Lord Archibald was away that evening so Whitney and Emily shared a cozy dinner in Whitney's room, and Whitney discovered she could actually enjoy herself again.
"You look remarkably restored tonight," Emily teased her, as she poured tea.
"I feel remarkably restored," Whitney said, smiling.
"Good," Emily replied. "Because there's something I want to ask you."
"Ask away," Whitney said, sipping her tea.
"My mother wrote me that you're betrothed to Paul Sevarin. Are you?"
"No-to Clayton Westmoreland," Whitney replied in quick defense.
A priceless antique tea cup slid through Emily's fingers and crashed to the floor. Her eyes widened, then grew wider still while a slow smile dawned across her pretty features. "You aren't. . . jesting?" she whispered.
Whitney shook her head.
"You're certain?"
"Very certain."
"I don't think I believe you," Emily said.
She looked so skeptical that Whitney's lips trembled with laughter. "Would you care to bet your new sable cape that I'm not betrothed to him?"
"Do you want it badly enough to Be?"
"Definitely. But I'm not lying."
"But how-when-did it happen?"
Whitney opened her mouth to explain, then changed her mind. She desperately needed to talk to someone about it, but she was afraid to begin. Today, for the first time in weeks, she had begun to feel alive again; she didn't want to risk her fragile, newfound tranquillity. "No, Emily," she said. "I don't think it's a good idea to talk about it." She got up nervously and Emily rose too, advancing on her with a determined, joyous smile.
"Well, you're going to!" Emily laughed softly. "You are going to tell me every single, tiny detail of this unbelievable romance if I have to wring it out of you with my own two hands. Now begin at the beginning."
Whitney started to refuse, but Emily looked so happy and so determined, that it was useless. Besides, she suddenly wanted to talk about it. She sat back down and Emily settled beside her. "I suppose it actually began several years ago, before my come-out," Whitney started. "Clayton said he saw me in a millinery shop with my aunt. The proprietress was trying to convince me to purchase a hideous bonnet covered with artificial fruit. . ."
At the end of the story Emily stared at her with a combination of mirth and wonder. "Oh lord," she whispered. "It's too delicious for words-and so romantic. Imagine, after spending all that money, he came to England only to discover that you were infatuated with Paul." She gulped down a giggle. "Michael was so worried that his grace would break your heart, but I wasn't. I saw the way he looked at you when he came to take you to the Rutherfords' ball, and I knew."
"You knew what?" Whitney asked.
"Why, that he is in love with you, silly!" Emily broke off in bewilderment. "But he hasn't been here in weeks, and I know he's in London because he's been seen at the opera and the theatre." She watched the familiar haunted expression return to Whitney's face. "Whitney?" she breathed. "What's wrong? You've looked like this ever since the night you didn't come home. What happened that night to make you so unhappy?"
"I don't want to discuss it," Whitney said hoarsely.
Emily took Whitney's cold hands in hers. "You have to talk about it, it's been tearing you apart. I'm not trying to pry; I already know you didn't tell the truth. You see, I was standing at the window the morning you returned, and I saw the gold crest on the coach that brought you back. It was the duke's coach, wasn't it?"
"You know it was," Whitney said, her head bent with shame.
"And I also know you left here with him-you said you did, and Carlisle said you did too. Although," she added with a bemused smile in her voice, "Carlisle was shockingly in his cups that night, and he kept insisting that the Duke of Claymore had descended from nowhere and forcibly dragged you off into the night. Of course, I didn't believe for a minute-oh dear lord!" she burst out. "Is that what happened? Is it?" she pleaded.
Whitney nodded.
"Where did he take you?" Emily demanded, her voice tight with apprehension. "Did he take you to another party?"
"No."
"I will never forgive myself for laughing at Carlisle," she said, her hand tightening convulsively on Whitney's. "Whitney," she whispered painfully, "where did he take you? What did he do to you?"
A pair of vulnerable green eyes lifted to Emily's, and in them Emily saw the answer. "That monster!" she hissed, leaping to her feet. "That blackguard, that devil! He ought to be hung! He-" Emily stopped, obviously deciding that Whitney needed encouragement, not more fuel for her hurt and anger. "We have to look on the bright side of this."
"What 'bright side'?" Whitney said tiredly.
"It may not seem like it, but there is one. Just listen." Dropping to her knees, Emily took both Whitney's hands in her reassuring grasp. "I don't know much about the law, but I do know that your father can't force you to marry that. . . that monster! And after what he's done, Claymore must know you will never willingly marry him. Therefore, he has no choice but to release you from the betrothal agreement and forget about the money he gave your father."
Whitney's head jerked up. For long moments, she stared blankly at the wall across from her. Of course Clayton meant to release her. That must be why he hadn't come to see her. He was going to withdraw his offer. A strange, sick feeling swept over her at the thought. "No," she said firmly. "He won't withdraw his offer. I know he won't. Oh Emily," she cried, "do you truly think he'll just walk away and let me go?"
"Of course!" Emily promptly reassured. "What else can he possibly-" Emily's eyes widened on Whitney's unhappy face. "Whitney?" she gasped, slowly coming to her feet and staring down at her unhappy friend. "You cannot possibly mean- My God! You don't want him to let you go," she cried.
Whitney's gaze flew upward. "It's only that I never considered that he might release me."
"You don't want him to!" Emily persisted in rising tones. "It's written all over your face."
Whitney stood up too, nervously rubbing her palms against the folds of her dress. She willed herself to say she hoped above everything that Clayton Westmoreland would release her, but the words lodged in her throat. "I don't know what I want," she admitted miserably.
Emily dismissed that with a wave of her hand, her anxious eyes riveted on Whitney. "Has he sent word to you, or approached you in any way since that night?"
"No! And he had better not!"
"And you have no intention of trying to see him?"
"Certainly not," Whitney declared heatedly.
"He can't possibly approach you. First he would need some sign from you that you would at least listen to an apology. And you won't-can't-give him that sign, can you?"
"I would the first!" Whitney announced proudly, and she meant it.
"But if he cares for you at all, he will be filled with remorse for what he did. He'll think that you must loathe him."
Whitney walked over to the bed and leaned her forehead against the poster which supported the canopy. "He won't let me go, Emily," she said with more hope than regret in her voice. "I think he cares . ._. cared . . . for me very much."
"Well!" Emily exploded. "He certainly has a peculiar way of showing his regard."
"So do I," Whitney whispered. "I constantly defied him. I would have shamed him in front of his friends by eloping with Paul. I never stopped lying to him." She closed her eyes and turned her head away. "If you don't mind," she said in a suffocated voice, "I'd like to go to bed now."
Emily went to bed too, but after lying awake for hours, she finally gave up trying to sleep. Propping up the pillows, she sat back, watching Michael as he slept peacefully beside her. "Could I still love you if you'd done that to me?" she whispered to his sleeping form. "Yes," she answered, tenderly smoothing the hair at his temple. "I could forgive you almost anything." But if Michael had done that, he would have an opportunity to make amends. They were married, and no matter how battered or angry she felt in spirit, they
would still be forced to be in each other's company, in order to keep up appearances. Before long, matters would inevitably come to a head, and then the breach could be healed. But Whitney wasn't married to Claymore. They were both avoiding each other, and they would continue to do so. Whitney's pride and hurt would prevent her from making the first move, and the duke would continue to believe that she hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. Unless something brought them face to face-and soon-this breach could never be healed.
Torn between interfering in a highly explosive situation, or politely staying out of it, Emily pulled up her knees and perched her chin on them. After several minutes' contemplation, she slowly shoved the bedcovers aside. Trembling with guilt and uncertainty, she crept out of bed. Downstairs she groped in the darkness for a tinder and lit a candle, then she tiptoed into the yellow salon and put the candle on the desk while she searched through the drawers for one of the unused wedding invitations she'd helped Elizabeth address.
She slid into the chair and nibbled on the end of a quill, trying to think of what she could say. It was imperative that the duke not mistakenly believe she was acting on Whitney's instructions, for there was every likelihood that when Whitney first saw him she would turn on him in hurt outrage. The important thing was bringing them face to face and leaving the rest to fate.
Hastily, before she lost her courage and changed her mind, Emily wrote on the bottom of the invitation, "Someone we both care very much for will be in attendance on the bride this day." She signed it simply, "Emily Archibald."
A footman wearing vaguely familiar livery was shown into Clayton's library on Upper Brook Street. "I have an invitation which my mistress instructed be given directly to you, your grace," he explained.
Clayton was deeply engrossed in his morning correspondence. "Are you to await a response?" he asked absently.
"No, my lord."
"Then leave it there." Clayton nodded at a small table near the door.
He was getting dressed to go out for the evening when he recollected the envelope left lying in his library that morning. "Send someone for it, Armstrong," he murmured to his valet without looking away from the mirror which reflected the success of the intricate folds he was putting into his snowy neckcloth.
Clayton shrugged into the jacket Armstrong held for him, then he took the envelope a footman had just brought up. Opening it, he extracted what appeared to be yet another invitation for his secretary to attend to.
The name "Ashton" leapt out at him and his heart instantly contracted with painful memories. "Tell my secretary to decline, but to send an appropriate gift in my name," he said quietly, handing the invitation back to the footman.
As he passed it across, however, a tiny handwritten message along the bottom caught his eye. Clayton read it, then read it again, his pulse beginning to hammer. What in God's name was Emily trying to tell him? That Whitney wished to see him? Or that Emily wanted him to see her? Impatiently waving his valet and the footman away, he carried the invitation into his bedchamber and reread Emily's words three more times, growing more agitated with each reading. Futilely he tried to find something in the brief note to indicate that Whitney had forgiven him. But there was nothing.
That evening, Clayton sat through the play at the Crown Theatre paying no more attention to the raven-haired beauty beside him than he did to the performances on the stage. His emotions veered back and forth between hope and despair. There was nothing about Emily's note to give him any encouragement except that she had sent it to him. Emily Archibald and Whitney had been fast friends since childhood. If Whitney hated him, Emily would have discovered that by now, and she would never have sent him the invitation. On the other hand, if Whitney had forgiven him, she would have sent it to him herself.
Suppose Whitney didn't want to see him. Suppose she took one look at him in the church and fainted? A sad smile touched Clayton's eyes. Whitney might hurl her bouquet in his face, but she wouldn't faint. Not his brave, courageous girl.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Al THE BACK OF THE CROWDED CHURCH, ELIZABETH ASHTON stood with her father, watching her third bridal attendant drift slowly down the carpeted aisle, then she turned to Whitney who would be next. "You're going to steal the day from me," she smiled, surveying the yellow and white roses entwined in Whitney's lustrous hair and the flowing yellow velvet bridesmaid gown she wore. "You look like a jonquil in springtime."
Whitney laughed. "You look like an angel, and don't you dare try to begin another flattery contest with me. Besides, as a bride, you're supposed to be nervous. Isn't she, Emily?" Whitney whispered, looking over her shoulder at her friend, who would follow her down the aisle.
"I believe so," Emily said absently. This morning she had, confessed to Michael that Whitney and the duke had had a dreadful rift (which was certainly the truth) and that she had invited the duke to the wedding in hopes of bringing them back together. Michael's reaction had been alarmingly unencouraging. He told her that she should not have interfered, that she might be doing both parties an injustice, and that, in the end, they might both despise her for her well-intentioned interference.
Now, Elizabeth was also involved in Emily's scheme. When the guest list was originally prepared, "Mr. Clayton Westland" had been on it, but at Whitney's panicked insistence, Elizabeth had removed his name. Three days ago, Emily told Elizabeth that a secret romance had been blossoming between Whitney and Mr. Westland, but that the couple had quarreled (which was also the truth). Elizabeth had delightedly agreed that sending him a secret invitation was a splendid way to effect a reconciliation. She still did not realize, of course, that Mr. Westland was actually the duke of Claymore, for despite her weeks spent in London, she moved in very different circles from the duke.
Today, Emily cursed her plan as the worst idea she'd ever had.
"You're next, Miss," Emily's maid told Whitney as she bent down and straightened Whitney's train.
The other bridesmaids had cringed in nervous terror from making the long, solitary walk down the aisle, but the prospect didn't bother Whitney in the least. She'd done it a dozen times in Paris for Therese DuVille and other friends, but today she felt especially joyous, for she had played a very large part in bringing this wedding about. With a breezy smile Whitney accepted her bouquet of yellow and white roses from the maid. "Elizabeth," she whispered affectionately, "when next we speak, you'll be married." And she stepped out into the aisle.
Clayton's gaze riveted on her the instant she stepped into view, and the sight of her had the devastating impact of a boulder crashing into his chest. Never had she looked so radiantly beautiful or so serene. She was a shaft of glowing moonlight moving down the center of the candlelit aisle.
He was standing only inches from her as she swept gracefully past him, and he felt as if he were stretched on the rack. Every muscle in his body tightened, straining to endure the torture of her nearness. But it was a torture he welcomed, an agony he didn't want to be spared.
Whitney took her appointed place at the front. She stood quietly through the ceremony but when Elizabeth began softly repeating her vows, the words held a poignancy for Whitney that she'd never felt before, and sentimental tears suddenly stung the backs of her eyes. Without turning her head more than an inch or two, Whitney could view half the audience in the church, and as her gaze touched the crowded rows, she noticed that most of the women were dabbing at their eyes. Aune Anne smiled a silent greeting. Whitney acknowledged it with an imperceptible tip of her head, feeling a surge of comfort at the sight of her aunt's reassuring face.
As the threat of tears passed, and the lump of emotion in her throat began to dissolve, Whitney let her eyes drift back over the rows of guests, past her father, past Margaret Merryton's parents . . . past Lady Eubank who was wearing one of her outrageous turbans . . . past a very tall, dark-haired man who . . . Whitney's heart gave a leap, missed a beat, then began to thump madly as a pair of penetrating gray eyes looked straight into hers. Paralyzed, she
saw the bitter regret carved into his handsome features and the aching gentleness in his compelling eyes. And then she tore her gaze from his.
Dragging air into her constricted lungs, she stared blindly ahead. He was here! He had finally come to see her, she thought wildly. He couldn't be here to attend the wedding because he hadn't been invited to it. He was here! Here, looking at her in a way that he had never, ever looked at her before-it was as if he were offering himself to her! Standing very straight and very tall, he was humbly offering himself to her. She knew it, she could feel it.
Whitney wanted to scream, to drop to her knees and weep, to hurt him as he'd hurt her. Fury, humiliation, and wild uncertainty all collided into one another. This was her opportunity to repay him, she thought hysterically, to show him with a single contemptuous glance that she despised him. She might never have another chance. He hadn't tried to see her before this, and he would leave after the wedding; he couldn't attend the banquet without an invitation. Emily said he couldn't possibly approach her without some sign from her, and he was asking her for that sign now.
Oh God! He was silently asking for her forgiveness, standing there and offering himself to her. If her answer was no, he would walk out of this church when the wedding was over. And out of her life.
Whitney closed her eyes in an agony of indecision, not caring that Clayton would see her doing it and know the struggle raging within her. He had abused her body and ravaged her soul and he knew it! Her pride demanded that she look up at him and show him that she felt only contempt for him. But her heart screamed not to let him walk out of this church.
"Don't cry, darling," he whispered in her memory. "Please don't cry anymore."
Whitney couldn't breathe; she couldn't move. "Help me!" she prayed to someone. "Please, please, help me!" And then she realized that the "someone" she was praying to was Clayton. And she loved him.
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