“Exactly,” Nicki agreed with a grin.
“In that case,” she mused in a laughter-tinged voice, “won’t this waltz ruin my reputation before I even have one?”
“No, but it may ruin mine.” Nicki saw her shocked look and said lightly, “It is not at all in my style to appear at debutante balls, Mademoiselle. And for me to be seen like this, actually enjoying myself dancing with an impertinent chit of your tender years, is unheard of.”
Whitney pulled her gaze from Nicolas DuVille’s ruggedly chiselled face and glanced around at the young dandies in their bright satin waistcoats. They were staring at Nicki in open irritation, and no wonder! Nicki’s impeccably tailored midnight black attire, his air of smooth urbanity, made them all seem somewhat overdressed and rather callow.
“Are they still staring?” Nicki teased.
Whitney bit her lip, trying to hold back the laughter that was already sparkling in her eyes as she looked up into his handsome face. “Yes, but I can’t really blame them—you are rather like a hawk in a room full of canaries.”
A slow, admiring smile swept across his features. “I am indeed,” he breathed softly. And then he said, “You have an enchanting smile, chérie.”
Whitney was thinking that he was the one possessed of a wonderful smile, when it vanished behind a dark frown. “Is—is something wrong?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied bluntly. “Do not let a man you aren’t betrothed to call you ‘chérie.’?”
“I will stare them out of countenance if they dare!” Whitney promptly promised.
“Much better,” he applauded, and then boldly, “. . . chérie.”
At the conclusion of the waltz, he guided her back to her aunt, keeping his head bent toward her as if he were positively hanging on her every word. He waited there, rarely taking his eyes off of her as she danced in turn with each of his three friends.
Whitney felt a little giddy and reckless and wonderful. Already there were a gratifying number of gentlemen asking for introductions to her. She knew it was because of the extravagant and unprecedented attention she was receiving from Nicolas DuVille and his friends, but she was too relieved and grateful to care.
Claude Delacroix, a handsome, fair-haired man who had come with Nicolas, instantly discovered that Whitney loved horses, and the two of them had a thoroughly enjoyable disagreement about the merits of one breed over another. He even asked if she would care to go for a drive with him one day soon, which was certainly not at Nicki’s prompting. Whitney felt very pleased and flattered, and she was smiling as he returned her to her aunt.
Nicki, however, was not pleased, nor was he smiling, when he immediately claimed her for the next dance. “Claude Delacroix,” he informed her curtly as his arm encircled her, “is from a fine old family. He is an outstanding whip, an excellent gambler, and a good friend. He is not, however, a suitable companion for you, nor should you think of him as a possible suitor. In matters of the heart, Claude is an expert, but he loses interest very quickly, and then . . .”
“He breaks the lady’s heart?” Whitney guessed with mock solemnity.
“Exactly,” Nicki said severely.
Whitney knew her heart already belonged to Paul, and so it was not in any danger. With a soft smile, she said, “I shall guard my heart with great care.”
Nicki’s gaze lingered on her soft, inviting lips, then lifted to her glowing jade eyes. “Perhaps,” he breathed with a tinge of self-mockery that Whitney couldn’t understand, “I ought to warn Claude to guard his heart. If you were older, Mademoiselle, I think I would.”
When Nicki returned her to her aunt, there were more than a dozen gentlemen, all eager for a dance with her and waiting to claim it. Nicki detained her with a hand on her arm, and nodded toward the young man at the end of the line. “André Rousseau,” he said, “would make an excellent husband for you.”
Whitney gave him a look of laughing exasperation. “You really shouldn’t say things like that.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Now, am I forgiven for my rudeness yesterday?”
Whitney nodded happily. “I would say that I have just been ‘launched’ as beautifully as one of England’s ships.”
Nicki’s smile was filled with warmth as he raised her fingers to his lips. “Bon voyage, chérie,” he said.
And then he was gone.
* * *
Whitney was still thinking about the night before and smiling softly to herself as she descended the stairs the following morning, intending to ride her uncle’s spirited mare. Masculine voices drifted into the hallway from the drawing room, and as Whitney started to walk past, Aunt Anne appeared in the doorway, her face wreathed in a smile. “I was just coming up to get you,” she whispered. “You have callers.”
“Callers?” Whitney repeated, panicking. It was one thing to mouth the usual prescribed platitudes during the dancing last night, another thing entirely to charm and interest these gentlemen who had now exerted themselves to pay a morning call on her. “Whatever shall I say to them?” Whitney begged. “What shall I do?”
“Do?” Anne smiled, stepping aside and firmly placing her hand against the small of Whitney’s back. “Why, be yourself, darling.”
Hesitantly, Whitney entered the room. “I was about to ride—in the park,” she explained to her callers—three of the gentlemen she had danced with last night. The three young men leapt to their feet, each one thrusting a bouquet of flowers toward her. Whitney’s gaze slid to the bouquets they were holding, and a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “It appears that the three of you have just come from there.”
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 curves 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.