Whitney, My Love

by Judith McNaught

  “In—in about seven months, I think.”

  Clayton stared at her, violence emanating from every pore. With deliberate cruelty he carefully enunciated each vicious word. “I don’t want it.”

  Clarissa and Mary, who had been hovering on the balcony to have a look at their employer’s beaming countenance when he heard the news, recoiled in amazement as he passed them on the way down the stairs, moving with an unleashed savagery that threatened to strike down anything in his path. The front door crashed into its frame behind him, and Clarissa slowly turned and walked into Whitney’s room, then froze in horror at the sight that greeted her:

  Whitney was kneeling on the floor near her desk, her shoulders jerking spasmodically with her silent weeping. Her head was thrown back and tears were streaming from her tightly closed eyes. Clutched to her heart was a tiny white gown with a little “W” she had lovingly embroidered in blue.

  “Here, don’t cry so, darlin’,” Clarissa said in a suffocated whisper as she bent down to help her up. “You’ll harm the babe.”

  Whitney thought she would never be able to stop. She cried until her head and throat ached. She cried until there were no more tears left to weep and she felt dry and barren. “I don’t want it!” The four words coiled around her heart, squeezing and twisting until she couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  When dawn came to lighten the sky, Whitney turned onto her side, staring out into the early gray light. She was alone in her bed, alone all night for the first time in their marriage. Clayton didn’t want her baby. Their baby. Did he mean to disown it? Oh God, no! He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—why would he? Squeezing her eyes closed, she turned her head into the pillow. He was going to make her give up the baby. That’s what he meant to do. He was going to get a wet nurse as soon as it was born and send the child away to have it raised on one of his other estates, out of their way. Was his need for her so selfish then, so consuming that there was no room for their child?

  A few hours ago, she might not have known how she felt about her pregnancy, but she did now. Clayton’s rejection of her baby had brought on a tidal wave of protectiveness in her so fierce that it shook her to the roots of her being. She would never let him send their baby away. Never!

  Whitney awoke very late. Her head was still aching and she felt horribly sick and dizzy, but she made herself go down to breakfast. Clayton’s place across from her was still set. “His grace said he had no appetite for breakfast, my lady,” the servant informed her. Whitney ate a Spartan meal for the sake of the baby, then went outdoors for a long walk.

  She didn’t know where Clayton was; he hadn’t come into his room until just before dawn.

  She walked through the formal rose gardens, vibrant with separate beds of red, white, pink and yellow roses, and then across the lush manicured banks of the immense lake where swans floated aimlessly upon the tranquil surface. Her steps carried her to the white pavilion on the far bank overlooking the lake, and she went inside and sat down on the brightly colored pillows strewn across the benches.

  She sat there for two hours while her thoughts tumbled over each other, trying to reconcile the fact that she was the same person she had been only yesterday, that this was the same lifetime she had inhabited.

  She went back to the house and slowly walked up the staircase, only to find Clayton’s valet and three servants busily moving his clothing out of his room. She felt as if she were teetering on the brink of insanity. “What are they doing?” she breathlessly begged Mary. “Mary, tell me why they are moving my husband’s things.”

  “His grace is moving into the east wing,” Mary explained, forcing herself to sound both brisk and unconcerned. “We’ll move your things into his chambers, and yours will make a nice nursery when the time comes.”

  “Oh,” Whitney whispered, wondering how she would bear to be in that suite without Clayton. “Would you show me where his new rooms are? I—I have to ask him about tonight. We were to go out.” Mary led her to an elegant suite at the far end of the east wing and kindly left her alone there.

  Clayton had been there today, but he was gone now. His shirt was thrown over a chair and a pair of gloves lay on the bed where he had tossed them. Whitney wandered into the dressing room and ran her fingers over the onyx backs of his brushes and had to swallow back a fresh onrush of tears. She opened a wardrobe and tortured herself by touching his shirts and jackets. You could tell what broad shoulders were needed to fill those jackets. Such broad shoulders, she thought. She had always loved his broad shoulders. And his eyes.

  She was walking toward the door when he came in. Without a word he strode right past her, went into his dressing room, and began shrugging out of his jacket.

  She followed him, unable to keep the tears from her voice as she said, “Why are you doing this, Clayton?”

  He jerked his shirt off but did not deign to answer her.

  “Be-because of our baby?” she persisted in a whisper.

  His eyes raked over her. “Because of a baby,” he corrected her.

  “You—you don’t like children?”

  “Not another man’s children,” he informed her icily. Flinging his shirt onto a chair, he turned, caught her elbow in a bruising grip and began forcibly escorting her from the room.

  “But you must want children of your own,” Whitney said brokenly as she was unceremoniously thrust into the hallway in full sight of a passing servant.

  “Of my own,” Clayton emphasized in a menacing voice. He loomed over her with one hand on the door as if he were about to shut it in her face.

  “Are we going to the Wilsons’ tonight? I—I accepted their invitation weeks ago.”

  “I am going out. You can do as you damn well please.”

  “But,” Whitney pleaded, “are you going to the Wilsons’? If you are . . .”

  “No!” he snapped. Then in a terrible voice, he added, “And if I ever find you in this room, or even in this wing of the house again, I will personally remove you. And I promise you, Whitney, you won’t like the way I do it.” The door slammed in her face.

  Clayton stood rigidly still in the room on the other side of the closed door, his hand clenching and unclenching as he tried to bring this new onslaught of fury under control. By dawn this morning he had managed to drink himself into near oblivion in his study. But not before he had carefully, coldly considered all the ways he could avenge himself for his misplaced love and trust. He would take a mistress, flagrantly flaunt her until Whitney learned of her existence. Society would overlook a married man with a mistress; it always had. But Whitney would be caught in a vice. She’d not be able to go out alone very often without causing talk. And if she appeared regularly with another man she would be publicly scorned and ostracized.

  But even that wasn’t enough. If she was going to bear a child, and he as going to have to give it his name, then by God he wasn’t going to have to look at it and wonder whose it was! He’d send the brat away from his sight. But not right away. First he would let her keep the child for a year or two until she was deeply attached to it; then he would wrench the babe away from her. The child—that would be his ultimate weapon. He didn’t care whether it was the result of her dirty little liaison with her lover or whether it was the living proof of his own desires.

  Outside in the hall Whitney stood there staring at the oak panel. Her throat ached and her eyes burned, but she would not cry! The more she had tried to placate and reason with him, the more cruel and irrational he’d been. Stiffly, she walked down the long hall to the sanity . . . no, not the sanity, this was all insane . . . to the safety of her rooms.

  Mary and Clarissa were both working in the master suite, moving Whitney’s clothes into the next room, and everything was in disorder. “If you don’t mind,” Whitney said, drawing a shaking breath, “I—I would like to be alone for a while. You can finish this later.” They both looked so sad and so sympathetic that Whitney couldn’t bear it.

  When they left she looked a
ll around her, trying to assimilate what was happening to her. Clayton was actually casting her aside because their lovemaking had resulted in her pregnancy.

  For the first time since last night, Whitney felt a surge of pure anger. Since when was pregnancy entirely the woman’s fault? And just exactly what had he supposed was going to happen if they made love together? Naïve she might have been, but even she had known that this is how babies were made. She had half a mind to go storming back to his rooms and inform him of that!

  The more she thought of it, the angrier she became. Putting up her chin, Whitney marched over to the bellpull and summoned Clarissa. “Please have my blue silk pressed,” she said. “And have the carriage brought round after dinner. I am going out.”

  Four hours later, Whitney swept into the dining room. Her hair was twisted into elaborate coils entwined with a rope of sapphires and diamonds, with soft tendrils falling at her ears. If they were going to live like strangers, then they could live like friendly strangers. But if Clayton thought for one moment that after she bore his child he was going to be permitted to come to her bed again and take up where they had left off before yesterday—well, he didn’t know her quite so well as he thought!

  Except that when he automatically came to his feet when she walked into the room, Whitney took one look at him and felt a pang of longing and need so strong that she felt faint. He was so splendid, so unbearably handsome that if he had just smiled at her a little she would have flung herself against him and begged him . . . but begged him for what? For forgiveness for loving him? Or for carrying his child?

  Several times during their silent meal, Whitney was aware of his gaze resting momentarily on her breasts which swelled above the sapphire bodice of her gown. And each time Clayton looked away again, she had the feeling that he was angrier than the time before. She almost wondered if it were possible that he was the least bit jealous. After all, this was the first time that they had ever gone to separate affairs in the evening. The next time his gaze slid to her breasts, she asked innocently, “Do you like my new dress?”

  “If you mean to display your charms to the world, it suits you admirably,” he said cynically.

  “Are you settled into your new rooms?” she asked.

  Clayton shoved his plate aside as if her conversation had ruined his appetite and rose from the table. “I find them vastly preferable to the ones I occupied before,” he said icily. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode from the room. A few minutes later the front door closed behind him, and Whitney heard the sound of his coach pulling away. She felt deflated, ill and miserable. But she went to the Wilsons’ party and purposely stayed until well past midnight in the vague hope that Clayton might not like her being out late without him, and would accompany her the next time.

  She was weary to the bone but she woke up abruptly as her carriage pulled up in the Claymore drive, just as Clayton was alighting from his. They walked up the steps together and Whitney could see the taut anger in the set of his jaw. “Continue to stay out this late and you will have all London gossiping about you within a week,” he said tersely.

  “I will not be able to go out in society once my condition becomes apparent,” she informed him, and then out of sheer obstinacy, she gave her head a toss and added, “Besides, I was having a wonderful time!” She was not absolutely sure, but she thought he swore under his breath.

  * * *

  The next morning she went down to the stables and was bluntly refused a mount. She was hurt, confused, and irate. She was also embarrassed, as were the grooms who had to tell her that those were his grace’s orders. Whitney was too distressed to reconsider her actions. Without a word, and looking very much like the young duchess she was, she swung on her heel and marched toward the house, through the front door, and down the hall to Clayton’s study, which she entered without bothering to knock first.

  He was in conclave with a large group of men seated in a semicircle around his desk. They all leapt to their feet, with the exception of Clayton, who rose with noticeable reluctance.

  Smiling angelically at the circle of surprised men, Whitney said, “I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I didn’t realize my husband had visitors.” Then to Clayton who was standing rigidly behind his desk: “There has been a misunderstanding at the stables. No one there seems to realize that Khan belongs to me. Shall I tell them or would you prefer to explain?”

  “Do not,” her husband said in a terrible voice, “even consider riding him.”

  “I am sorry to have interrupted your meeting,” Whitney said, hot with embarrassment that he had spoken to her in front of strangers in that degrading tone. She stormed up to her room. This was madness, cruel, perverse insanity. Now Clayton intended to keep her from doing anything to occupy her time. He wanted to deprive her of her smallest joys in life. She jerked off her riding hat. She hated wearing those silly hats when half the fun of riding was feeling the wind in your hair. She took two steps toward her dressing room, intending to change her clothes, and changed her mind instead.

  She stormed back to the stables, gave the first groom who stepped in front of her such a haughty look of disdain that he stepped aside, and then she strode into Khan’s stall. She curried him herself. She bridled him herself and then she marched over to the rack where her saddle was kept and dragged it down. She gained courage with each second. After all, not one of them would dare to lay a hand on her to prevent her from doing what she had set out to do. It took three tries to swing the heavy sidesaddle up and over Khan’s back, but she finally made it. She tightened his girth strap as best she could then she led him out of his stall.

  Whitney rode for three hours. She was tired after the first hour, but she hated to go back. From the minute she rode off on Khan, she had known that Clayton would be informed of her action, and she dreaded having to face him.

  She had expected a confrontation later; she had not expected to find Clayton waiting for her at the stables. He was standing there with one shoulder propped casually against the whitewashed fence, his features composed as he conversed with the head groom. Inwardly, Whitney quailed at the sight of him. She knew that relaxed, almost indolent stance of his was only a surface calm, beneath which was a murderous fury which he would unleash on her.

  As she trotted briskly past him, Clayton reached out in a deceptively casual move and caught Khan’s bridle, jerking the horse around to a teeth-jarring stop. His eyes held a terrifying menace and his voice was so icy, so soft, that Whitney’s heart pounded in fear. “Get down!”

  Whitney had scarcely conceived the notion of whirling Khan and racing for parts unknown, when in that same awful voice he said, “Don’t try it, I’m warning you.”

  To her consternation and fury, Whitney felt her cheeks grow hot and her hands shake. She swallowed and reached her arms toward him in an unconsciously childlike gesture. “Then will you help me down?”

  Clayton lifted her roughly from the sidesaddle. “How dare you disobey me,” he hissed, his fingers clamping on her upper arm as he marched her away from the curious grooms and stablekeeps.

  Whitney waited until they were out of earshot of the stable and approaching the rear door of the house before she pulled her arm away and turned on him. “Disobey you?!” she repeated, stamping her foot. “Do you mean to actually remind me of my vows? Why of all the— Would you like me to remind me of yours, my lord?”

  “I will give you a warning. Just one,” Clayton enunciated viciously. “Call it advice, if you prefer.”

  “If I wanted advice,” Whitney retorted, her eyes sparkling with jade fire, “you would be the last person on earth I would ask!” She opened her mouth to say more, then changed her mind at the boiling wrath her outburst brought to his features.

  “Defy me one more time—just once more, and I will have you locked in your rooms until your brat is born!”

  “I’m sure you would like nothing more!” Whitney said, hating him for calling her baby a brat. “You are the meanest, crue
lest . . . you’re a fraud and a liar! How dare you have told me you love me and then treat me so! And another thing, my lord duke,” she added in choking fury, “which I’m sure will come as a tremendous surprise to you: It so happens that making love makes babies!”

  Clayton was so stunned by her ridiculous “revelation” that he never saw the blow coming. She caught him full on the side of the face with the flat of her hand, then reared back, looking like a tempestuous goddess in all her fine fury.

  “Go ahead and hit me back,” she raged. “You want to hurt me. What’s wrong—have you lost your desire to torture me?” she taunted, ignoring the drumming pulse at her temple. “Well good, because I’m just angry enough to do it again!” She swung wide, then gasped with pain as her wrist was caught in a vise-like grip a split second before her hand would have hit his face.

  “You are a deceitful little bitch,” he said furiously. “But just once in our misbegotten lives together, tell me one small truth. Just one honest admission. I swear that whether the answer is, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘yes’ I won’t care either way.”

  “You swear to me?” Whitney hurled back at him. “As you swore at our wedding? As you swore in this house never to hurt me? Your word isn’t worth the—”

  “Is the child mine?” Clayton snapped, tightening his grip on her wrist.

  Her eyes widened until they were huge green orbs; her soft lips parted in shocked disbelief that was so convincing Clayton wondered for a split-second if somehow he was wrong about everything. Tears of outrage sprang into her eyes. “Is it yours? Yours?” Her voice rose and then, unexpectedly, she collapsed against him, her shoulders quaking violently.

  Clayton released his grip on her wrist. He wanted to thrust her slender, shaking form away from him. And he wanted just as much to gather her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. But more than anything, he longed to take her into the house and ease the pain in his heart with her body. She was clinging with both hands to his lapels, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in his chest, saying over and over again, “Is it yours?”