Authors: Judith McNaught
They blinked at her as it registered on each of them
that she was teasing them about having purloined the flowers from the park
beds. And then-surprise of surprises-they were smiling at her and arguing
good-naturedly over who was to have the honor of accompanying her to the
park.
In the true spirit of fairness, Whitney happily
permitted all of them to accompany her.
That year Miss Stone was proclaimed "an Original." At a
time when young ladies were models of dainty fragility and blushing
coquetry, Whitney was impulsive and gay. While other young ladies her age
were demure, Whitney was clever and direct.
During the following year, Anne watched as nature
collaborated with time, and Whitney's youthful face fulfilled all its former
promise of vivid beauty. Sooty black lashes fringed incredibly expressive
eyes which changed from sea-green to deep jade beneath the graceful arch of
her dark brows. Burnished mahogany tresses framed an exquisitely sculpted
face with a softly generous mouth and skin as smooth as cream satin. Her
figure was still slim, but ripened now, with tantalizing carves and graceful
hollows. That was the year she was proclaimed "an Incomparable."
Gentlemen told her that she was "ravishingly beautiful"
and "enchantingly lovely" and that she haunted their dreams. Whitney
listened to their lavish compliments and passionate pledges of undying
devotion with a smile that was part amused disbelief and part genuine
gratitude for their kindness.
She reminded Anne of an elusive tropical bird, surprised
, and delighted by her own appeal, who landed tentatively and then, when one
of her suitors reached out to capture her, flew away.
She was beautiful, but gentlemen left the sides of
equally beautiful young women to cluster around her, beckoned by the gaiety
that seemed to surround her and the easy playfulness of her manners.
By the beginning of her third year "out" in society,
Whitney had become a challenge to more worldly, sophisticated men who sought
to win her merely to prove that they could succeed where others had
failed-only to find themselves rather unexpectedly in love with a young
woman who hadn't the slightest inclination to reciprocate their feelings.
Everyone knew she would soon have to marry; after all, she was already
nineteen years old. Even Lord Gilbert was becoming concerned, but when he
observed to his wife that Whitney was being excessively fussy, Anne only
smiled.
Because it seemed to her that Whitney had lately
developed a decided partiality for Nicolas DuVille.
Chapter Five
FOR THE THIRD TIME IN TEN MINUTES, WHTTNEY REALIZED THAT
she had again lost track of the conversation, and she glanced guiltily at
the girls who were paying a morning call on her. Fortunately, they were all
enraptured with Therese's enthusiastic description of her new life as a
married woman and seemed not to notice Whitney's wandering attention.
Nervously, Whitney fingered the letter from Emily which
had just been handed to her, wondering as she always did, if this was going
to be the letter that brought the dreaded news that Paul had chosen a wife.
Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she opened it, and her heart doubled
its already rapid pace as she began to read:
"Dearest Whitney," Emily wrote in her neat, precise
hand, "henceforth, I shall expect you to address me as 'Lady Emily, Baroness
Archibald, the Happiest Woman Alive.' I shall expect you to bow and scrape
and mince about when next we meet, so that I will truly believe this has
happened." The next two pages were filled with wondrous praise of Emily's
new husband and details of the marriage which had been performed by special
license. "What you said about France is also true of England," Emily said.
"No matter how grotesque he is, if a gentleman has a tide, he is considered
a great matrimonial prize, but I promise when you meet him, you will agree
that my husband would be wonderful without any title."
Whitney smiled, knowing that Emily would never have
married her baron unless she loved him. "Enough about me," she continued, "I
have something else to tell you which I forgot to mention in my last letter.
Six of us from home were all at a rout party in London, where our hostess
introduced a gentleman who at once took the ladies' fancy. And no wonder,
for he was very handsome and tall, and from a distinguished French family.
Whitney, it was M. Nicolas DuVille! I was quite certain he was the same
gentleman you mention in your letters, and I asked M. DuVille if he was
acquainted with you. When he said that he was, Margaret Merryton and the
other girls flocked around him to try to offer their 'sympathy.'
"How you would have laughed, for after giving them a
look that should have turned them to stone, M. DuVille quite flayed them
alive with tales of all your suitors and conquests in Paris. He even implied
that he was rather taken with you himself, which made the girls absolutely
livid with jealousy. Is what he said true? And why haven't you told me that
'Paris is in the palm of your hand'?"
Whitney smiled. Although Nicki had mentioned meeting
Emily in London, he had never mentioned meeting Whitney's childhood arch
foe, Margaret Merryton, or the other girls. The pleasure she felt at his
defense of her vanished, however, when she considered the possibility that
Nicki might truly want to be something more than just her friend. For nearly
three years, he had merely been a handsome vision who appeared without
warning at her side to claim her for a dance or tease her about one of her
many suitors. Then he would vanish with some dazzling female clinging
possessively to his arm.
But a few months ago that had suddenly changed. They had
met each other at the theatre and Nicki had unexpectedly invited her to an
opera. Now he escorted her everywhere, to balls and routs, musicales and
plays. Of all the men she knew,
Nicolas DuVille was the one Whitney most enjoyed being
with, but she couldn't bear the thought that he might actually have serious
intentions toward her.
Whitney stared blindly at the letter, her eyes cloudy
and sad. If Nicki were to offer for her, and she were to decline (which she
would), she would be jeopardizing her friendship with Therese, her aunt and
uncle's friendship with the senior DuVilles, and her own friendship with
Nicki, which meant a great deal to her.
She forced her attention back to Emily's letter. At the
end of it was news of Paul. "Elizabeth is in London for the season, and when
she returns home, everyone is expecting Paul to offer for her, since her
parents now feel it is past time for her to marry."
Whitney, who had been bursting with joy for Emily's
wonderful news, now felt like crying her heart out. After all her
practicing, all of her planning, she was at last ready to win Paul's love,
but her father was keeping her in France, ignoring her pleas to come home.
As soon as she had ushered her friends from the house,
Whitney went to her room to write to him. This time, she would send her
father a letter he couldn't just ignore as he had her others. She wanted to
go home-had to go home- and she had to do it at once. After considerable
thought, she composed a letter to him, this time appealing to his wounded
pride and dignity, by telling him how she longed to come home and prove to
him that he could be proud of her now. She finished by telling him how
dreadfully she missed him. Then she wrote to Emily.
When she brought the letters downstairs to have them
sent off, she was informed by a footman that Monsieur DuVille had just
arrived and wished to see her immediately. Puzzled by this imperative
command from Nicki, Whitney went down the hall to her uncle's study. "Hello,
Nicki. It's a lovely day, isn't it?"
He turned. "Is it?" he replied tersely, and there was no
mistaking the rigid set of his shoulders or the taut line of his jaw.
"Well, yes. Sunny and warm, I mean."
"Just exactly what possessed you to engage in a public
horse race?" he snapped, ignoring the polite amenities.
"It was not a public horse race," Whitney said, amazed
by his vehemence.
"No? Then perhaps you will explain how it appeared in
the paper today."
"I don't know," Whitney sighed. "I imagine that someone
told someone who told someone else. That's the way it usually happens.
Anyway," she finished with a pretty toss of her head, "I won, you know. I
actually beat Baron Von Ault."
Nicki's voice rang with authority. "I will not permit
you to do a thing like that again!" He saw her stiffen in angry confusion
and drew a long breath. "I apologize for my tone, cherie. I will see you at
the Armands' masquerade this evening, unless you will change your mind and
permit me to escort you?"
Whitney smiled her acceptance of his apology, but shook
her head at the suggestion of his escorting her to the Armands'. "I think
it's best if I go with my aunt and uncle and meet you there. The other
ladies already resent me for monopolizing so much of your attention lately,
Nicki."
Momentarily, Nicki cursed himself for allowing her to
get under his skin, when for nearly three years his own good judgment had
warned him away. And then, four months ago, after an exceedingly
disagreeable evening with a lady who had once amused him and now bored him
with her clinging ways, Nicki had encountered Whitney at the theatre and
impulsively asked her to accompany him to an opera.
By the end of the evening, he was utterly captivated by
her. She was an intoxicating combination of beauty and humor, of
exhilarating intelligence and disarming common sense. And she was as elusive
as hell!
He looked at her now. Her sensuous mouth was curved into
an affectionate smile of the sort one bestows on a loved brother, not one's
future husband, and it irritated Nicki into action.
Before Whitney could guess his intent, his hands caught
her upper arms, pulling her against the length of his hard frame as his
mouth began a purposeful descent. "Nicki, don't! I-" Instantly his mouth
silenced her startled protest, his lips moving sensuously, tasting and
courting hers. In the past, only clumsy, overzealous suitors had tried to
kiss her, and Whitney had easily put them off, but Nicki's arousing kiss was
awakening a response in her that amazed and alarmed her. She managed to
remain perfectly still and unresponsive, but the moment his arms loosened,
she stepped back quickly. "I suppose," she said with false calm, "that I
ought to slap your face for that."
She looked so coolly unaffected that Nicki, who had been
unexpectedly shaken by the feel of her soft mouth beneath his, and the
pressure of her breasts against his chest, was furious. "Slap my face?" he
repeated sarcastically. "Why should you? I can't believe that I'm the first,
or even the hundredth, man to steal a kiss from you."
"Really?" Whitney flung back, stung to the quick by his
intimation that she would play fast and loose. "Well, I've obviously just
had the honor of being your first!" The words weren't past her lips before
Whitney saw the rigid anger in his expression and realized that she'd made a
serious tactical error in insulting his masculinity. "Nicki-" she whispered
in warning, cautiously stepping backward and out of his reach. Nicki
advanced on her. She scooted behind her uncle's desk, facing him across it,
her hands braced on the top. Each time Whitney moved one way, Nicki
countered. They stood, two combatants separated by Uncle Edward's desk, each
waiting for the other to make a move. Suddenly, the childish absurdity of
the situation struck Whitney, and she began to laugh. "'Nicki, have you the
faintest idea what you're going to do if you catch me?"
Nicki had an excellent idea what he would like to do if
he caught her, but he also appreciated the foolishness of the scene. He
straightened, and the mask of anger fell away.
"Come out from behind the desk," he chuckled. "I give
you my word I shall behave as a gentleman."
Scanning his face, Whitney assured herself that he meant
ft, then obediently did as he bade her. Linking her hand through his arm,
she escorted him to the door. "I'll see you tonight at the masquerade," she
promised.
Chapter Six
LORD EDWARD GILBERT STOOD BEFORE THE DRAWING ROOM minor,
his eyes wide with shock and repugnance as he stared at himself in the scaly
green crocodile costume his wife had chosen for him to wear to the Armands'
masquerade.
His revolted gaze slid from the top of his grotesque
head with its fierce jaws open wide, ready to snap, down to his claw-like
reptilian feet, then along the thick tail dragging the floor behind him.
Precisely at the center of what should have been the crocodile's sleek green
body, Edward's stomach swelled majestically. Turning his back to the mirror,
he looked over his shoulder and experimentally rotated his hips, watching in
morbid fascination as his tail undulated behind him. "Obscene!" he snorted
in disgust.
Lady Anne and Whitney came into the room at that moment,
and Edward turned on his wife. "God's armpits!" he exploded, jerking off his
headpiece and waving it angrily at her as he waddled across the room, his
tail dragging behind him. "How am I ever going to have a cigar wearing this,
may I ask?"
Lady Anne smiled unperturbably as she surveyed him in
the costume she had chosen without consulting him. "I couldn't get your
favorite Henry the Eighth costume, and I was perfectly sure you wouldn't
care for the elephant costume-"
"Elephant!" Edward repeated bitterly, glowering at her.
"I'm surprised you didn't purchase that getup for me. You could have had me
crawling about on all fours, waving my trunk and stabbing people in the rump
with my tusks! Madam, I have a reputation to maintain, a dignity-"
"Hush, dear," she remonstrated affectionately. "What
will Whitney think-"