“Yes,” Whitney said. She was puzzled by his concern, but she dismissed it because the music was beginning again and Lord Rutherford and five other men were bearing down on her with the obvious intention of asking her to dance.
Clayton followed her from the alcove and leaned a shoulder negligently against a pillar, raising his glass of champagne to his lips while he watched her making her graceful way toward the dance floor. Whitney might think these people believed she was his mistress, but Clayton was making certain they realized she was his fiancée. They all knew he was not in the habit of gazing fondly at the women he escorted to balls, or holding up pillars while he watched them dance. By doing that now, he was deliberately announcing their engagement as clearly and emphatically as if it had been printed in the Times.
Just why it was so important to claim Whitney as his tonight, was something that eluded him. He told himself that it was because he didn’t want Esterbrook and the others panting after her, but it was more than that. She was in his blood. Her smile warmed his heart, and her most innocent touch sent desire raging through his veins. There was a provocative sensuality about her, a natural, unaffected sophistication and exhilarating liveliness that drew men to her, and he wanted every one of them to know, here and now, that she was his.
He watched her, his mind drifting to the night soon to come, when that glorious mantle of shimmering dark hair would be spilling over his bare chest and her silken body would writhe in sweet ecstasy beneath his. In the past, he had preferred his women to be experienced in the art of lovemaking; fiery, passionate creatures who knew how to give pleasure and receive it, women who could admit their desire to themselves and to him. But now he was outrageously pleased that Whitney was an inexperienced virgin. In fact, it gave him intense pleasure to contemplate their wedding night when he would guide her gently, tenderly from girl to woman, until she was moaning with rapture in his arms.
Three hours later, Whitney had danced with more men than she could possibly remember and drank more champagne than she had ever consumed. She was feeling decidedly gay and definitely light-headed—so much so that not even Clayton’s frown of displeasure when she accepted this, her second dance with Lord Esterbrook, could dampen her spirits. In fact she was quite convinced that nothing could spoil her enjoyment of the evening, until she glanced over Lord Esterbrook’s shoulder and saw that, for the first time all night, Clayton was dancing with someone other than her. The young woman in his arms, whose eyes were turned laughingly up to his was a lushly beautiful blonde whose slender, voluptuous curves were draped in an exquisite gown of sapphire-blue, with diamonds and sapphires twined in and out among her shining curls. A blinding streak of jealousy suddenly ripped through Whitney.
“Her name is Vanessa Standfield,” Lord Esterbrook provided with a hint of malicious satisfaction in his voice.
“They make a very striking couple,” Whitney managed.
“Vanessa certainly thinks so,” Esterbrook replied.
Whitney’s eyes clouded as she recalled the conversation she’d overheard much earlier between the three women in the withdrawing room upstairs. Vanessa Standfield had been expecting an offer from Clayton just before he left for France. No doubt, Clayton had given her very good reason to believe he cared, Whitney thought with a fresh stab of painful jealousy as she watched him grinning at the gorgeous blonde. But then she reminded herself that Clayton had offered for her and not Vanessa Standfield, and in a dizzying shift of mood she felt perfectly wonderful again. “Miss Standfield is very beautiful,” she said.
Esterbrook’s brows lifted in amused mockery. “Vanessa was not nearly so complimentary when she remarked about you a few moments ago, Miss Stone. But then, she is quite convinced that you have wrung an offer from Claymore. Have you?” he asked abruptly.
Whitney was so stunned by his monumental nerve that she didn’t even consider getting angry. In fact, her eyes danced with laughter. “Somehow, I cannot conceive of anyone ‘wringing’ anything from him, can you?”
“Oh come now,” Esterbrook said testily, “I am not naive enough to believe you misunderstood my question.”
“And I,” Whitney said softly, “am not naive enough to believe I have to answer it.”
With the exception of Lord Esterbrook, all her other partners were lavishly attentive and outrageously flattering, but the dancing and animated conversation eventually began to wear on her. She found herself longing to be at Clayton’s side. Declining her current partner’s request for another dance, she asked him to return her to the duke instead.
As usual, Clayton was surrounded with people, but without looking up from the conversation, he reached out and firmly took her arm, drawing her into the circle of his friends, and keeping her close to his side. It was a casually possessive gesture that somehow added to Whitney’s sense of euphoric well-being . . . as did the next two glasses of champagne.
“What happened to Esterbrook?” Clayton asked drily a while later. “I expected him to ask you for a third dance.”
Whitney twinkled. “He did. But I refused.”
“To prevent gossip?”
An unconsciously provocative smile curved her lips as she shook her head in denial. “I refused because I knew you didn’t want me to dance with him the last time, and I was quite, quite certain that if I did it again, you would retaliate by dancing again with Miss Standfield.”
“That’s very astute of you,” he complimented softly.
“And very perverse of you,” Whitney admonished, laughing. And then it dawned on her that she had just admitted to being jealous.
“Chérie—” Nicki’s deep chuckle brought her spinning around in joyous surprise. “Have you now decided to conquer
London as you did Paris?”
“Nicki!” she breathed, beaming at the handsome face that had been so dear to her for so long. “It’s wonderful to see you,” she said as he took both her hands in his familiar warm grasp and held them. “I asked Lord Rutherford if you were here, but he said you had been delayed in Paris and might not arrive until tomorrow.”
“I got here an hour ago.”
Whitney turned to Clayton, intending to introduce Nicki to him, but evidently they had already met. “Claymore, isn’t it?” Nicki interrupted her introduction, his tawny eyes surveying Clayton critically.
Clayton’s response was an equally cool inclination of the head, followed by a lazy, mocking smile which Whitney sensed was deliberately intended either to infuriate or intimidate Nicki. Whitney, who had never seen either man act this way to anyone before, had a sudden urge to run for cover, and an equally strong impulse, induced by champagne, to giggle at the male hostility she had somehow provoked.
“Dance with me,” Nicki said, arrogantly disregarding etiquette, which required that he first ask Clayton if he objected.
Since Nicki was already exerting pressure to draw her with him to the dance floor, Whitney looked helplessly over her shoulder at Clayton. “Will you excuse us, please?” she asked.
“Certainly,” came Clayton’s clipped reply.
The moment Nicki took her in his arms, his features tightened with disapproval. “What are you doing with Claymore?” he demanded, and before she could possibly answer, he said, “Chérie, the man is a . . . a . . .”
“Are you trying to say he’s a frightful rogue where ladies are concerned?” Whitney asked, struggling against her mirth.
Nicki nodded curtly, and Whitney continued teasingly, “And he is a trifle arrogant, isn’t he? Also very handsome and charming?”