"Has Paul mentioned marriage to you?"
When Whitney shook her head and started to reply, Anne drew a long breath and interrupted her. "I mean, if it was his intention to offer for you, he's surely had sufficient time by now to do so."
"I'm certain he's only waiting for the right moment to declare himself. And I haven't really been home very long, a few weeks only."
"You've known each other for years, darling," Aunt Anne contradicted gently. "I've seen matches between two perfect strangers arranged in the length of time we've been back here. Perhaps Mr. Sevarin merely enjoys paying court to a lovely young woman who is all the rage, right now. Many men do, you know."
Whitney smiled confidently and planted a kiss on her aunt's cheek, "You worry too much for my happiness, Aunt Anne. Paul is on the verge of offering, you'll see."
But as their open carriage rocked along beneath the shadowy oaks toward Clayton's house, Whitney's optimism began to ebb. Idly, she toyed with a long strand of her hair which hung in gentle waves over her shoulders and midway down her back where it curled at the ends. Could it be that Paul merely enjoyed escorting the current neighborhood beauty? she wondered. Unemotionally, Whitney knew she had usurped that title from Elizabeth Ashton, although she didn't derive nearly as much satisfaction from the knowledge as she once thought she would. Invitations to local card parties and soirees were arriving with flattering regularity, and whenever Whitney accepted, Paul either escorted her or spent most of the evening at her side. In fact, the only person in the neighborhood who rivaled Whitney's popularity was Clayton Westland, and she saw him everywhere she went.
Whitney shrugged the thought of her despised neighbor aside. Why didn't Paul declare himself? she wondered. And why didn't he ever speak of love, if not marriage? Whitney was still searching for answers to those troublesome questions when they arrived at Clayton's home.
The front door was opened by a stiff-backed butler who eyed the trio down the length of his nose. "Good evening," he intoned majestically. "My master is expecting you." Whitney was at first shocked, then secretly amused by his lofty manner, which would have been far more appropriate if he were the butler of some grand personage, opening the front door of a magnificent mansion.
As Aunt Anne and her father were being divested of their outer garments, Clayton came striding down the hall into the small foyer. He went directly to Whitney. "May I?" he inquired politely, stepping behind her, his long fingers resting lightly on the peach-colored satin cape covering her shoulders.
"Thank you," Whitney said civilly. Pushing back the wide hood, she unfastened the satin frog closing at her throat, releasing the cape with as much speed as possible. The touch of his hands reminded her of the way he had held and caressed her the day of the picnic, the way he had promised to hold her much closer for far longer as if he were offering a sweet to a child. Conceited ass!
Her father detained her aunt to admire some carved ivory objects adorning a hall table while Clayton showed Whitney to a medium-sized room that apparently served as a combined salon and study.
A fire burned cheerily on the wide hearth, chasing away the night chill and adding its lively glow to the light of the candles in sconces above the mantle. The room was sparsely but rather grandly furnished to suit masculine tastes. One wall was taken up by a long, richly carved oak cabinet which bore a pair of massively splendid sterling silver candelabra, one at each end. The top of the cabinet was inlaid with marble squares, each of which was surrounded by strips of intricately carved wood. In the center stood an enormous sterling tea service unlike any Whitney had ever seen. It was so immense that Sewell, their butler, would never be able to lift it, let alone carry it with dignity. Whitney smiled a little as she visualized the ever-correct Sewell staggering into a room, laboring beneath the weight of the tray.
"Dare I hope that smile denotes a softening in your opinion of me?" Clayton drawled lazily.
Whitney snapped her head around. "I have no opinion of you," she lied.
"You have a very strong opinion of me, Miss Stone," he said, chuckling as he seated her in a comfortable wingback chair upholstered to soft burgundy leather. Instead of sitting down across from her in the other wingback chair, the man had the unmitigated gall to perch atop the arm of hers and casually stretch his right arm across the back of it.
"If there is a shortage of comfortable seating, I will be happy to stand," Whitney said coldly, already starting to rise.
Clayton's hands caught her shoulders, pressing her back into the chair as he compliantly stood up. "Miss Stone," he said, grinning, and gazing down into her angry upturned face, "you have the tongue of an adder."
"Thank you," Whitney said calmly. "And you have the manners of a barbarian."
Inexplicably, he threw back his head and shouted with laughter. Still chuckling, he reached down and affectionately rumpled the shining hair atop her head, which brought Whitney surging to her feet, torn between slapping his face and giving him a swift kick in the shin. Her father and aunt found them still standing face to face, Clayton's expression boldly admiring, while Whitney glared at him in frigid silence. "Well, I see you two are having a devilish pleasant chat," her father announced jovially, which made Clayton's lips twitch and Whitney almost, but not quite, burst out laughing. Dinner was a feast that would have done credit to a royal chef. Whitney toyed with the delicious lobster in light wine sauce, feeling vastly uncomfortable seated at the opposite end of the table from Clayton, as if she were mistress of his home. He was playing the host tonight with a natural, relaxed elegance that Whitney reluctantly admired, and even Lady Anne had unbent completely as she carried on an animated political discussion with him.
During the fifth course, Whitney broke her long-enduring, self-imposed silence. Clayton had taunted and goaded her all evening until she finally jumped into the conversation in order to argue in favor of educating females in the same manner as males. "What use is geometry to a woman who will spend her time embroidering handkerchiefs for her husband?" he had challenged.
Whitney accused him of thinking like his grandfather, and he laughingly retaliated by calling her a bluestocking.
"Blasted bluestocking," Whitney amplified with an amused smile. "It is what gentlemen such as you, who cherish antiquated ideas, call any female whose vocabulary contains more than the three acceptable phrases."
He grinned. "And what three phrases would those be?"
"The phrases are 'yes, my lord'; 'no, my lord"; and 'as you wish, my lord.'" She lifted her chin and said, "I find it sad that most of my sex have been trained from babyhood to sound exactly like witless female butlers."
"So do I," Clayton admitted quietly. Before Whitney had recovered from her astonishment, he added, "However, the fact remains that no matter how well-educated a woman is, she will someday have to submit to the authority of her lord and master."
"I don't think so," Whitney said, ignoring her father's anguished, quelling looks. "And what's more, I shall never, ever call any man my lord and master."
"Is that right?" he mocked.
Whitney was about to answer when her father suddenly launched into a monologue on the merits of irrigating farms, which surprised Whitney and visibly annoyed Clayton.
During dessert, Clayton again returned his attention to her. "I was wondering if there is any particular game you would enjoy playing after dinner," His gray eyes locked onto hers in silent, laughing communication as he added meaningfully, ". . . other than those little 'games' you and I have already played together?"
"Yes," Whitney said, boldly returning his gaze. "Darts."
A ghost of a smile flickered across Ms features. "If I had any darts, which I don't, I wouldn't care to be within your range, Miss Stone."
For a mere female, 1 nave an excellent aim, Mr. West-land."
"Which is why," he said pointedly, "I would not care to be within your range." Grinning, Clayton lifted his glass to her in a gesture of salute. Whitney accepted his tribute for their verbal swordplay
with an exaggerated nod of condescension, then favored him with an irrepressible sidewise smile.
Clayton watched her, wanting more than anything to thrust his other two dinner guests out the front door and snatch Whitney into his arms, to kiss the laughing mischief from her lips until she was clinging to nun, melting with desire. He leaned back in his chair, absently fingering the stem of his wineglass, while he relished the knowledge that tonight he had finally battered down her wall of cold indifference. Just why Whitney had retreated behind it the day of the picnic, and remained aloof and distant until an hour ago, was still a question to which he would someday demand an answer. Darts! he thought with an inward grin. He ought to wring her lovely neck.
After the meal, a servant escorted Martin and Lady Anne from the dining room, but Clayton placed a restraining hand on Whitney's arm when she started to follow them. "Darts!" he chuckled. "What a bloodthirsty wench you are!"
Whitney, who had been on the verge of smiling back at him, went scarlet. "Your way with words must make you the envy of all your friends," she flared. "In our brief acquaintance you've referred to me first as a hussy and now as a wench. Think what you will of me, but to future, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your opinions to yourself!" Shamed and guilt-stricken because she felt she had earned both names, Whitney tried to pull her arm free, but his hand tightened.
"What the devil are you talking about? Surely, you can't think I meant an insult with either name?" He saw the flushed, hurt look which she tried to hide by turning her face away. "My God, that is exactly what you think," he said softly. Putting his hand against her cheek, he forced her to look at him. "I beg your forgiveness, little one. I've moved too long in circles where it is fashionable to speak boldly, and where the women are as frank as the men with whom they flirt."
Although she'd never been exposed to the daringly fast set, evidently he had, and Whitney knew that the women were shockingly outspoken and behaved with wanton abandon, flirting openly, and even taking lovers. Suddenly she felt foolish and unsophisticated. "It isn't just the names," she protested defensively. "It's the day of the picnic, too, and the way you …" Her voice faltered when she recalled that she had been a willing participant in the heated kisses they exchanged. "I'll strike a bargain with you," she offered after a moment. "You forget everything I've done, and I'll forget what you've done, and we'll start again. Providing, of course, that you give me your solemn word that you won't try to do what you did to me by the stream."
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. "If you're referring to the crop, surely you don't think-"
"Not that. The other."
"What? Do you mean kiss you?"
When Whitney nodded, he looked so utterly astounded that she burst out laughing. "Now, don't tell me I'm the first female you've ever met who didn't want you to kiss her?"
He lifted his shoulders in a brief shrug that dismissed her question. "I admit to being somewhat spoiled by women who seemed to enjoy my … attentions. And you," he added, smashing her momentary sense of triumph, "have been too long surrounded "by besotted fools who kiss the hem of your skirts, begging your permission to be your lord and master."
Whitney's smile was filled with confident amusement. "I told you, I will never call any man my lord. When I marry, I shall be a good and dutiful wife-but a fall partner, not an obedient servant." In the doorway of the salon, he glanced down at her with an odd combination of humorous skepticism and absolute certainty. "A good and dutiful wife? No, little one, I'm afraid not."
Shaken by an inexplicable sensation of prickling alarm, Whitney looked away. It was as if he believed he had some sort of power over her. From the very first moment she'd seen him watching her at the stream, from the first words he'd spoken to her there, she'd had this same peculiar feeling. Perhaps that was why it always seemed so important, so necessary to avoid or outmaneuver him whenever possible. With a start, Whitney realized that he was speaking to her.
"I asked if you would enjoy a game of whist, or if you'd prefer something else. Other than darts," he joked.
"I suppose we could play whist," Whitney said with more politeness than enthusiasm. Her gaze fell on the chess set in front of the fireplace, and she wandered closer to inspect it. "How beautiful," she breathed. Half the set was cast in a burnished gold, the other in a silvery metal. Each piece was nearly as tall as her hand, and when she picked up the heavy king and held it to the light, she caught her breath sharply. There in her hand she held the figure of King Henry II, his face so real and lifelike that Whitney could only marvel at the genius of the craftsman who had created it. The queen was Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitane. With a smile, Whitney put the queen down and picked up the bishop. "I knew it would be Becket." She smiled at Clayton over her shoulder. "Poor Henry, even on a chessboard the image of the Archbishop of Canterbury still plagues him." Gently and reverently, she put the piece down.
"Do you play?" Clayton asked, surprise and doubt in his voice.
He sounded so incredulous that Whitney immediately decided to entice him into playing with her. "Not very well, I'm afraid," she replied, lowering her eyes to hide her mischievous laughter. Only so well that Uncle Edward stoutly rued the day when he'd decided to teach her. Only so well that he used to challenge his most skilled opponents from the Consulate to come to the house and try to take a victory from her. "Do you play often?" Whitney inquired innocently.
Clayton was already drawing the burgundy leather wing-back chairs into place on opposite sides of the chess table. "Very infrequently."
"Good," Whitney said with a bright, vivacious smile as she sat down. "In that case, this won't take very long."
"Planning to trounce me, Ma'am?" he drawled, one brow arrogantly raised.
"Soundly!" Whitney told him.
She made her moves skillfully, confident she could best him, but careful not to underestimate his ability. He was bold at first, decisive and quick, but after forty-five minutes, the play had slowed considerably.
"It seems you mean to make good your threat," he chuckled, eyeing her in frank admiration as she captured his rook.
"Not nearly as easily as I'd hoped," Whitney said. "And I recognized your skill three moves before you became aware of mine. That alone should have cost you the game."
"I apologize for disappointing you," he mocked.
"You are absolutely delighted to 'disappoint me' and you know it!" Whitney laughed. She was just reaching for her bishop when her father suddenly stood up and announced that, inasmuch as his gout was troubling him, he would be grateful if Mr. Westland would escort Whitney home when their game was finished. With that, he seized his sister-in-law's hand and strode swiftly toward the door on what were obviously two perfectly healthy legs, hauling Anne in his wake.
Whitney was already on her feet. "We can have our game another time," she said hastily, hiding her wistful regret over being unable to go on playing.
"Nonsense!" her father declared stoutly, hurrying over and pressing a clumsy kiss on her forehead, while forcing her back into her chair. "Nothing Improper about the two of you going on with your game-there's a house full of servants for chaperones."
Having once been the object of scorn and ridicule in this neighborhood, Whitney had no desire to bring censure down on herself over such a trifling thing as a game of chess. "No, really, I couldn't, Father." Unable to rise with her father's restraining hand on her shoulder, she looked beseechingly to her aunt, who shrugged helplessly, then levelled her rapier gaze on Clayton. "I trust you will remember to conduct yourself as a gentleman, Mr. Westland?"
"Whitney will be treated with all the deep respect and affection I have for her," Clayton replied with tolerant amusement.
The second game was begun, the first having ended in a stalemate. For a while after her father and Aunt Anne departed, Whitney felt ill at ease, but she soon relaxed, and by the time they were well into the second game, both opponents were heckling one another outrageously.
With her elbows propped on the huge ch
ess table and her chin cupped in her hands, Whitney watched Clayton reach for his knight. "Most imprudent," she advised him.
Clayton gave her a wicked grin, ignored her advice, and advanced his knight. "You are hardly in a position to counsel me on strategy after your last reckless move, Miss."
"Then don't ever complain that I didn't warn you," Whitney mused, tapping her long, tapered fingernail on an empty square, while she pondered his wily move of the knight. Leaning forward, she plunked her rook into position, then rested her chin on her hands again.
Each time she reached across the board, she unwittingly afforded Clayton glimpses of the thrusting fullness of her breasts above the scalloped bodice of her dress, until it required every ounce of his self-control to concentrate on the game. Long ago, she'd abandoned her slippers and now sat curled up in her chair with her legs tucked beneath her. With her luxuriant hair tumbling over her shoulders and her green eyes glowing with devilment, she presented such a captivating picture that Clayton was torn between the urge to shove the chess table aside, draw her onto his lap, and let his hands revel in the richness of his prize-and the equally delightful desire simply to lean back in his chair and feast his eyes on her.
At one and the same time, she managed to be an alluringly beautiful woman and a bewitchingly innocent girl. She was a study of intriguing and beguiling contrasts. In the course of one evening, she had treated him with cool disdain, tempestuous rebellion, blazing anger and now, with a jaunty impertinence and breezy impudence that he found utterly exhilarating. And to top it all off, she played one hell of chess game.
In the spirit of bald needling and relaxed affability which they'd been enjoying, Whitney raised her eyes to his and inquired with a radiant smile, "Are you contemplating your next move-or regretting your last, my lord?"
Clayton chuckled. "Aren't you the same young woman who informed me only hours ago that you'd call no man 'my lord'?"
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