Whitney pulled out a fistful of grass and tossed it away with a sigh. How she wished Clayton would settle for just being her friend. He would make such a wonderful friend, she thought. He could be so charming and entertaining, and he made her laugh. Perhaps when she was a married woman, Clayton would stop looking at her as a possible conquest and then they could be friends. Perhaps—
Whitney forgot about Clayton as Paul came galloping around the bend and reined to a sharp halt beside her. When he saw her sitting there, his expression changed from worry to annoyance. “Do you suppose you could explain to me why it is that every time you and Westland are together, the pair of you seem to vanish?” he demanded irritably.
The moment Clayton trotted into the grove leading Dangerous Crossing, a cry of alarm went up from the spectators. They surged forward with Lady Gilbert in the lead. “What happened?” Whitney’s aunt cried. “Where is Whitney?”
“She’ll be along,” Clayton called to her. Turning in his saddle, Clayton watched Whitney coming into the grove, mounted sideways in front of Sevarin. As he looked at her, he suddenly reversed his earlier opinion of how she had become separated from her horse during the race. However she’d come unhorsed, it hadn’t been deliberate, he decided. It simply wasn’t in Whitney to quit.
At the finish line, Whitney slid down from Paul’s horse and glanced uncertainly at Clayton, wondering what he had told everyone. The spectators converged on her while those who had placed wagers on the outcome of the race shouted for her to give them the results.
Leaning over, Clayton caught her under the arms and swung her up onto the horse so that she was sitting sideways in front of him. “They are waiting for you to tell them who won the race,” he pointed out, ignoring her indignant expression at being so familiarly handled.
“My horse was winded over a mile back,” Whitney called out. “Mr. Westland won.” She turned to Clayton and said under her breath, “Actually, there was no winner.”
His brows lifted mockingly. “Your horse was tiring and you were going to lose,” he told her. “And you are a fine enough rider to have realized that long before you fell.”
“I’m delighted that you are at least willing to give me credit for taking an honest fall,” Whitney retorted primly.
Clayton chuckled. “If you had the slightest notion of how much credit I do give you, it would astonish you.”
Before Whitney could consider that staggering pronouncement, he lifted her effortlessly down from the saddle. Standing beside Paul, she watched Clayton turn his horse and gallop over the crest of the hill.
Thursday dragged by with little to occupy Whitney’s time. Paul was busy with preparing for his trip, so she spent her day helping with the arrangements for her father’s birthday party on Saturday and catching up on her correspondence with friends in Paris.
Friday morning, she wrote a long letter to Emily, who was back in London. The temptation to break her self-imposed, almost superstitious silence about Paul was nearly past bearing, so she hinted that she would soon have some very exciting news for her friend. She ended with a promise to visit Emily in London, a promise Whitney knew she would keep very soon, because she would need to go there in order to purchase her wedding gown and trousseau. When she was there, she would ask Emily to be matron of honor at the wedding, she decided happily.
She brought the letter downstairs to be sent off, and discovered that Clayton Westland had just arrived. He was chatting amiably with Anne in the rose salon, and he politely rose when Whitney joined them.
“I came to reassure myself that you’ve fully recovered from your accident the other day,” he told her, and there was none of his usual mocking irony in his tone.
Whitney knew this was his way of apologizing for thinking she had faked her fall. “Completely recovered,” she assured him.
“Excellent,” he said. “Then you won’t be able to claim fogged thinking or ill health if I beat you soundly at chess again. This afternoon?”
Whitney rose to his bait like a trout for a fly—which is why she ended up spending the better part of the day pleasurably engaged in battling and bantering with him across the chessboard, with her aunt ensconced on the settee, acting as smiling chaperone while her fingers flew nimbly over her embroidery.
Lying in bed that night, Whitney courted sleep, but it refused to come. She lifted her hand and looked at her long fingers in the darkness. Would there be a betrothal ring there tomorrow? It was possible, if only her father would return early enough tomorrow afternoon for Paul to speak to him. And then they could announce their engagement at the party tomorrow night.
Whitney was not the only one unable to sleep. With his hands linked behind his head, Clayton stared at the ceiling above his bed, pleasurably contemplating their wedding night. His blood stirred hotly as he imagined Whitney’s silken, long-limbed body beneath his, her hips rising to meet his thrusts. She was a virgin, and he would take care to arouse her gently until she was moaning with rapture in his arms.
With that delightful thought in mind, he rolled over onto his side and finally drifted off to sleep.
16
* * *
Lady Anne was awakened by the babble of vaguely familiar voices calling cheerful greetings to one another in the halls. She blinked at the dazzling sunlight and realized her head was pounding, while a feeling of foreboding crept over her.
Martin’s surprise birthday party had been Whitney’s idea and, at the time, Anne had immediately supported it, hoping it might help bring Martin closer to his daughter. But she hadn’t known then of Whitney’s betrothal to the Duke of Claymore. Now, she worried that one of the thirty visiting guests might recognize Westmoreland, and then God knew what would happen to all the careful plans hatched by Martin and the duke.
Reaching behind her, she tugged on the bellpull to summon her maid and reluctantly climbed out of bed, unable to shake the feeling of impending doom.
* * *
Dusk had fallen when Sewell finally tapped at Whitney’s bedroom door and informed her that her father had returned.
“Thank you, Sewell,” Whitney called dejectedly. Tonight would have been such a perfect occasion for announcing her betrothal; the Ashtons and the Merrytons and everyone else of any consequence in the neighborhood would be at the party. How she wanted to see their collective reaction to the news that P
aul and she were going to be married.
Still, she reasoned hopefully as she lathered herself with carnation-scented soap, there was a chance that Paul might find an opportunity to draw her father aside during the party. Then they could still announce their betrothal tonight.
Three quarters of an hour later, her maid, Clarissa, stood back to survey Whitney’s appearance while Whitney dutifully turned around for her inspection.
Whitney’s elegant ivory satin gown shimmered in the candlelight, and its low, square-cut bodice molded itself to her breasts, displaying a tantalizing glimpse of the shadowy hollow between them. The wide bell sleeves were trimmed with rich topaz satin from her elbows to her wrists, and a matching band of topaz adorned the hemline. From the front, the gown fell in straight lines, widening slightly at the hem, but viewed from the back, it flared out into a graceful, flowing half train. Topaz and diamonds glittered at her throat and ears, adding their fire to the matching strand of jewels twined in and out among the thick, shining curls of her elaborately coiffed hair.
“You look like a princess,” Clarissa announced with a proud smile.
From below and along the halls, Whitney heard the guests stealthily moving about. Her father’s valet had been instructed to inform his master that “a few guests” had been invited for dinner, and that he was requested to come downstairs at seven o’clock. Whitney glanced at the clock on her mantel; it was six-thirty. Her spirits lifted as she imagined her father’s happy surprise at finding relatives who had travelled from Bath, Brighton, London, and Hampshire to celebrate his birthday. With the intention of asking Sewell to try to keep the guests a little quieter, Whitney slipped out of her room and into the hall.