled silk of her hair, while he punished himself with the sound of her muffled weeping, lashed himself with the tears that poured from her eyes and drenched his chest.

"I-I told Paul I-I wouldn't marry him," Whitney cried brokenly. "The gossip w-wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't that, little one," Clayton whispered, his voice raw with emotion. "I'd never have done this to you for that."

"Then why did you?" she choked.

Clayton expelled a ragged breath. "I thought you'd lain with him. And with others."

Abruptly Whitney's crying subsided. Clutching the sheet to her naked breasts, she reared up on an elbow and stared at him with scornful green eyes. "Oh you did, did you!" she hissed, and tore herself from his embrace, rolling over onto her other side to face the wall. The bewildered terror that had seized her in the coach evaporated, along with her belief that he loved her. In a blinding flash of sick humiliation, she understood that he had done this to degrade her; his monstrous pride had demanded this unspeakable revenge for some imagined crime. Bile rose in her throat as she realized that she had submitted to him without struggling. He hadn't deceived her, she had deceived herself. He hadn't stolen her virtue, she had given it to him! She had given it to him. Drowning in shame and self-loathing, she struggled to pull the heavy bedcovers up to cover herself.

Clayton saw her and reached across to draw them tenderly over her lovely, naked body. Realizing too late that he had just added insult to her injury, he put his hand on her shoulder, gently trying to turn her toward him. "If you'll let me," he implored, "I'd like to explain-"

Furiously, she shrugged his hand off. "I'd like to see you try! But do it by letter, because if you ever come near me or my family again, I'll kill you, I swear I will!" The substance of this brave threat was diminished by the muffled sobs that followed it and seemed to go on forever until she sank into an exhausted slumber.

His grace, Clayton Robert Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore, descendent of five hundred years of nobility, possessor of estates and wealth so vast as to defy comprehension, lay beside the only woman he had ever loved, helpless either to comfort her or regain her.

He stared at the ceiling, seeing her as she had been only hours before, conducting a group of merry, would-be musicians.

How could he have done this to her, when all he had ever wanted to do was pamper and cherish and protect her? Instead he had coldly and deliberately taken her innocence. And in doing so, he had lost more than she had, for he had managed to lose the only thing he had ever really wanted to possess-this one headstrong, beautiful girl lying beside him. Loathing him.

He remembered all the coarse, vulgar things he'd said to her in the coach and in this room. Each degrading word he had spoken, each touch that had hurt her, paraded across his mind bringing a sharp agonizing pain, so he punished himself by going over and over every vicious thing he had said and done to her.

Near dawn, she turned onto her back. Clayton leaned over and tenderly brushed a wayward lock of mahogany hair from her smooth cheek, then he lay back to watch her sleep. Because he knew that this would be the last time Whitney would ever lie beside him.

She awoke the next morning, vaguely aware of a tenderness between her legs and at her waist and thighs. Her lashes fluttered open and she rolled onto her back. Her mind felt sluggish and fuzzy as she glanced with half-closed, sleepy eyes at her surroundings.

She was in a gigantic bed situated on a dais. The immense bedroom was ten times the size of her large bedroom at home, and splendidly furnished. She blinked dazedly at the thick moss-green carpet stretching luxuriously across the vast floor. The entire wall to her left was a sweeping expanse of mullioned glass, and the one across from her had a marble fireplace so large that she could easily have stood up in the opening. The two remaining walls were covered with wide, richly carved rosewood panels and hung with magnificent tapestries. Wearily, Whitney closed her eyes and started to drift back into the peace of slumber. Odd that she would be sleeping in a room that seemed so masculine.

Her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in bed. His bed! His room! Someone opened the door and she cringed backward, clutching the silk sheets to her bare breasts. The diminutive red-haired maid Whitney had seen on the balcony the night before came in carrying Whitney's mended ivory gown and chemise, which she carefully hung over a door that led into a dressing room. As she turned to go, she saw Whitney huddled watchfully in the bed and picked up an elegant lace dressing gown that was draped over a chair. "Good morning, Miss," she said as she approached the bed, and Whitney bitterly noted that the servant showed no surprise at finding a naked woman in her master's bed- obviously, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

"My name is Mary," the maid said in a soft Irish brogue as she extended her arm over which was draped the lace dressing gown. "May I help you up?"

Shamed to the depths of her soul, Whitney took her outstretched hand and climbed unsteadily down from the bed. "Merciful God!" Mary gasped, her ayes riveted on the blood-stained silk sheets. "What did he do to you?"

Whitney smothered a trill of hysterical laughter at the idiocy of the question. "He ruined me!" she choked.

Mesmerized, Mary stared at the blood stains. "He'll pay an awful price for this in the judgment. The Lord'll not forgive this easily-the master being what he is, and knowing better, and you a virgin!" She dragged her eyes from the sheets and led Whitney to a sunken marble bath which adjoined the bedchambers.

"I hope God doesn't forgive him!" Whitney hissed brokenly, stepping into the warm bathwater. "I hope he burns in hell! I wish I had a knife so that I could cut his heart out!" Mary started to soap her back, but Whitney took the cloth from her and began to scrub every part of her body that Clayton had touched. Suddenly her hand froze. What insanity possessed her to climb obediently into this tub when she should be dressed already and planning a way to escape? She clutched at the maid's wrist, her green eyes wild with pleading. "I have to leave before he comes back, Mary. Please help me find some way out of here. You can't believe how badly he hurt me, the things-awful things-he said to me. If I don't get away, he'll-he'll make me do that again."

With confused, sorrowful blue eyes, the maid looked down at Whitney and gently shook her head. "His grace has no wish to enter this room or keep you here. He told me himself that only I am to look after you. The coach is already waiting for you around in front, and when you're dressed, I'm to take you down myself."

Two stories above the main entrance to his house, Clayton stood at the window, waiting for a last glimpse of her. Waiting to make his final farewell. The trees bent and sighed in the wind, bowing deeply to her as she stepped out into a day as bleak and dreary as his soul. Her gown flew about her as she descended the long sweep of steps to the waiting coach, and the wind caught her hair, tumbling it wildly about her.

On the bottom step, Whitney paused and for one agonizing, soul-wrenching moment, Clayton thought that she was going to turn and look up at him. Helplessly he stretched his hand out, longing to slide his knuckles over her soft, silken cheek. But all he touched was a cold pane of glass. As if she sensed somehow that he was watching her, Whitney lifted her head in that regal way of hers, gave it a defiant toss, and without looking back, she stepped into the coach.

The brandy glass Clayton was holding shattered in his clenched hand, and he looked down at the bright red drops oozing from his fingers.

"I imagine you'll be getting poison of the blood now," Mary, standing in the doorway, predicted with a certain amount of satisfaction.

"Unfortunately, I doubt it," Clayton replied flatly.

Whitney huddled in a corner of the coach, her thoughts marching dizzily in a tight circle of shame, misery, and anger. She thought of the vulgar things he had said to her, the businesslike way his hands had moved over her flesh, expertly evoking an unwilling response from her traitorous body.

Bitter bile rose up in her throat, choking her. She wished she were dead-no, she wished he were dead! Last night was only the beginning of the humiliating nightmare she would have to endure. Michael Archibald would undoubtedly insist that Emily send her home, for he would never permit a woman of questionable virtue to associate with his wife. Even if Whitney could convince him that she had been forced to spend the night with Clayton, she would still be just as soiled, just as unfit to be received in polite society.

Fighting down a surge of nausea, Whitney leaned her head back. Somehow, she had to think of a feasible excuse to give the Archibalds to explain why she had been gone all night. Otherwise, she'd be banished from her best friend's company, banished from the company of decent people. She would spend her life in lonely shame with only her father for company.

After nearly an hour, Whitney finally settled on an excuse she could give Michael and Emily; it sounded a little lame, but it might suffice if they didn't question her. Now she felt less afraid, but infinitely more alone, more vulnerable. There was no one to whom she could turn for comfort or understanding.

She could write to Aunt Anne who was staying with a cousin in Lincolnshire, and ask her to come to London. But what could Aunt Anne do except demand that Clayton marry her immediately? What a punishment that would be for him, Whitney thought sarcastically. He'd get precisely what he'd always wanted, and she would be condemned to marriage with a man she would hate for as long as she lived. If Whitney refused to marry Clayton, Aunt Anne would naturally turn to Uncle Edward for advice. When Uncle Edward learned what Clayton had done, he would probably demand that Clayton give him satisfaction, meaning a duel, which must at all cost be avoided. In the first place, duelling was illegal now; in the second, Whitney was terrifyingly certain that that bastard would kill her uncle.

The only other alternative was for Uncle Edward to demand justice through the courts, but a trial and the public scandal attached to it would ruin Whitney for as long as she lived.

And so, here she was, forced to bear her hurt and shame alone, with no way of avenging herself on that devil! But she would think of something, she told herself bracingly. The next time he came near her, she would be ready. The next time he came near her? Whitney's hands grew clammy, and perspiration broke out on her forehead. She would the if he ever came near her again. She would kill herself before she ever let him touch her! If he tried to speak to her, if he touched her, she would start screaming and never be able to stop!

Every servant in the Archibald household seemed to be hovering in the hallways, watching her with secret condemnation when Whitney entered the house. She marched bravely past the butler, three footmen, and a half dozen housemaids with her chin up and her head high. But when she closed the bedroom door behind her, she collapsed against it, her body shaking and her chin quivering. Clarissa descended on her a moment later, bristled up like a maddened porcupine, slamming drawers, muttering under her breath about "shameless hussies" and "slurs on the family name."

Whitney hid her mortification behind a stony expression and jerked off the hated ivory satin gown, self-consciously snatching on a dressing robe when Clarissa's eyes raked suspiciously over her naked body.

"Your poor sweet mother must be spinning in her grave," Clarissa announced, plunking her hands on her ample hips.

"Don't say such ghoulish things," Whitney said wretchedly. "My mother is resting in peace because she knows I've done nothing to be ashamed of."

"Well, it's just too bad the servants in this house don't know that," replied Clarissa, puffing up with ire. "As hoity-toity as royalty they are here. And every one of them is whispering about you!"

Whitney's interview with Emily late that afternoon was even more humiliating. Emily simply sat there, listening attentively to Whitney's lame tale of how the duke had escorted her to another party across town and when the hour had grown too late to return, her unnamed hostess had insisted that Whitney spend the night. At the end of the explanation, Emily nodded her complete, unqualified understanding, but her pretty, honest face reflected a stunned shock that was worse than any accusation she could have made.

Emily went directly to her husband's study and repeated the story to him. "So you see," she said in a determinedly confident voice while anxiously scanning Michael's face, "it was all perfectly innocent and not in the least scandalous. You do believe her explanation, don't you, Michael?" she pleaded.

Michael leaned back in his chair and regarded his young wife levelly. "No," he said quietly, "I don't." He reached out and drew Emily down onto his lap. For a long moment he studied her distraught features, then he said gentry, "But I do believe in you. If you tell me she's innocent, I will believe that."

"I love you, Michael," Emily said simply, her body sagging with relief. Whitney would never do anything indecent, I know it!"

Whitney had dreaded the evening meal, but Emily and her husband seemed perfectly relaxed and natural. In fact, Michael even urged her to remain with them until after Elizabeth's wedding, which was slightly more than a month away. He seemed so sincere, and Emily so eager for her to stay, that Whitney gratefully and happily accepted their invitation. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was to go home to her father and face the rumors of her betrothal to Paul.

But that night, as she lay in bed, loneliness and despair washed over her in a tidal wave. She wished her aunt were here to tell her what to do, but she knew in her heart there was nothing Anne or anyone else could do to help her. She was going to have to bear this alone.

From this day forward, she would always be alone. She could never have a husband or children because no decent man would want her. She was soiled, dirtied, used by another. She had always wanted to have children, but now she couldn't. A painful lump of desolation swelled in her throat.

She didn't want a husband though, she told herself bitterly. She could never care for another man or bear to be touched by his hands. In her whole life, there had been only two men she had wanted to marry: Paul, who was shallow and weak, and Clayton who was-an animal. Paul had only disappointed her, but Clayton had destroyed her, He had insinuated his way into her heart, and then he had used her and thrown her away, sent her home without even an apology!

Tears trickled down Whitney's cheeks and she furiously brushed them away. Clayton Westmoreland had made her cry for the last time! When next they met, she would be hardened and calm. She was through thinking about him; she would never think about last night again.

Despite her resolve, the following days were the most harrowing of Whitney's life. Every time the butler appeared to announce a caller, Whitney's heart leapt with terror that the "caller" was the Duke of Claymore. She longed to tell Emily that she would not be at home to him when he called.

But how could she, when he was an acquaintance of Michael's, and she was a guest in Michael's home? Besides, Emily would want to know why, and that would reopen the topic of Clayton, a topic which Emily had already tried to reopen several times. Which left Whitney with no choice but to cringe and try to steady her nerves every time a visitor arrived at the Archibald residence.

She rarely accompanied Emily out of the house because she was obsessed with the morbid certainty that she could come face to face with Clayton if she did. With each passing day her tension steadily mounted until she felt as if she would go mad with the helpless waiting, the fear and dread.

But she kept the promises she had made to herself almost a week ago. She meticulously refused to think of that hideous, fateful night. And she did not cry.