Whitney, My Love wds-2

by Джудит Макнот

  It was the first time he had ever remarked on her appearance, and although his compliment was much milder than the lavish ones the Frenchmen had heaped on her, it made Whitney feel unaccountably shy. "You are late," she admonished him with laughing severity, unable to think of anything else to say, "and I have been pacing the length of my bedchamber these past five minutes, waiting for you."

  He said nothing, and for a moment Whitney fell under the spell of those boldly seductive gray eyes. His hands tightened on hers, drawing her closer. She held her breath, excited and alarmed at the realization that he was going to kiss her.

  "I'm early," he stated unequivocally.

  Whitney swallowed back a gurgle of relieved laughter, and he added, "However, now that I know how eager you are to see me, I shall make it a point to be early all the time." The great hall clock began to chime the hour of eleven as they left the house, and Clayton shot her an I-told-you-so look.

  She climbed into his carriage and leaned back against the moss-green velvet squabs, gazing up at the puffy white clouds skittering across an azure sky. She felt his weight settle into the seat beside her, and her sidewise gaze wandered admiringly over his shiny brown boots, his long, muscular legs clad in biscuit superfine, his rust-colored jacket, and cream-silk shirt.

  "If what I'm wearing doesn't please you," he drawled, "we can go to my humble abode and you can decide which of my clothes you approve."

  Whitney's head jerked up. Her first impulse was to retort that it didn't matter in the least to her what he wore. Instead she surprised them both by shyly admitting the truth: "I was thinking that you look splendid."

  She caught his startled look of pleasure before he gave the spirited grays the office to start, sending them trotting away.

  Trees marched along both sides of the country lane, their branches meeting overhead like Lines of partners in a country dance, forming an arch for the carriage which rocked along beneath. Leaves swirled and drifted down in slow motion, and Whitney reached up, lazily trying to catch a bright yellow one.

  When Clayton guided the pair south at the fork in the road, however, she sat bolt upright, turning on him in bewilderment and panic. "Where are we going?"

  "To the village, for a start."

  "I-I don't need anything from the village," Whitney insisted urgently.

  "But I do," he said flatly.

  Falling back against her seat, Whitney closed her eyes in bleak despair. They would be seen together and, in that sleepy little village where nothing ever happened, much would be made of it. She knew that everyone, with the exception of the man beside her, was expecting the announcement that she and Paul were soon to be married. She felt ill just thinking of Paul stopping in the village on his way home and hearing an exaggerated version of today's outing.

  Their carriage clattered across the stone bridge and down the cobbled streets of the village, between the long rows of quaint, shuttered buildings which housed a few inferior shops and a small inn. When Clayton pulled the horses to a smart stop before the apothecary's shop, Whitney could have screamed. The apothecary, of all people-the worst of the village tattlers!

  Clayton came around to help her alight. Trying to make her voice sound normal, she said, "Please, I would rather wait here."

  In the voice of one issuing a command, but politely phrasing it as a request, Clayton said, "I would like it very much if you accompanied me."

  That particular tone of his never failed to raise Whitney's hackles, and the friendly atmosphere of their outing abruptly disintegrated. "That's very unfortunate, because I'm not going into that shop." To her consternation and fury, Clayton reached into the carriage, grasped her by the waist, and lifted her down. She was afraid to struggle or push his hands away for fear of creating even more of a scene than they undoubtedly had already. "Are you trying to make a public spectacle of us?" she gasped, the instant her feet touched the cobbles.

  "Yes," he said unanswerably, "I am."

  Whitney saw the florid, jowly face of Mr. Oldenberry peering curiously at them through the window of his shop, and all hope of escaping notice was shattered. Inside the tiny, dimly lit shop an odd array of medicinal scents mingled with the odors of herbs, over which there was the pervading sting of ammonia salts. The apothecary was all effusive greetings, but Whitney saw his eyes lock with fanatic curiosity upon Clayton's hand, which still cupped her elbow.

  "How is Mr. Paul?" he asked her slyly.

  "I believe he's expected to return in another five days," Whitney said, wondering what this little man would be saving six days from now if she carried through with her tentative plan to elope with Paul.

  Clayton asked for a bottle of hartshorn and the apothecary handed it to Whitney. Grimacing with distaste, Whitney waved it away. "It's for Mr. Westland, Mr. Oldenberry," she said solemnly. "I fear he suffers quite terribly from the vapors and the headache."

  Clayton accepted her slur upon his masculine vitality with an infuriating grin. "Indeed I do," he chuckled, while his hand left Whitney's elbow and swept possessively around her shoulders, drawing her close for an affectionate squeeze. "And I intend to continue 'suffering.'" He winced as Whitney ground her heel into his instep, then winked at the apothecary. "My suffering gains me a great deal of sympathetic attention from this enchanting neighbor of mine."

  "Oh rubbish!" Whitney burst out.

  Clayton turned a conspiratorial smile on the apothecary and observed admiringly, "She certainly has a temper, doesn't she, Mr. Oldenberry?" Mr. Oldenberry puffed up with importance and agreed that, indeed, Miss Stone had always had a temper, and that he, like Mr. Westland, preferred females with spunk.

  Whitney watched Clayton pay for the hartshorn, and she caught the subtle movement of his hand as he placed the bottle back on the counter. Certain now that he had invented this errand for the sole purpose of illustrating to every gossip within fifteen miles that he had some claim upon her affection, Whitney spun on her heel. Clayton caught up with her as she stepped from the shop into the sunlight. "You're going to regret this," Whitney promised in a furious undertone.

  "I don't think so," he said, guiding her across the street.

  Elizabeth Ashton and Margaret Merryton were emerging from one of the shops, the latter's arms laden with bundles wrapped in white paper and tied with string. Politeness dictated that they all stop and exchange civilities. For once, Margaret didn't greet Whitney with an insulting, vindictive remark. In fact, she didn't greet her at all. Turning her shoulder to Whitney, she smiled into Clayton's gray eyes while Clayton obligingly took her bundles from her. As they crossed the street toward Margaret's carriage, Margaret linked her arm through his and said just loudly enough for Whitney to hear, "I've been meaning to ask you if I left my parasol in your carriage the other evening."

  The shock of his betrayal knocked the breath from Whitney. True, she herself didn't feel obligated to honor their betrothal agreement, but Clayton had willingly and legally committed himself to her in a contract almost as binding and solemn as marriage. The man was worse than a rake, he was . . . promiscuous! And of all the women for him to be seeing in secret, he had chosen to consort with her bitterest enemy. Pain and rage seeped through Whitney's system.

  "Margaret hates you terribly," Elizabeth murmured to Whitney as they both watched Clayton deposit Margaret's parcels in her carriage, then walk over to his carriage, apparently to search for Margaret's parasol. They lingered there, talking and laughing. "I think she hates you more for Mr. Westland than she did for that gentleman from Paris- Monsieur DuVille."

  It was the first tune Elizabeth had ever addressed a voluntary comment to Whitney, and if she hadn't been so miserably preoccupied, Whitney would have made a more cordial response. Instead she said stiffly, "I would be very obliged to Margaret if she were to snatch Mr. Westland right from under my nose."

  "That's just as well," Elizabeth said, her pretty face troubled, "because she means to have him."

  After assisting Elizabeth and Margaret into their c
arriage, Clayton reclaimed Whitney's hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm, as if nothing at all had happened. Whitney walked beside him, her face frozen with anger. At the end of the street was a small inn which boasted only one private dining parlor, the public rooms, and a small courtyard concealed from the street by vine-colored trellises. The proprietor's daughter greeted Clayton as if she knew him, then hastened to show them to a table in the courtyard.

  Whitney watched in mounting annoyance as Millie batted her big brown eyes at him, then bent over the table, smoothing the linen and rearranging the vase of flowers, while deliberately providing Clayton with an unimpaired view of the ample bosom spilling over her bodice. Seething, Whitney observed the girl's swaying hips as she went to get their meal. "If that is the way Millie conducts herself around men, her poor parents must be at their wits' end."

  Clayton observed Whitney's indignant features with a gleam of knowing amusement, and Whitney's tenuous hold on her temper snapped. Raking him with a contemptuous look, she added, "Of course, you've probably given Millie reason to believe you find her very desirable."

  "What the devil do you mean by that remark?" he demanded.

  "I mean that you have a notorious reputation with women -a reputation which you've undoubtedly earned!"

  "Not for dallying with serving wenches, I haven't."

  "Tell that to Millie," Whitney retorted frigidly. When Millie brought their meals, Whitney attacked her meat as if it were still alive. The instant they were finished eating, she pushed her chair back and arose.

  Neither of them broke the charged silence on the way home until Clayton turned into his own drive, rather than continuing past it to hers, and pulled the grays to a stop before his house. When he came around to help her alight, Whitney pressed back into her seat. "If you think for one minute that I am going to set foot in that house with you, you're sadly mistaken."

  A look of sorely strained patience crossed his face, and for the second time that day, he caught her by the waist and lifted her down from the carriage. "God help me if I ever injure my back," he quipped.

  "God help you if you ever turn it," she snapped, "for there'll surely be some heartbroken papa or cuckolded husband ready with a knife-if I don't murder you first."

  "I have no intention of arguing with you or ravishing you," Clayton said with exasperation. "If you will only look around, you'll see why I brought you here."

  Whitney did, irritably at first and then with surprise. The Hodges estate had always had a seedy look about it, but all that had changed. The bushes were pruned, and the grass neatly trimmed. Missing flagstones from the walk had been replaced, and rotted woodwork repaired. But the biggest change was brought about by the twin expanses of great mullioned windows on the first story, where before there had only been three gloomy little glass-covered holes. "Why have you gone to such expense?" Whitney asked when it was apparent that he was waiting for some reaction from her.

  "Because I bought it," Clayton said, indicating that she should walk with him toward the newly erected pavilion at the far end of the front lawn.

  "You bought it?" Whitney gasped. Just the thought of the cozy trio they would mate-she and Paul, with Clayton for a neighbor-made her feel quite violently ill. Was there no end to the obstacles one single man could put in the way of her happiness?

  "It seemed a reasonably sound idea. This land adjoins yours, and someday the two estates can be combined."

  "Adjoins your land, not mine!" Whitney corrected him bitingly. "You paid for it, just as you paid for me."

  She started to step blindly into the wooden pavilion but his hand shot out and captured her arm, jerking her around. He studied her flushed, angry face for a moment, and then he said calmly, "Margaret Merryton's carriage wheel was broken, and I offered to take her up with me, rather than leaving her there in the road. I brought her home, where her father thanked me profusely and invited me to dinner, which I declined. There was nothing more to it than that."

  "I don't care in the least what you and Margaret did!" Whitney lied angrily.

  "The hell you don't! You've been sniping at me ever since she asked if she left her parasol in my carriage."

  Whitney looked away, trying to decide if he was telling the truth and wondering why it mattered so much to her.

  "If you won't credit me with discretion," he added quietly, "at least credit me with taste." He paused. "Am I forgiven, little one?"

  "I suppose so," Whitney said, feeling absurdly relieved and thoroughly foolish. "But the next time you see Margaret. . ."

  "I'll run her down!" he chuckled.

  A faint smile touched Whitney's lips. "I was merely going to ask that you not encourage her, for she'll only behave more horridly to me than she already does, if she thinks you're interested in her. Did she have a parasol that day?" Whitney asked, suddenly suspicious.

  "No. Not that I recall."

  Pretending to study the toes of her pink slippers, Whitney asked carefully, "Do you think Margaret is… well. . . pretty?"

  "Now that's more like it!" Clayton laughed, possessing himself of her other arm and drawing her close to him.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that it pleases me to have you thinking like a wife-even a jealous one."

  There was enough truth in that observation to make Whitney flush hotly. "I am not in the least bit jealous, nor have I any reason to be, because you do not belong to me, any more than I belong to you!"

  "Except by virtue of a signed, legal contract betrothing you to me."

  "A meaningless contract, since I was not consulted."

  "But one which you will nevertheless honor," Clayton predicted.

  Whitney looked at him with a mixture of resentment and pleading. "I loathe this constant bickering. Why can't I make you understand that I love Paul?"

  "You don't care for Sevarin. You've told me so yourself, and more than once."

  "I've told you nothing of the sort! I-"

  "You've told me," he persisted, "every time you've been in my arms, that Sevarin has no claim on your heart."

  Whitney, who was desperate enough to try anything, tried to intimidate him by scoffing. "For a man of your vast experience with women, you certainly place an absurd amount of importance on our few kisses. I'd have thought that you, of all men, would have learned better."

  "I am experienced," he agreed curtly. "I am experienced enough to know that you respond to me when I kiss you, and that you're terrified of what I make you feel. If Sevarin could make you feel the way I do, you'd have nothing to fear from me. But he can't, and you damn well know it."

  "In the fust place," Whitney retorted, drawing a long, suffocated breath while trying to calm herself, "Paul Sevarin is a gentleman, which you are not! And, as a gentleman, he would never dream of kissing me the way you do. He-"

  Clayton's mouth twisted in sardonic amusement. "Wouldn't he indeed? Apparently, I've been giving Sevarin more credit than he deserves."

  Whitney's palm positively itched to slap that self-satisfied, mocking grin off his face. Why bother arguing with him, she told herself furiously, when he would only twist her words around until they suited him! Of course she'd responded to the wild, forbidden passions Clayton so skillfully aroused within her. What gently reared, unsuspecting female wouldn't be momentarily carried away by the newness of his practiced caresses?

  Gently reared, unsuspecting females! Why, half the most sophisticated flirts in Europe had apparently fallen victim to his skill at lovemaking! Compared to them, she was a mere babe in arms!

  "What?" Clayton chuckled maddeningly. "No arguments?"

  If she'd had a knife at that moment, Whitney would have plunged it into his chest. Instead she chose the only means available to her to retaliate. Looking at him with just the right degree of amused scorn, she said, "If I do respond to you, there's a very simple explanation for it, but you aren't going to like it. The truth is, I find your intimate caresses not only sordid but boring! The only way I can endure them i
s by pretending you're Paul and-don't!" she cried out in panic and pain as his hands tightened punishingly on her upper arms.

  With a vicious jerk, he brought her crashing against his chest. Whitney's head snapped back from the impact, and she saw his eyes glittering down at her like shards of ice. Her throat muscles constricted, choking her frantic apology. "I-I didn't mean it! I-"

  Ruthlessly, his mouth swooped down, slanting punishingly back and forth over her lips until they parted from the sheer, cruel pressure. When she tried to tear her mouth away, his hand clamped the back of her head, holding her against the bruising assault of his mouth. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes, and still the agonizing, endless kiss continued.

  "Lie to anyone you please," he growled savagely into her mouth. "But never again lie to me! Do you understand?" His arm tightened sharply, underlining the warning and cutting off her breath at the same time.

  Wildly, Whitney struggled, trying to draw enough air into her lungs to tell him yes! Her ribs felt as if they were being cracked; he was suffocating her and growing more enraged at her helpless, involuntary silence. She forced her hand up along his chest, futilely trying to wedge some space between them, until her fingers finally encountered the male lips locked fiercely to hers.

  She didn't realize it was the unintentional tenderness of laying her hand against his face that made him release her so abruptly. All she knew was that she could finally draw great, gulping breaths of air into her aching lungs.

  "I bow to your better judgment," he drawled with icy contempt. "That was both 'sordid' and 'boring.' In fact, I would be hard put to decide which of us found it more distasteful."

  Irrationally, Whitney was stung. She stiffened her spine, meeting his cold gaze with as much proud defiance as she could muster. "I don't suppose you found it distasteful and disgusting enough to consider letting me go?"

  What Clayton felt was not disgust, it was fury! Her announcement that when he was kissing her, she pretended he was Sevarin, had so incensed Clayton mat he actually considered yanking her into the pavilion and taking her right there on the floor. Since the day she'd returned to England, he'd been tolerating her rebelliousness and overlooking her temper. On the floor of the pavilion, she would learn the folly of pushing him too far. Unfortunately, she would also learn to hate him with a virulence that might sustain her for years.