“A pleasure meeting you again, Miss Stone,” Clayton chuckled aloud. “You little hellcat,” he added appreciatively.
Once out of sight, Whitney slowed Khan to a loping canter. She could hardly believe Mr. Westland was the neighbor her father held in such high esteem. She grimaced, recalling that he was invited to her party tonight. Why, the man was insufferably rude, outrageously bold, and infuriatingly arrogant! How could her father like him?
She was still wondering about that when she wandered into the sewing room and sat down beside her aunt. “You will never guess who I have just met,” she was telling her aunt when Sewell, the old family butler, circumspectly cleared his throat and announced, “Lady Amelia Eubank asks to see you.”
Whitney blanched. “Me? Dear God, why?”
“Show Lady Eubank into the rose salon, Sewell,” Lady Anne said, curiously studying Whitney, who was looking wildly around the room for a place to hide. “What on earth has you looking so alarmed, darling?”
“You just don’t know her, Aunt Anne. When I was little she used to shout at me not to chomp my nails.”
“Well, at least she cared enough about you to want to correct you, which is more than I can say of anyone else here.”
“But we were in church,” Whitney cried desperately.
Anne’s smile was sympathetic but firm. “I’ll admit she’s a trifle deaf and very outspoken. But four years ago, when all your neighbors came to see me, Lady Eubank was the only person who had a kind word to say about you. She said you had spunk. And she has a great deal of influence with everyone else hereabouts.”
“That’s because they’re all frightened to death of her,” Whitney sighed.
When Lady Anne and Whitney walked into the salon, the dowager Lady Eubank was examining the workmanship of a porcelain pheasant. Grimacing to show her distaste, she replaced the object atop the mantle and said to Whitney, “That atrocity must be to your father’s liking. Your mother wouldn’t have had it in her house.”
Whitney opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of a reply. Lady Eubank groped for the monocle dangling from a black ribbon over her ample bosom, raised it to her eye and scrutinized Whitney from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. “Well, miss, what have you to say for yourself?” she demanded.
Fighting down the childish urge to wring her hands, Whitney said formally, “I am delighted to see you again after so many years, my lady.”
“Rubbish!” said the dowager. “Do you still chomp your nails?”
Whitney almost, but not quite, rolled her eyes. “No, actually, I don’t.”
“Good. You have a fine figure, nice face. Now, to get down to the reason for my visit. Do you still mean to get Sevarin?”
“Do I—I what?”
“Young woman, I am the one who’s supposed to be deaf. Now do you, or do you not, mean to get Sevarin?”
Whitney frantically considered and cast aside half a dozen responses. She glanced beseechingly at her aunt, who gave her a helpless, laughing look. Finally, she clasped her hands behind her back and regarded her tormentor directly. “Yes. If I can.”
“Ha! Thought so!” said the dowager happily, then her eyes narrowed. “You aren’t given to blushing and simpering, are you? Because if you are, you may as well go back to France. Miss Elizabeth has tried that for years, and she’s yet to snare Sevarin. You take my advice, and give that young man some competition! Competition is what he needs—he’s too sure of himself with the ladies and always has been.” She turned to Lady Anne. “For fifteen years, I have listened to my tiresome neighbors foretelling a dire future for your niece, Madam, but I always believed there was hope for her. Now,” she said with a complacent smirk, “I intend to sit back and laugh myself into fits watching her snap Sevarin up right in front of their eyes.” Raising her monacle to her eye, she gave Whitney a final inspection, then nodded abruptly. “Do Not Fail Me, Miss.”
In amazed disbelief Whitney stared at the empty doorway through which the dowager had just passed. “I think she’s a little mad.”
“I think she’s as wily as a fox,” Lady Anne replied with a faint smile. “And I think you’d be wise to take her advice to heart.”
* * *
Trancelike, Whitney sat before her dressing table mirror, watching Clarissa deftly twist her heavy hair into elaborate curls entwined with a rope of diamonds—her last, and most extravagant purchase made with the money her father sent her to spend in Paris. As Clarissa teased soft tendrils over her ears, the night breeze wafted the curtains, raising bumps on Whitney’s arms. Tonight was going to be unseasonably cool, which suited Whitney perfectly, for the gown she wanted to wear was of velvet.
As the gown was being fastened up the back, Whitney heard the sound of carriages making their way along the drive, the echo of muted laughter, distant but distinct, drifting through the open windows. Were they laughing as they recounted her old antics? Was that Margaret Merryton or one of the other girls, sniggering about the shameful way she used to behave?
Whitney didn’t notice when Clarissa finished and quietly left the room. She felt cold all over, frightened, and more painfully unsure of herself than ever before in her life. Tonight was the night she had been practicing for and dreaming of all these years in France.
She wandered over to the windows, wondering distractedly what Elizabeth would wear tonight. Something pastel, no doubt. And demurely fetching. Parting the ivory and gold curtains, she stared down, watching the carriage lamps twinkling as they approached along the sweeping drive. One after another, in amazing numbers, they rolled to a stop at the steps. Her father must have invited half the countryside, she thought nervously. And of course, they had all accepted his invitation. They would all be eager to look her over, to search for some flaw, some sign of the unruly girl she’d been before.
Two steps into Whitney’s room, Anne came to an abrupt halt, a slow, beaming smile working its way across her face. In profile, Whitney’s finely sculpted features looked too lovely to be real. Anne took in everything, from the shadows of thick lashes on glowing magnolia skin, to the diamonds glittering amidst her shiny mahogany curls and peeping from beneath the soft tendrils at her ears. Her curvacious form was draped in an emerald-green velvet gown with a high waist. T
he bodice was molded firmly to her breasts, exposing a daring amount of flesh above the square neckline. As if to atone for the gown’s immodest display of bosom, the sleeves were fitted tubes of emerald velvet which did not allow so much as a glimpse of skin from shoulder to wrist, where they ended in deep points at the tops of her hands. Like the front, the back of the gown was elegant in its simplicity, falling in velvet folds.
A carriage drew up below, and Whitney watched a tall blond man bound down and offer his hand to a beautiful blond girl. Paul had arrived. And he had come with Elizabeth. Jerking away from the window, Whitney saw her aunt and visibly jumped.
“You look positively breathtaking!” Lady Anne whispered.
“Do you really like it—the dress, I mean?” Whitney’s voice was raspy and tight with mounting tension.
“Like it?” Anne laughed. “Darling, it’s you! Daring and elegant and special.” She extended her hand from which dangled a magnificent emerald pendant. “Your father asked me this morning what color your gown was, and he just brought me this to give to you. It was your mother’s,” Anne added when Whitney stared at the glittering jewel.
The emerald was easily an inch square, flanked by a row of glittering diamonds on all four sides. It was not her mother’s; Whitney had spent hours, long ago, lovingly touching all the little treasures and trinkets in her mother’s jewel case. But she was too nervous to argue the point. She stood rigidly still while her aunt fastened the pendant.
“Perfect!” Anne exclaimed with pleasure, studying the effect of the glowing jewel nestling in the hollow between Whitney’s breasts. Linking her arm through Whitney’s, Anne took a step forward. “Come, darling—it’s time for your second official debut.” Whitney wished with all her heart that Nicolas DuVille were here to help her through this debut, too.
Her father was pacing impatiently at the foot of the stairs, waiting to escort her into the ballroom. When he saw her coming down the steps toward him, he halted in mid-stride, and the stunned admiration on his face bolstered Whitney’s faltering confidence.