Whitney, My Love (27 page)

With a shoulder propped against a Gothic pillar, Clayton
raised his glass to his tips and watched with a mixture of possessive pride
and irritation as Whitney glanced secretively around, then started to follow
Sevarin from the room. One of the guests waylaid her, and while Clayton
looked on, Sevarin returned to the ballroom and, abandoning all pretense at
discretion, took her by the arm and drew her away.

That particular proprietary gesture of Sevarin's sent a
stab of sharp anger through Clayton. Why, he wondered, was he standing here
like a damned fool, tolerating the Merryton girl's flirtatious advances,
when his own betrothed was strolling away on another man's arm? With a
sardonic smile, be contemplated the satisfaction he could have by crossing
the room in a dozen quick strides and informing Sevarin that he did not tike
another man's hands on his betrothed. Then, in a few sentences, he could
inform Whitney that his "disgusting, lecherous" attentions were permanently
fixed on her and that she should prepare herself to be wed within the week!

He was seriously considering doing exactly that when
Amelia Eubank bore down on him. "Margaret," Amelia barked heartlessly, "stop
banging on Mr. Westland and go attend to your hair."

Without a trace of sympathy, she watched the young woman
blush furiously, then turn and leave. "Nasty chit," Amelia said, directing
her attention to Clayton. "The girl is nothing but malice and spite, held
together by a core of viciousness. Her parents spend every penny they can
scrimp together to send her to London and keep her in society. They can't
afford it, and she doesn't belong there. She knows it too, and that makes
her envious and mean."

Realizing that he wasn't paying any attention to her,
Amelia craned her turbaned head in an effort to discover the object of his
unwavering interest. Whitney Stone, she noticed with a tiny smile, was just
returning to the ballroom, directly in his line of vision. "Well, Claymore,"
she said, "if the 'enchanting brunette' you've decided upon is who I think
it is, you've taken too long. Her betrothal to Sevarin is to be announced as
soon as Sevarin returns."

The duke's eyes turned cold and cynical. "Excuse me," he
said in a dangerously soft voice. Putting his glass down, he walked away,
leaving Amelia gazing after him with gleeful satisfaction.

Whitney felt Clayton's light touch at her elbow and
turned, her warm smile filled with gratitude. From the moment he'd diverted
Uncle Hubert at the beginning of the evening, Clayton had carefully placed
himself wherever a conversant, amiable, unattached gentleman was most
needed. Without being told, he bad recognized her need for help and come to
her aid. "You must be exhausted," he murmured in her ear. "Can't you slip
away and get some steep now?"

"Yes, I think I will," Whitney sighed. Nearly all the
guests had already departed or retired upstairs for the night, and Aunt Anne
seemed perfectly willing and able to function as hostess to those remaining.
"Thank you for all your help tonight," she said as she turned to leave. "I'm
very grateful."

Clayton watched her until she disappeared down the hall,
then he strode purposefully toward Martin Stone. "I want a word with you and
Lady Gilbert after your guests leave tonight," he said curtly.

Just climbing the stairs was an effort for Whitney's
tired legs. Once she was in her room, it took ten minutes of struggling with
the long row of tiny satin buttons down her back to unfasten her gown. She
leaned forward to step out of it, and a shiny object tumbled from the gaping
bodice of her chemise.

With infinite tenderness, Whitney picked up the opal
ring from the carpet and looked at it. Paul's ring, given to her as he left
tonight. "To remind you that you're mine," he had whispered, pressing the
ring into her palm.

A wild thrill of excitement shot through her now as she
slowly placed the opal ring onto her finger. All the exhaustion she'd felt
but a moment before seemed to melt away in a burst of joy.

She hummed softly as she wrapped herself in an oriental
dressing gown of red silk and sat down at her dressing table to unpin and
brush her hair. With each stroke of her ivory-handled brush through her long
hair, the glittering opal seemed to catch fire and sparkle in the mirror.
Laying the brush aside, Whitney held her hand out in front of her to better
admire her betrothal ring. Her betrothal ring! "Mrs. Paul Sevarin," she said
softly, smiling at the sound of the wonderful words. "Whitney Allison
Sevarin." Something about that tickled her memory, and Whitney said it
again, trying to recall. . .

With a joyous laugh, Whitney remembered and hurried over
to her bookshelves. Taking down the leather-bound Bible from the shelf, she
quickly fanned through the pages, but found nothing. Finally she grasped the
book by its covers and turned it upside down, giving it a hard shake. A
small scrap of paper, smudged and folded several times, drifted to the
floor. Picking it up, Whitney smiled as she began to read:

"I, Whitney Allison Stone, being fifteen years of age
and in full possession of my mind and all my faculties (despite what Papa
says) do hereby Vow, Swear and Promise that I shall someday manage to make
Paul Sevarin marry me. I shall also make Margaret Merryton and everyone else
take back every single horrid tiling they have said about me. Sworn this day
and duly signed by the future Mrs. Paul Sevarin."

Beneath the signature, she'd written "Whitney Allison
Sevarin" and then, apparently carried away by her longing, had practiced the
wished-for name at least a dozen mote times.

Reading that note after so many years, remembering the
despair that had driven her to write it, made her joy at possessing Paul's
ring swell within her until Whitney thought she would burst if she couldn't
show her ring to someone and share her glad tidings.

Going to bed when she felt like this would be hopeless;
she was more in the mood for singing and dancing! She had to tell someone,
she just had to ...

Whitney hesitated for a few minutes, and then happily
decided to tell her father that Paul was going to offer for her. He would
remember how she had chased after Paul years ago, and he would be gratified
to know that at last, the villagers would no longer have any reason to
ridicule her antics. Now, it was Paul Sevarin who was pursuing her. He
wanted to marry her!

Whitney checked her appearance in the mirror,
straightened the high mandarin collar of her red dressing robe, tightened
the sash around her slender waist, and tossing her glossy hair off her
shoulder, marched to her bedchamber door.

Trembling with anticipation and a bit of apprehension,
she walked along the hall, her robe rustling behind her. In the aftermath of
so much laughter and gaiety there was something almost melancholy about the
silence now, but Whitney ignored the feeling as she raised her hand to tap
on her father's door. .

"Your father is in his study, Miss." The footman's voice
echoed hollowly from the darkened entrance foyer below.

"Oh," Whitney said softly. Perhaps she ought to show her
ring to Aunt Anne tonight, and wait until tomorrow to tell her father
everything. "Has my aunt retired yet?"

"No, Miss. Lady Gilbert is with your father."

"Thank you. Good night."

Whitney hastened downstairs, knocked on the study door,
and in response to her father's call to enter, she swirled into the room,
closing the door behind her. Flattening her palms against the thick oaken
panel, she leaned against it. Her smiling gaze took in her father, seated
behind his desk directly in front of her and, over to her left, Aunt Anne,
who was watching her alertly from a wingback chair at right angles to the
fireplace. With only the glow from the cheery link fire to illuminate the
room, Whitney completely overlooked the shadowy form seated in the wingback
chair opposite her aunt's, with its high back concealing its occupant.

Her father's voice was faintly slurred but friendly as
he splashed brandy into his glass. "Yes, Daughter, what is it?"

Drawing a long, deep breath, Whitney plunged in. "I have
something wonderful to tell you, Papa, Aunt Anne, and I'm so happy that
you're here together, so that I can share it with you both at the same
time."

Strolling over to her father, Whitney moved the brandy
glass aside and perched a hip on his desk. For a moment she gazed fondly
into his glassy-eyed, upturned face, then she leaned forward and planted a
kiss on his forehead. "I, Whitney Stone, love you very much, Papa," she said
softly. "And I am deeply sorry for the grief I brought you when I was
growing up."

"Thank you," he murmured, flushing,

"And," Whitney continued, getting up and coming around
the front of the desk so that she could face Aunt Anne, "I love you too,
Aunt Anne, but then you've always known that."

She drew another long, quavering breath, and suddenly
her words came tumbling out, gathering excited momentum. "And I also love
Paul Sevarin. And Paul loves me and wants to marry me! And, Papa, when he
returns, he's going to ask your permission to do so. I know how- Is
something wrong, Aunt Anne?"

Bewildered, Whitney stared at her aunt who had
half-risen from her chair and was staring straight ahead with a look of such
horrified alarm that Whitney leaned forward and peered into the shadows. She
gasped when she saw Clayton Westland sitting there. "I-I beg your pardon!
I'm sorry to have interrupted the three of you. As you've probably guessed,
Mr. Westland, I had no idea you were sitting there. But since you are,"
Whitney persevered, determined to finish now that she'd begun, "I hope I can
depend upon you not to mention my forthcoming betrothal to anyone. You see
..." The screech of chair legs on the planked floor as her father heaved
himself to his feet, checked Whitney in mid-sentence. The fury in his voice
brought her whirling around to face him.

"How dare you!" he bellowed. "What is the meaning of
this?"

"The meaning?" Whitney echoed in bewilderment. Her
father was standing with palms flat against the top of his desk, his arms
trembling. "Paul Sevarin has asked me to marry him, that's all." In defiance
of his thunderous glower, which she recalled so well as a child, Whitney
added, "And I am going to do it."

Slowly, distinctly, as if he were addressing an idiot,
her father said, "Paul Sevarin hasn't a pittance to his name! Do you
understand me? His lands are mortgaged, and his creditors are hounding him!"

Despite her shock, Whitney managed to make her voice
sound calm and reasonable. "I had no idea Paul was pressed for funds, but I
can't see why it should signify one way or another. I have money of my own
from my grandmother. And there's my dowry, besides. And whatever I have will
be Paul's."

"You have nothing!'* her father hissed. "I was in worse
straits than Sevarin. The duns were after me. I used your inheritance and
dowry to pay them."

Recoiling as much from the vicious tone of his voice as
the words he said, Whitney turned to her aunt, expecting her support. "Then
Paul and I will have to live simply, without the luxuries my dowry and
inheritance could have provided."

Aunt Anne just sat there, clutching the arms of her
chair.

In helpless confusion, Whitney turned back to her
father. "Papa, you should have told me that you were in such trouble! Why,
I-I spent a fortune on clothes and jewels and furs before I came home from
France. If only I'd-"

It penetrated through the wave of guilt and alarm
sweeping over her that there was something amiss in all of this, something
that didn't make any sense. Then it dawned on Whitney what it was.
Cautiously, she said, "The stables are filled with new horses. The house and
grounds are swarming with more servants than we could possibly need. If you
are in such dire circumstances, why are we living in this extravagant
manner?"

Her father's face took on a frightening purple hue. He
opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.

"Surely I have a right to an explanation," Whitney
persisted carefully. "You have just told me that I must marry Paul as a
pauper, without dowry, and that my inheritance is gone. If all this is true,
how do we manage to live like this?"

"My circumstances unproved," he hissed.

"When?"

"In July."

Unable to keep the accusation from her voice, Whitney
said, "Your circumstances improved in July, yet you aren't going to replace
my inheritance or my dowry?"

His fist crashed against the desktop; his roar
reverberated through the room. "I'll tolerate no more of this farce. You're
betrothed to Clayton Westmoreland. The arrangements have been made. The
settlement has already taken place!"

The subtle difference in Clayton's surname momentarily
escaped Whitney's notice as she groped frantically through the tumult in her
mind. "But how-why-when did you do this?"

"In July!" he hissed. "And it's settled, do you
understand? It's final!"

Whitney stared at him through eyes huge with horror and
disbelief. "Are you telling me that you made a settlement on this man
without ever consulting me? You pledged my dowry and my inheritance to a
perfect stranger, without considering my feelings?"

"Damn you!" her father hissed between his clenched
teeth. "He made the settlement on me!"

"You must have been a very happy man in July," Whitney
whispered brokenly. "You finally managed to rid yourself of me forever, and
this 'gentleman' actually paid you for me, and-oh God!" she cried. With
sudden, heartbreaking clarity, all the pieces of the bizarre puzzle fell
into place, presenting the whole gruesome picture, complete in every profane
detail.

Closing her eyes against the scalding tears that
threatened, she braced her hands on the desk for support. When she opened
them, she saw her father through a bleary haze. "He has paid for all of
this, hasn't he? The horses, the servants, the new furniture, the repairs to
the house . . ." She choked on her next words. "The things I bought in
August in France. What I'm wearing now, he paid for that too, didn't he?"