“But Claymore gives the best parties in London!” he objected with equal vehemence. “And last week, you said you adored large parties.”
“That was last week. This week the noise makes me quite ill!”
The viscount undoubtedly found her recently acquired allergy to noise rather extraordinary, but Miss Stone was beautiful and entertaining. And very popular. He took her to the opera instead.
That marked the end of Whitney’s good fortune: she saw Clayton the following night. She was at the theatre with Nicki, seated in a private box with an excellent view of the stage and the five tiers of seats above it. Just before the play began, her curl caught in her amethyst brooch, and Nicki leaned across to help untangle it. As he did so, Whitney’s gaze wandered aimlessly across the crowd—then riveted in stricken paralysis on Clayton and Vanessa Standfield, who were just entering a box nearby which was already occupied by the Rutherfords. Clayton’s hand was resting familiarly on Vanessa Standfield’s waist as the two couples exchanged gay greetings. Unable to tear her eyes away, Whitney watched them take their seats. She saw Vanessa speak to Clayton, who leaned closer, the better to hear her, and whatever she said to him made him throw back his head and burst out laughing.
Her body trembling violently, Whitney watched as the Rutherfords turned to Clayton and Vanessa, obviously curious about the reason for his hilarity. Clayton spoke, and he must have repeated what Vanessa said, because Vanessa blushed gorgeously, and the Rutherfords also joined in the laughter.
In the rows of seats below and the tiers above, heads were twisting and turning, and Whitney heard the murmurings about “Claymore” and “his grace” and “the duke.” Clayton’s presence in the theatre (and Vanessa’s with him) was being duly noted by all.
“Chérie, are you ill?” Nicki asked, frowning at Whitney’s paleness.
Thinking that she was going to be sick, Whitney started to rise. As she did so, Clayton glanced up and saw her. His eyes turned as flinty as steel, and his expression changed from icy distaste to bored contempt. And then he simply looked away.
Whitney told herself that she had to stay in that box until the play was over, that she wouldn’t, wouldn’t let Clayton see that she was affected by his presence. She left ten minutes later. She left because tears had started to stream down her cheeks, and because she was so jealous, so unbearably, agonizingly, helplessly jealous that she couldn’t bear to remain.
Three nights later, Nicki escorted her to their second party of the evening. Arriving extremely late, Whitney handed her fur cape to the butler, then took Nicki’s arm as he led her through the throngs of departing guests who were all waiting for their conveyances to be brought round. Near the rear of the group, Whitney saw Clayton helping Vanessa with her wrap, grinning down at her in that bold, intimate way of his, and her fingers tightened convulsively on Nicki’s arm.
“Where are you leading me next, my lord?” Vanessa asked Clayton as Whitney tried helplessly to move past them.
“Astray,” Clayton told her with a blunt chuckle. He glanced up and saw Whitney standing directly in front of him, but this time Clayton didn’t bother to communicate his loathing. He merely looked through her as if she didn’t exist for him, and then he turned his attention back to Vanessa.
On a cold, blustery afternoon the following week, Nicki proposed. Without flowery, fervent professions of his affection, Nicki gathered a pale Whitney into his arms and said simply, “Marry me, love.”
His quiet offering of himself nearly destroyed Whitney’s fragile grip on her emotions. “I—I can’t, Nicki,” she whispered, trying to smile at him despite the tears gathering in her eyes. “I wish with all my heart that I loved you, but it would be wrong for me to marry you, feeling the way I do.”
“I know exactly how you feel, chérie,” he said gently, tipping her chin up. “But I’m willing to gamble that if you marry me and come back to France, I can make you forget him.”
Whitney reached up and laid her hand against his jaw. Nicki had been someone she could count on and trust. If she refused him now, he would leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to give him false hope. “My dear, good friend,” she whispered brokenly. “I will love you forever, but always as my friend.” Tears glittered on her long lashes, and Whitney’s voice shook. “I cannot tell you how . . . how honored I am that you would have me for your wife . . . or how much you have meant to me these past years. Oh, Nicki, thank you. Thank you—for being all the things you are.” Pulling out of his arms, she turned and fled.
She ran blindly up the stairs, holding back her tears until she heard the front door close behind him. And then they came, streaming down her cheeks as she covered her face with her hands and rushed past Emily and Michael’s open door, down the hall to the bedroom which had become her private hell, to weep out the misery which seemed to have no end.
Emily turned on Michael, her eyes wide with alarm. “Dear God!” she cried. “What could have happened now? If Clayton Westmoreland has done anything else to her, I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.”
Michael drew Emily back into their bedroom and firmly closed the door. “Emily,” he said cautiously, “Claymore married Vanessa Standfield at her home yesterday. Everyone who is in a position to know has been talking about it.”
“I refuse to believe it!” Emily burst out. “Ever since I came to London years ago, I’ve heard endless gossip about him, and it’s scarcely ever been true.”
“Perhaps. But this time I believe it. And whether it’s true or not, what difference does it make? Whitney has forgotten him completely these last weeks.”
“Oh, Michael!” Emily said miserably. “How can you be so utterly blind?” Without waiting for her stunned husband to reply, she pulled the door open and walked determinedly down the hall to the blue guest bedroom. She tapped once on Whitney’s door and when there was no answer, boldly opened it and stepped into the room. Whitney was lying in a crumpled heap on the bed, her eyes tightly closed, her face streaked with tears.
“Why are you crying?” Emily asked in a kind but firm tone.
Whitney’s eyes flew open and she sat up in embarrassed surprise, groping for her handkerchief. “It seems to be the thing I do best lately,” she said ruefully, dabbing at her eyes.
“This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve known you since we were babies, and I can’t ever remember you shedding so much as one tear until a few weeks ago. Now, Miss Stone,” she demanded, “why are you crying?”
“Nicki proposed,” Whitney sighed, too exhausted to try to evade the question.
“Which made you so happy that you burst into tears?”
Whitney smiled but there was a catch in her voice. “I seem to have a difficult time coping with marriage proposals. You would think, with as much practice as I had in France, that I—”
“What happened to the last one?” Emily interrupted flatly.
Whitney looked at her in silence for a long moment, then she shrugged and looked away. “Clayton didn’t want to marry me, after all.”
“Oh rubbish! How can you expect me to believe such flummery? I’ve seen the way that man looks at you.”
Whitney dragged herself off the bed and went over to the little French desk from which she extracted the packet Clayton had sent her. Without a word, she handed it to Emily.
Emily sank into a chair as she began to read. Her face registered no particular reaction when she read the legal documents, but she frowned at the bank draft, and rolled her eyes in absolute disgust when she read Clayton’s note. “Really!” she exclaimed in wry exasperation. “Sending you this note was too foolish for words. If he wasn’t drunk as a wheelbarrow when he wrote it I can’t think what was wrong with his brain. But what has all this”—she gestured to the pile of papers—“to do with the way you behaved at Elizabeth’s banquet? I saw the way you avoided and ignored him.”
“I should have avoided him at the church!” Whitney said feelingly. “And I would have, except that I thought we w
ere still betrothed. I—I didn’t know about these papers until we came back here after the wedding. They were with the things my father sent from home.”
“Surely you aren’t upset because the duke withdrew his offer? It would seem to me he acted correctly, knowing that he had wronged you—and believing that you could never forgive him. I’m certain he was only trying to excuse you from an obligation he believed would be repugnant to you.”
Whitney gaped at her. “How can you be so gullible? Emily, he dragged me to his bed and stole my honor, then he gave me a bank draft to pay me off, broke our betrothal, and sent me a note suggesting I marry Paul!”
“I suppose,” Emily sighed, “that were I as emotionally involved as you are, I might feel the same way. But please, just for the sake of argument, forget about the bank draft. That was too foolish for words—and very generous of him, too.” Whitney opened her mouth to object angrily, but Emily shook her head and firmly interrupted her. “Whitney, I saw him at the church, after he sent you these papers. He loved you—a fool could have seen that. He stood in that church worshiping you!”
Whitney leapt to her feet. “He stood in that church because Elizabeth invited him to her wedding! And if I’d known it at the time, I wouldn’t have made such a horrid fool of myself and—”