Whitney, My Love

Chapter Thirty-five

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

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

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

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

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

"Left for where?" Clayton snapped impatiently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clayton slowly walked into his dressing room and opened the leather case where his shirt studs were kept. He took out the ruby ring she had given him and turned it in his fingers so that he could catch the inscription inside. With a ragged sigh he read the two beloved words: "My Lord." He hesitated, torn between putting it on now or waiting until Whitney could place it on his hand as she had the night they were married. She had put the ring on his finger, then she had kissed his hand and held it softly to her cheek. He put the ring on himself-he didn't want to wait any longer.

He felt better now that her ring was on his hand where it belonged, and he sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of nun, slowly sipping brandy white he stared in silence at the big four-poster bed they had shared. He knew he had to come to grips with her betrayal now, before he found her. Otherwise he would take one look at her, and his temper would erupt and destroy them both again.

Very well, Whitney had given herself to another man before their marriage. If he didn't let himself wonder who the man was, it was easier to bear. It was he himself who had deprived Whitney of her virginity, he who had probably driven her into the arms of that other man. So whose fault was it that she had given herself once to someone else in a moment of loneliness and despair? Once. He would allow her that much-one time. With a sigh, Clayton leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Or a hundred times-because no matter what she had done before, he could not face living without her now.

In a state of frenetic restlessness, Clayton rode for miles the next day. He rode Whitney's horse because Khan was something that belonged to her-as Whitney had haughtily reminded him. Ultimately he arrived at the same high ridge where he had brought her the day after she'd come to Claymore. Sitting down, he propped his shoulders against the same tree trunk where he had sat that day with Whitney cradled on his lap. He gazed idly out across the valley where brilliant sunlight danced and glanced off the wide stream that meandered through it.

With one knee drawn up, he idly tapped the side of his boot with his riding crop, remembering how Whitney had wanted to ride down into that valley because she was afraid he was going to try to make love to her. God, that was almost eight months ago. Eight months! Eight of the most glorious, wonderful, tormented, miserable months of his life.

He smiled a little sadly. Eight months. If Whitney had had her way the night she came to Claymore, they would just be getting married in the next week or two. She had insisted she would need eight months to make the wedding preparations and… eight months! Swearing savagely under his breath, Clayton surged to his feet, his mind in a turmoil. Whitney had wanted eight months to prepare for the wedding. Even she was not that naive! If she'd believed she was pregnant, if she'd come to nun because she was, or thought she was, pregnant, she'd never have wanted to wait eight goddamn months.

Hating himself with a virulence that nearly strangled his breathing, Clayton pushed her fleet-legged gelding to the limits of Khan's endurance. Whitney wasn't naive enough to want to wait eight months to get married if she'd thought she was pregnant-but she must have been naive enough to think he could have gotten her with child the night he abducted her. And she was proud enough to consider using that as a ploy to bring him to her. .. and honorable enough to give up the idea and come to him at Claymore herself.

"Cool him down," he snapped at the groom as he flung Khan's reins at the surprised servant and began half running, half walking toward the house. "Tell McRea to have the bays

put to and be out in front in five minutes," he called over his shoulder.

Two hours later, Emily Archibald received a smoothly worded invitation from Clayton, which she correctly construed as an "order" to accompany his servant down to the coach which would carry her to his house in Upper Brook Street She obeyed the summons with a mixture of concern and trepidation.

The butler showed her into a spacious, panelled library at the side of the house where the Duke of Claymore was tending, staring out the windows with his back to her. Ho Emily's surprise, he didn't greet her with any of his usual open friendliness, nor did he turn around and face her as he said in a cool, remote voice, "Shall we indulge in polite trivialities for the next five minutes, or shall I come directly to the point?"

A shiver of fear danced up her spine as he slowly turned and studied her. Never before had Emily seen this Clayton Westmoreland. He was, as always, implacably calm, but now he positively emanated ruthless determination. She stood there, staring at him.

With a brief, almost curt inclination of his head toward the chair beside her, he told her to sit down. Emily sank into the chair, trying to equate this man with the one she had known.

"Since you seem to have no preference, I win come directly to the point. I presume you know why I have asked you here?"

"Whitney?" Emily guessed in a whisper. She gave her head a slight shake and cleared her parched throat.

"Where is she?" he demanded abruptly. And then with a touch of his former gentleness, he added, "I have not approached you before this because I did not want to put you in the position of betraying her confidence, and because I had every reason to believe I could find her through my own sources. Since that hasn't been the case, I am going to have to insist that you tell me."

"But I-I don't know where she is. I never thought to ask her where she was going. I never dreamt she would stay away so long."

A pair of cool gray eyes held hers captive, measuring her response, judging it for truth.

"Please believe me. Now that I've seen you I'd never be so unkind as to keep her from you, if I knew where to find her."

He drew a long breath and nodded slightly, his expression no longer coldly forbidding. "Thank you for that," he said simply, "I'll have my driver take you home."

Emily hesitated, still vaguely intimidated by his aura of command, and yet grateful that he had trusted her enough to accept what she said as truth. "Whitney said you found that awful note." With a whimsical smile she shook her head. "You know, she couldn't quite decide at the time whether to send it to you as 'dear sir* or . . ."

Naked pain flashed across his handsome features, and Emily trailed off into silence. "I beg your pardon-I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Since we seem to have no secrets from one another," he said quietly, "do you mind telling me why Whitney wrote the note in the first place?"

"Well, it was her pride she was trying to save. She hoped, no, preferred, to bring you to her, if possible. And she thought that with a note like that-I suppose it was really terrible of her even to consider it, but. . ."

"The only 'terrible' thing Whitney has ever done in her life was marrying me," Clayton interrupted.

Tears sprang into Emily's hazel eyes as she arose to leave. "That's not true. Whitney adored. . . adores you, your grace.

"Thank you again," he said humbly.

For a long time after Emily left, Clayton stood there, feeling the minutes ticking by and knowing that, as each moment passed, Whitney's hurt and anger would be hardening into hatred.

The Dowager Duchess of Claymore dined quietly with her daughter-in-law that evening, mentally berating her eldest son for his tardiness in coming to fetch his wife, who was growing more lost and forlorn with each day. When Whitney had arrived eight days ago and asked if she could stay here until Clayton had time to think things through and come for her, Alicia Westmorland had considered urging her to return at once to her rightful place beside her husband, insisting upon it, in fact And yet, there was something about Whitney's hurt, determined look that had reminded the dowager duchess of herself, many years before-of Clayton's father striding across her parents' drawing room, where he had found his wife after an absence of four days: "Get into that carriage immediately," he had ordered her. And then, "Please, Alicia." Having thus made her point, Alicia Westmoreland had dutifully and obediently done as she was bidden.

But Whitney had been here for eight days, and Clayton had not made the slightest effort to come for her. Lady Westmoreland wanted grandchildren, and she could not see how she was likely to have any if these two willful, stubborn young people were living miles apart. Really, the entire thing was preposterous! Never had two people loved each other more than they did.

It was over dessert that evening that a thought occurred to the dowager duchess that brought her half out of her chair. Accordingly, she sent word to Stephen in London that very night to present himself to her at the first possible hour the next morning.

"The thing is," she told a frowning, but faintly amused Stephen the next day in a very private meeting with him, "I'm not certain it has occurred to Clayton to come for Whitney here. Assuming he wants to come for her."

Stephen, who had been completely unaware of the arrangement, flashed a wicked grin at his mother. "Darling, this reminds me of some of the tales I've heard about you and Father."

The dowager duchess bent a quelling look upon her completely impervious son and continued, "I want you to find Clayton. I rather imagine he'll be staying at his London house. But find him tonight if you can. Then drop a 'hint' that she is with me-as if you automatically assumed he would know that. Do not let him think he is being urged to come for her. Under those circumstances, I'm certain Whitney would reject any half-hearted effort of his at reconciliation."

"Why don't I just take Whitney back to London with me now and have it whispered about that I'm madly in love with her? That'll draw Clay's fire," Stephen grinned.

"Stephen, don't be flippant; this is serious. Here is what I want you to say . . ."

At seven o'clock that evening, as Clayton lounged in a chair at his club, he was only faintly surprised to look up from his cards and find his brother sitting down across the table from him and stacking his chips as he prepared to join the play. Clayton eyed Stephen with wary friendliness. He didn't want him to ask about Whitney because he couldn't very well explain that he'd "misplaced" his wife, any more than he could ever bear to tell Stephen of the estrangement itself. So it was with a sense of relief that he heard Stephen open the conversation with, "Are you losing or winning tonight, your grace?"

"He's cleaning us all out," Marcus Rutherford answered good-naturedly. "Hasn't had a losing hand in the last hour."

"You look like hell, brother," Stephen remarked in a grinning undertone.

"Thank you," Clayton answered drily as he tossed his chips onto the mounting pile in the center of the table. He took that band and the next two.

"Good to see you, Claymore," William Baskerville said, bending a cautious eye upon the duke who had left so abruptly the last time they'd been playing cards here. Baskerville was on the verge of politely asking after the young duchess, but the last time he'd mentioned seeing her at the Clifftons' party, he'd caused a quarrel, so he thought it best to avoid mentioning her. "Mind if 1 join you?" he asked the duke instead.

"He doesn't mind at all," Stephen said when Clay-ton appeared not to have heard Baskerville. "He's perfectly willing to take your money along with everyone else's."

Clayton gave his brother a mildly sardonic look. He couldn't stay home or the worry would drive him out of his mind. And yet the cheerful conversation of his brother and the others was already wearing on his ragged nerves, and he'd only been playing for an hour. He was on the verge of suggesting to Stephen that they both adjourn to his house and indulge in an orgy of drunkenness, which was more suitable to his frame of mind anyway, when Stephen remarked to him, "Didn't really expect to find you here. Thought you'd be attending the little affair Mother is having for our relatives tonight."

Managing an excellent imitation of a man who has just said something he shouldn't have, Stephen shook his head and added apologetically, "Sorry, Clay. I forgot that with Whitney staying with her and naturally planning to attend the party, you wouldn't. . ."

Baskerville, who overheard the gist of this, forgot his earlier resolution and said with his usual unaffected cordiality, "Lovely young woman-your lady duchess. Give her my best and . . ." Baskerville's jaw slackened as he watched in horrified surprise while Clayton Westmoreland came slowly erect and rigid in his chair. "I haven't seen her anywhere," Baskerville hastily assured him.

But the duke had already risen to his feet. He stood there, staring down at his brother with a mixture of incredulity, amazement, and something else poor Baskerville was too confused to identify. And then, without so much as picking up the huge stacks of chips that represented his winnings, or bidding a civil goodbye to anyone, the duke turned on his heel and headed for the door with long, purposeful strides.

"Oh I say!" Baskerville breathed to Stephen as they both watched Clayton's retreating form. "You've really put your foot in it! I could have told you-your brother don't like for his duchess to attend parties without him."

"No," Stephen agreed with a wide grin. "I don't think he does."

The drive to Grand Oak, which normally took four hours, was accomplished in three hours and a half from the front door of Clayton's club. Whitney had been staying with his mother! With his mother, for Christ's sake! The one person alive who should have had sense enough to order his wife home to him. His own mother had collaborated in putting him through this torment!

The coach pulled up in front of his mother's brilliantly lit house, and Clayton recalled that Stephen had said there was to be a party tonight. He didn't want to see his relatives, he wanted to see his wife. And he hadn't brought formal clothes, hadn't even considered stopping at his house for a change of attire, and wouldn't have if he'd thought of it. He was sorely tempted to confront his mother with her treachery before he went in search of Whitney. He was tempted, but he wasn't going to.

"Good evening, your grace," the family butler intoned.

"Dammit!" Clayton replied as he stalked past the affronted servant on his way to look into the crowded drawing room. It seemed that every relative he had was present in those rooms. But not Whitney. He saw his mother though, and when she started toward him, her face wreathed in a smile, Clayton took a moment to direct a look of such frigid displeasure at her that it stopped her dead. Then he swung around and headed for the main stairs. "Where is my wife?" he demanded of a maid in the upstairs hall.

Clayton hesitated outside the designated door, his hand on the brass handle, his heart slamming with a combination of relief and dread. He had no idea how Whitney would react to seeing him, no idea of what he could possibly say to her. But at that moment, all that mattered was being able to see her and feast his eyes on her.

Opening the door, Clayton stepped silently within, then closed it behind him. Whitney was in a big brass tub with her back to the room. Her maid was hovering behind her, holding soap and a washcloth. Mesmerized, Clayton simply stood there.

He wanted to go to her and pull her, naked and wet, into his arms, to absorb her into his body, to carry her to the bed and lose himself in her. And at the same time, he didn't feel worthy of even speaking to her, let alone touching her. He wasn't worthy. Twice in their lives now he had treated her with a brutal viciousness of which he'd never known he was capable. God! She was nurturing his child within her womb and never once had he even asked how she was feeling. How could one slender girl bear the weight of such cruelty without hating him as he deserved? Clayton drew a long, labored breath.

Clarissa glanced up, saw Clayton rolling up his shirtsleeves as he walked toward the tub, and gave him a ferocious scowl. She opened her mouth with the obvious intention of endowing him with a liberal piece of her mind, duke or no duke, bat Clayton forestalled her with a curt nod of dismissal. Reluctantly she handed him the soap and cloth and silently left the room.

With aching gentleness, Clayton soaped Whitney's back, carefully keeping his touch light and his hands out of her view.

"That feels wonderful, Clarissa," Whitney murmured as she bent forward and lathered her legs. Normally, Clarissa left her to bathe alone, but lately she had become so worried and solicitous that Whitney didn't give much thought to this unusual, added attention.

Sleek and glistening with droplets of scented water streaming down her, Whitney arose from the bath and stepped out of the tub. She started to turn and reach behind her for the towel, but Clarissa, in an excess of compassionate helpfulness, was already gently drying her off.

Clayton toweled her neck, her soft shoulders and her trim back.

"Thank you, Clarissa, I'll finish. I'm going to have my dinner up here and then I'll dress to go downstairs for-" Turning, Whitney reached for the towel. The color drained from her face, and she swayed unsteadily as she beheld the handsome, grave man who said nothing to her, but continued to dry her body. In a state of numb paralysis, she stood stock still, incapable of movement or speech. When Clayton toweled her stomach and thighs, Whitney was dimly aware that his hands angered imperceptibly longer there, but they were not caressing her. Desperately she tried to assimilate what was happening. Clayton was here-no longer angry with her-but not speaking to her. Not smiling at her. He wasn't even touching her as a husband, but almost like a … a servant! A servant! An aching lump began to swell in Whitney's throat as she realized what he was doing. He was acting as her maid as a way of humbling himself to her.

His strong hands were gentle as he forced her down onto the chair beside the tub and, without looking up at her, be knelt down on one knee and solemnly began to dry her calves. "Clayton," she whispered brokenly. "Oh, don't…"

Ignoring her tearful plea, he continued his bumble services as he said in a ragged, pain-edged voice, "If I ever think you are even considering leaving me again, no matter now good your reasons, I'll have you locked in your rooms and the doors barricaded, so help me God." He lifted her mot and began to dry ft.

Her voice shaking, Whitney asked, "Will you stay locked in there with me?"

He raised her dainty foot to his jaw and tenderly laid his cheek against it, then turned his head and kissed it. "Yes," he whispered.

Standing up, he walked over to the wardrobe, removed a fine silk dressing robe and brought it over, holding it while Whitney put her arms into the sleeves. Like a puppet, she stood there while he reached around her and brought the sash to the front, tying it at her waist. Without a word, he leaned down and scooped her into his arms, carrying her over to the chair where her dinner was waiting on a low table. He sat down, cradling her on his lap. Leaning forward, he removed the silver cover from her dinner tray. When Whitney realized that he intended to feed her, she couldn't bear any more.

"Don't!" she cried out softly, reaching her arms around his powerful shoulders and burying her face in his neck. "Please, please don't do this. Just talk to me. Please talk to me."

"I can't," he whispered against her shining hair. He drew a long, tortured breath. "I can't find the words."

The naked anguish in his voice brought tears to her eyes as she leaned back and looked adoringly at him. "I can," she whispered brokenly. "You taught them to me-I love you. I love you."

Threading his fingers through her hair, he framed her face between his hands and gazed at her. "I love you," he whispered hoarsely. "God! How I love you."

In the flickering candlelight, the hands on the ormolu clock across the room from the bed had just moved to hah7 past one. Clayton gazed down tenderly at the beauty who was nestled up against him, asleep in his arms, her tousled head resting trustingly against his naked chest. Brushing a wayward curl gently off her cheek, he drew her closer to him and touched his lips to her forehead. "I love you," he breathed softly. He knew Whitney was asleep and couldn't hear him, but he needed to say the words again.

He had said them to her in his heart tonight, each time his mouth touched the dewy softness of hers in hungry urgency or aching tenderness. "I love you." It was a song his heart sang when she writhed beneath him and arched sweetly up to meet his thrusts; a melody that rose to a soaring crescendo as he led her to the peak of ecstasy and then joined her there.

His wife snuggled closer against him and dreamily whispered, "I love you, too."

"Ssssh, darling. Sleep," Clayton murmured. He had lingered over her endlessly tonight, deliberately delaying the final, exquisite moment of release until they were both wild with wanting. After such prolonged lovemaking he wanted her to rest.

"What took you so long?" she whispered.

Leaning his head down to better see her face, Clayton grinned. "I can't believe you mean what I think you mean."

She looked puzzled at first, then she blushed and looked away.

Surprised and concerned by her reaction, Clayton tipped her chin up. "What did you mean?" he asked gently.

"It-it doesn't matter. Truly it doesn't."

Gazing down into her pain-shadowed green eyes, he said quietly, "I think that, whatever it is, it matters very much to you."

Whitney wished she hadn't spoken, wouldn't have, except that the hurt was spreading through her like a bruise that would not stop aching. Knowing that Clayton would now insist on an answer, she gave it in a barely audible whisper, "Marie."

"What about her?"

"Was she the reason it took you so long to come for me?"

Tightening his arms around her, as if he could absorb some of the pain he had caused her, Clayton smiled wryly. "Darling, the reason it took me so long was that forty investigators could not find a trace of you. And I-who undoubtedly should have known better-failed to consider my own mother as a possible partner in a conspiracy to keep my wife from me."

"But I thought this would be the first place you would think of looking for me, once you had time to think things over."

"Well it wasn't," Clayton said quietly. "But then, neither did I 'think things over' within five miles of Marie St. Allermain-which I gather is what you're trying to ask me."

"You didn't?"

"No, I didn't."

Her green eyes filled with tears as she gazed at him and smiled tremulously. "Thank you," she whispered simply.

"You're very welcome," Clayton said with a tender smile at her upturned face. He traced his finger along the elegant carve of her cheek. "Now sleep, my love. Otherwise, this bed is again going to be put to another use."

Obediently she closed her eyes and snuggled into his arms. Her fingertips slid up to lightly brush the hair at his temple; a few minutes later they slipped down his shoulder to his chest.

Clayton felt his body's instant response and tried to control the mounting passion which Whitney was inadvertently igniting with her sleepy caresses. When her hand drifted down the planes of his stomach, he caught it and held it firmly in his own to prevent its further descent. He thought he heard a smothered laugh as she turned in apparent sleep, and her lips touched his ear.

Leaning back, Clayton gazed suspiciously into her face. She was wide awake, her eyes aglow with love.

In one quick, smooth motion, he rolled her over onto her back and pressed her into the pillows, his body half covering hers. "You can't say I didn't warn you," he whispered in a husky voice.

"I won't."