Whitney, My Love

Chapter Thirty-four

A WEEK LATER THEY LEFT FOR FRANCE ON THEIR WEDDING TRIP.

They stayed one month. When they returned to London the couple did not, as everyone expected they would, repair to the duke's handsome mansion in Upper Brook Street. Instead they seemed to prefer the seclusion and serenity of Claymore. They did, however, appear regularly at social functions in town, sometimes arriving back at Claymore just as dawn broke.

In a society where it was considered unfashionable for a husband and wife to be too much in each other's company when they were out together, the Duke and Duchess of Claymore created a fashion of their own. For the duke and his duchess were rarely far from each other's side, and one could scarcely fail to notice how desirable they made being together appear. They were a striking couple, of course, the duke splendidly tall and elegantly masculine, grinning that lazy, approving grin at his beautiful young wife who seemed to be able to make him laugh with a joy that no one had ever before observed. But it was more than what one saw, it was a feeling that one had when watching them-as if the couple were joined together by more than just affection or even wedlock. It was, the ton remarked with collective sighs of surprise and occasional envy, a most unusual marriage by modern standards. A few members of the haughty elite quite forgot to be brittly sophisticated and even went so far as to muse aloud that it was quite, quite obvious that the duke and duchess were in love with each other.

Clayton harbored not the slightest doubt of the correct term for what he felt. He loved Whitney with a passion and devotion that were rooted deeply in his soul. He could not see, or hear, or touch her enough to satisfy his craving for her. At night he would feel that hot need rising within him that seemed to increase, instead of diminish each time he exploded inside of her; and she would press herself against him as if she, too, could not be near enough to him, for long enough. In bed she was a passionate, irresistible mistress intent on pleasing him. Clayton taught her in the first weeks of their marriage that there was no place for embarrassment or shyness between them, and Whitney responded by abandoning herself to his caresses. He allowed her to hold nothing back from him and, after a few feeble attempts to hide her passionate responses to his lovemaking, she surrendered herself willingly to the wild and stormy tides that he caused to rise and crash until she cried out. And then he held her in his arms, tracing the curves of her body, whispering until they both slept, happy, peaceful, and sated.

Whitney's days were filled with contentment. Whenever possible she would curl up in a corner of Clayton's spacious study during the day, reviewing the household accounts, planning menus or simply reading, stealing surreptitious, admiring glances at him as he leaned back in his chair, going over the correspondence and reports on his business ventures. Occasionally, Clayton would look up as if to reassure himself that she was there, and grin at her, or give her a quick wink before turning his attention back to the business at hand. In the beginning, Whitney had never dreamed that he might like having her here. This was his private world where he talked about staggering amounts of money with his business agents and gambled in investments that she soon realized were amazingly perceptive and prudent. He liked this work, though-he didn't have to do it. He told her that one night. And Stephen told her once that in the last five years Clayton had nearly doubled the vast Westmoreland wealth. He even handled Stephen's investments for him and-surprise of surprises-now her father's as well.

She loved listening to him meeting with his solicitors and business acquaintances. She adored the thread of quiet authority in his voice as he spoke with them. He was so quick, and sure, and decisive. He was also devastatingly handsome, she thought with a burst of pride whenever she looked at him. She felt cherished and protected when he was near-safe and loved.

When she went shopping in town or to a play with Emily, she missed the sound of his voice, his warm glances and engaging smile.

Her nights were a celebration of their love. Sometimes he lingered over her as tenderly as he had on their wedding night. Other times he teased her, deliberately tantalizing her, making her tell him exactly what she wanted; then there were tunes when he took her swiftly, almost roughly. And Whitney could never decide which way she loved the most.

At first she had been a little frightened of the stormy, tumultuous passion she could arouse in him with a kiss, a touch, an intimate caress. But it took very little time before she was shamelessly glorying in his bold, virile masculinity. She was his-body, heart, and soul. She was at peace with her world.

She was also pregnant five months later. Now when Clayton slept cradling her in his arms, Whitney lay awake feeling both excited and vaguely distressed. Her monthly flux was three weeks overdue, yet for several reasons, she postponed telling Clayton. Therese DuVille had confided to Whitney at the wedding that she was going to enjoy the rest from her husband's amorous attentions that being enceinte would provide. Therese might be looking forward to it, but Whitney definitely was not. On the other hand, she didn't want to risk harming the baby if such might be the result of their continued lovemaking. To complicate things, Clayton had never voiced any desire for children, although it seemed to Whitney that all men must want children-particularly men with titles to be passed on to their heirs. When she missed her second monthly flux and began to experience occasional queasiness and the yearning to nap in the middle of the day, she was positive, but still she held her silence.

One day shortly thereafter, as Whitney went upstairs to change for their daily break-neck gallop across the open countryside, Clayton stopped her on the steps. "Khan is favoring his right leg a little," he said with a peculiar gravity, mingled with profound gentleness in his voice. "Suppose we go for a walk Instead, little one."

Whitney hadn't noticed Khan favoring his leg at all, and there were dozens of other splendid mounts at the stables, but she didn't question his decision. She was a little relieved because they always rode at such a hell-for-leather pace that she shuddered to think of what might happen if she fell, and she hadn't been able to think of a way to suggest they slow down without telling Clayton why.

That night, Clayton's lovemaking took on a new pattern that repeated itself consistently thereafter. He would arouse her until she was delirious with wanting his possession, and then enter her with painstaking gentleness, penetrating deeply, but slowly, withdrawing lingeringly. It prolonged the inevitable moment of joyous release unbearably . . . and very pleasurably. It also provided Whitney with the rationalization that such a gentle invasion of her body could not possibly be harming their baby.

The next week she took herself firmly in hand and told herself she was being ridiculous. In the first place, she was bursting with her news. In the second, if she delayed much longer, her own body would provide nun with the announcement of his impending fatherhood. Accordingly, Whitney went to London and purchased six tiny items of infant apparel at a particular shop. Immediately upon her return, she set to work in earnest with the embroidery thread in the privacy of her rooms.

She summoned Mary and Clarissa for an opinion of her needlework and said with a sigh as she produced her handiwork, "Amazing, is it not, that I could master Greek and not this?" Mary and Clarissa, who were both secure in their positions in the household, took one look at her embroidery, then looked at each other and collapsed on the bed amidst shrieks of laughter.

By dinner the next evening, Whitney was finally satisfied with a "W" she had embroidered in blue on the collar of an unbelievably tiny baby gown. "This will have to do," she sighed to Clarissa.

"When are you going to tell his grace that my baby is going to have a baby?" Clarissa asked with fond tears sparkling at the multiple creases at the comers of her eyes.

"That isn't quite what I planned to say to him," Whitney giggled, giving Clarissa a pat on her wrinkled cheek. "Actually, I'm not going to tell him at all-I'm going to let this tell him," she said, indicating the little infant gown. "And I think tonight after dinner will be a perfect time." With a gay, conspiratorial smile, Whitney tucked the little gown into the drawer of her desk beside her stationery and trooped down-states for dinner.

She waited until Clayton had finished his port after the meal and they were sitting in the white-and-gold salon. Feigning absorption in her book, Whitney sighed. "I can't think why I have been feeling so tired lately." She did not look up and so missed the look of gentle pride and laughter that Clayton beamed on her.

"Can't you, sweet?" he asked cautiously. He thought she knew she was with child but he wasn't certain, and if there was a chance she feared childbearing, he wanted to spare her the worry as long as possible.

"No," Whitney said in a musing tone. "But I wanted to answer my aunt's letter tonight and I have just realized that I left it in the drawer of my writing desk upstairs. Would you mind terribly getting it for me? Those stairs seem like a mountain to climb lately."

Clayton got up, pressed a light kiss on her forehead, affectionately rumpled her heavy hair, and strode briskly up the curving marble staircase.

He went into her room and grinned to himself as he looked about him. A faint scent of Whitney's perfume lingered there. Her combs and brushes were on her dressing table. Her presence filled the airy room and made it seem pretty and fresh and vibrant. Like she was.

Wondering again if she knew she was with child, and wondering why in the world, if she did know, she wasn't telling him, he pulled open the drawer of her rosewood writing desk. Clayton took some stationery off the top of the thick stack for Whitney to use, then rummaged through the drawer, looking for her aunt's letter. Unable to find it, he pushed aside what he thought was a white handkerchief and flipped through the stack of unused stationery. Near the very bottom he finally discovered a folded letter. Uncertain if it was the one Whitney wanted, he unfolded it and scanned the words Whitney had written many months ago at Emily's house, in a foolish-and discarded-attempt to force Clayton to come back to hen

"To my very great mortification, I find I am with child. Please can at once here to discuss what can be done. Whitney."

To her very great mortification? Clayton repeated to himself with a bewildered frown. What an odd way for her to feel about the living culmination of the exquisite joy they had found in one another. And what a peculiar way for her to choose to give him the news. "Please call at once."

In the space of the next three seconds, three realizations stunned him: The note was dated two months before they were married-in fact, it was written on the day before he had brought Vanessa here and found Whitney waiting for him … there was no name on it to indicate who the note had been intended for . . . and the note was in Whitney's elegant, scholarly hand and signed by her. God help him . . . She had written it to some man she believed had made her pregnant.

Clayton's mind registered disbelief, it started to shout denials. . . even while something inside of him slowly cracked and began to crumble. He felt as if he were shattering and all of his pieces flying apart. Whitney had been playacting the night she came here to him. After all those months of treasuring the memory of the way she had surrendered her pride and crossed the study to come to him, it had been a lie, a contemptible, filthy lie! That tender scene in which she had whispered, "I love you" had been an act! She had played it because she believed she was pregnant, and whoever this note was intended for either refused his responsibility or couldn't accept it. Perhaps the son of a bitch was already married.

Whitney had come to Claymore that night to get herself a father for someone else's brat-Christ! They had probably concocted the scheme of her coming here together. Except in the end, she hadn't really needed a father for her bastard. She must have miscarried, Clayton thought with feverishly clear hindsight. No wonder she had looked so tired and wan in the weeks preceding the wedding.

And what a goddamned act on their wedding night! By then she had to have known she wasn't pregnant, but she must have been so horrified by her near calamity that she was willing to go ahead and marry him anyway. Perhaps it made it more convenient for her lover and her if Whitney were married. No one would think a thing about her becoming pregnant now. And then Clayton recalled all the times in the last months when she had gone to London on "shopping trips" and to "visit friends." Bile surged up in his throat. This child she was carrying now was as likely someone else's as his.

That bitch! That tying, deceitful little … No, he couldn't call her that again, even in his twisted torment. He had loved her too much, until a minute ago, to curse her. But he had loved a sham, a consummate actress, a hollow shell of a woman. A body. Nothing more. And the body wasn't even his alone.

What an instinct for survival she had, you had to give her that! She had faced him in that study with Vanessa in the same house, borne his fury and pressed her body against his, kissing him as if her whole heart were in it. Because she was pregnant! Clayton wanted to believe the baby might have been his. He even tried to convince himself of mat for a moment. But he knew better-the night he had ravaged her, there had been no more than a moment's penetration. The act had never been consummated. The chance of the child's having been his was too minuscule even to consider.

Their lives were a charade. Each word she spoke, every look on her face, the way she was in bed-all of it was a performance she put on every day. It was all an obscene,

His hand tightened on the piece of blue stationery, slowly crumpling it into a tight, hard ball. The pain inside of him began to dull as a cold, black rage swept over bun. He dropped the crumpled note blindly into the desk drawer and slammed it shut, but it wouldn't close. A tiny white garment with a small "W" embroidered in blue threads on the collar had jammed between the drawer and the desk, half in and half out of it.

Clayton stared at it, then gave it a vicious jerk. This was what he had been meant to find, he realized with fury. How very touching of her to tell him this way! What a flair for tender drama she had! Distastefully, he dropped the tiny garment on the floor and deliberately ground it beneath his heel as he turned to walk away.

"I see you found it," Whitney whispered from the doorway, her gaze frozen in misery on the little gown crushed beneath his foot.

"When?" he said icily.

"In-in about seven months, I think."

Clayton stared at her, violence emanating from every pore. With deliberate cruelty he carefully enunciated each vicious word. "I don't want it."

Clarissa and Mary, who had been hovering on the balcony to have a look at their employer's beaming countenance when be heard the news, recoiled in amazement as he passed them on the way down the stairs, moving with an unleashed savagery that threatened to strike down anything in his path. The front door crashed into its frame behind him, and Clarissa slowly turned and walked into Whitney's room, then froze in horror at the sight that greeted hen

Whitney was kneeling on the floor near her desk, her shoulders jerking spasmodically with her silent weeping. Her head was thrown back and tears were streaming from her tightly closed eyes.

And in her hands was a tiny white gown with a little "W" she had lovingly embroidered in blue.

"Here, don't cry so, darlin'," Clarissa said in a suffocated whisper as she bent down to help her up. "You'll harm the babe."

Whitney thought she would never be able to stop. She cried until her sobs were dry and choked. She cried until there were no more tears left to weep and she felt dry and barren. "I don't want it!" The four words coiled around her heart, squeezing and twisting until she couldn't breathe.

When dawn came to lighten the sky, Whitney turned onto her side, staring out into the early gray tight. She was alone in her bed, atone all night for the first time in their marriage. Clayton didn't want her baby. Their baby. Did he mean to disown it? Oh God, no! He couldn't-he wouldn't-why would he? Squeezing her eyes closed, she turned her head into the pillow. He was going to make her give up the baby. That's what he meant to do. He was going to get a wet nurse as soon as it was bom and send the child away to have it raised on one of his other estates, out of their way. Was his need for her so selfish then, so consuming that there was no room for their child?

A few hours ago, she might not have known how she felt about her pregnancy, but she did now. Clayton's rejection of her baby had brought on a tidal wave of protectiveness in her so fierce that it shook her to the roots of her being. She would never let him send their baby away. Never!

Whitney awoke very late. Her head was aching and she felt horribly sick and dizzy, but she made herself go down to breakfast. Clayton's place across from her was still set. "His grace said he had no appetite for breakfast, my lady," the servant informed her. Whitney ate a Spartan meal for the sake of the baby then went outdoors for a long walk.

She didn't know where Clayton was; he hadn't come into his room until just before dawn.

She walked through the formal rose gardens, vibrant with separate beds of red, white, pink and yellow roses, and then across the lush manicured banks of the immense lake where swans floated aimlessly upon the tranquil surface. Her steps carried her to the white pavilion on the far bank overlooking the lake, and she went inside and sat down on the brightly colored pillows strewn across the benches.

She sat there for two hours while her thoughts tumbled over each other, trying to reconcile the fact that she was the same person she had been only yesterday, that this was the same lifetime she had inhabited.

She went back to the house and slowly walked up the staircase, only to find Clayton's valet and three servants busily moving his clothing out of his room. "What are they doing?" Whitney breathlessly begged Mary. "Mary, tell me why they are moving my husband's things." She felt as if she were teetering on the brink of insanity.

"His grace is moving into the east wing," Mary explained, forcing herself to sound both brisk and unconcerned. "We'll move your things into his room, and your room will make a nice nursery when the time comes."

"Oh," Whitney whispered faintly, knowing she could never bear to be in that suite without Clayton. "Would you show me where his new rooms are? I'll have to ask him about tonight. We were to go out." Mary led her to an elegant suite at the far end of the east wing and kindly left her alone there.

Whitney walked slowly into the room. Clayton had been there today, but he was gone now. His shirt was thrown over a chair and a pair of gloves lay on the bed where he had tossed them. She wandered into the dressing room and ran her fingers over the onyx backs of his brushes and had to swallow back a fresh onrush of tears. She opened a wardrobe and tortured herself by touching his shirts and jackets. You could tell what broad shoulders were needed to fill those jackets. Such broad shoulders, she thought. She had always loved his broad shoulders. And his eyes.

Whitney was walking toward the door when he came in. Without a word he strode right past her, went into his dressing room, and began shrugging out of his jacket.

She followed him, unable to keep the tears from her voice as she said, "Why are you doing this, Clayton?"

He jerked his shirt off but did not deign to answer her.

"Be-because of our baby?" she persisted in a whisper.

His eyes raked over her. "Because of a baby," he corrected her.

"You-you don't like children?"

"Not another man's children," he informed her icily. Flinging his shirt onto a chair, he turned, caught her elbow in a bruising grip and began forcibly escorting her from the room.

"But you must want children of your own," Whitney said brokenly as she was unceremoniously thrust into the hallway in full sight of a passing servant

"Of my own," Clayton emphasized in a menacing voice, He loomed over her with one hand on the door as if he were about to shut it in her face.

"Are we going to the Wilsons' tonight? I-I accepted their invitation weeks ago.

"I am going out. You can do as you damn well please."

"But," Whitney pleaded, "are you going to the Wilsons'? If you are …"

"No!" he snapped. Then in a terrible voice, he added, "And if I ever find you in this room, or even in this wing of this house again, I will personally remove you. And I promise you, Whitney, you won't like the way I do it" The door slammed in her face.

Clayton stood rigidly still in the room on the other side of the dosed door, his hands clenching and unclenching as he tried to bring this new onslaught of fury under control. By dawn this morning he had managed to drink himself into near oblivion in his study. But not before he had carefully, coldly considered all the ways he could avenge himself for his misplaced love and trust. He would take a mistress, flagrantly flaunt her until Whitney teamed of her existence. Society would overlook a married man with a mistress; it always had. But Whitney would be caught in a vice. She'd not be able to go out alone very often without causing talk. And if she appeared with another man she would be publicly scorned and ostracized.

But even that wasn't enough. If she was going to bear a child, and he was going to have to give it his name, then by God he wasn't going to have to look at it and wonder whose it was! He'd send the brat away from his sight. But not right away. First he would let her keep the child for a year or two until she was deeply attached to it; then he would wrench the babe away from her. The child-that would be his ultimate weapon. He didn't care whether it was the result of her duty little liaison with her lover or whether it was the living proof of his own desires.

Whitney stood there staring at the oak panel. Her throat ached and her eyes burned, but she would not cry! The more she had tried to plead with him, the more pleasure he'd taken in verbally abusing her. Stiffly, she walked down the long hall to the sanity . . . no, not the sanity, this was all insane . . . to the safety of her rooms.

Mary and Clarissa were both working in the master suite, moving Whitney's clothes into the next room, and everything was in disorder. "If you dont mind," Whitney said, drawing a shaking breath, "I-I would like to be alone for a while. You can finish this later." They both looked so sad and so sympathetic that Whitney couldn't bear it.

When they left she looked all around her, trying to assimilate what was happening to her. Clayton was actually casting her aside because their lovemaking had resulted in her pregnancy.

For the first time since last night, Whitney felt a surge of genuine anger. Since when was pregnancy entirely the woman's fault? And just exactly what had he supposed was going to happen if they made love together? Naive she might have been, but even she had known that this is how babies were made. She had half a mind to go storming back to his rooms and inform him of that!

The more she thought of it, the angrier she became. Putting up her chin, Whitney marched over to the bellpull and summoned Clarissa. "Please have my blue silk pressed," she said. "And have the carriage brought round after dinner. I am going out."

Four hours later, Whitney swept into the dining room. Her hair was twisted into elaborate coils entwined with a rope of sapphires and diamonds, with soft tendrils falling at her ears, If they were going to live like strangers, then they could live like friendly strangers. But if Clayton thought for one mo-ment that after she bore his child he was going to be permitted to come to her bed again and take up where they had left off before yesterday-well, he didn't know her quite so well as he thought!

Except that when he automatically came to his feet when she walked into the room, Whitney took one look at him and felt a pang of longing and need so strong that she felt faint. He was so splendid, so unbearably handsome that if he had just smiled at her a little she would have flung herself against him and begged him . . . but begged him for what? For forgiveness for loving him? Or for carrying his child?

Several times during their silent meal, Whitney was aware of his gaze resting momentarily on her breasts which swelled beautifully above the sapphire bodice of her gown. And each time Clayton looked away again, she had the feeling that he was more furious than the time before. She almost wondered if it were possible that he was the least bit jealous. After all, this was the first time that they had ever gone to separate affairs in the evening. The next time his gaze slid to her breasts, she asked innocently, "Do you like my new dress?"

"If you mean to display your charms to the world, it suits you admirably," he said cynically.

"Are you settled into your new rooms?" she asked.

Clayton shoved his plate aside as if her conversation had ruined his appetite and rose from the table. "I find them vastly preferable to the ones I occupied before," he said icily. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode from the room. A few minutes later the front door closed behind him, and Whitney heard the sound of his coach pulling away. She felt deflated, ill and miserable. But she went to the Wilsons' party and purposely stayed until well past midnight in the vague hope that Clayton might not like her being out late without him, and would accompany her the next time.

She was weary to the bone but she woke up abruptly as her carriage pulled up in the Claymore drive, just as Clayton was alighting from his. They walked up the stairs together and Whitney could see the taut anger in the set of his jaw. "Continue to stay out this late and you will have all London gossiping about you within a week," he said tensely.

Whitney stopped with one hand on the door to her room. "I will not be able to go out in society once my condition becomes apparent," she informed him, and then out of sheer obstinacy, she gave her head a toss and added, "Besides, I was having a wonderful time!" She was not absolutely sure, but she thought he swore under his breath.

The next morning she went down to the stables and was bluntly refused a mount. She was hurt, confused, and angry. She was also embarrassed, as were the grooms who had to tell her that those were his grace's orders. Whitney was too distressed to reconsider her actions. Without a word, and looking very much like the young duchess she was, she swung on her heel and marched toward the house, through the front door, and down the hall to Clayton's study, which she entered without bothering to knock first.

He was in conclave with a large group of men seated in a semicircle around his desk. They all leapt to their feet, with the exception of Clayton, who rose with noticeable reluctance.

Smiling angelically at the circle of surprised men, Whitney said, "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I didn't realize my husband had visitors." Then to Clayton who was standing rigidly behind his desk: "There has been a misunderstanding at the stables. No one there seems to realize that Khan belongs to me. Shall I tell them or would you prefer to explain?"

"Do not," her husband said in a terrible voice, "even consider getting on him."

"I am sorry to have interrupted your meeting," Whitney said, hot with embarrassment that he had spoken to her in front of strangers in that degrading tone. She stormed up to her room. This was madness, cruel, perverse insanity. Now Clayton intended to keep her from doing anything to occupy her tune. He wanted to deprive her of her smallest joys in life. She jerked off her riding hat. She hated wearing those silly hats when half the fun of riding was feeling the wind in your hair. She took two steps toward her dressing room, intending to change her clothes, and changed her mind instead.

She stormed back to the stables, gave the first groom who stepped in front of her such a haughty look of disdain that he stepped aside, and then she strode into Khan's stall. She curried him herself. She bridled him herself and then she inarched over to the rack where her saddle was kept and dragged it down. She gained courage with each second. After all, not one of them would dare to lay a hand on her to prevent her from doing what she had set out to do. It took three tries to swing the heavy sidesaddle up and over Khan's back, but she finally made it. She tightened his girth strap as best she could and prayed that it would be tight enough to hold, then she led him out of his stall.

Whitney rode for three hours. She was tired after the first hour, but she hated to go back. From the minute she rode off on Khan, she had known that Clayton would be informed of her action, and she dreaded having to face him.

She had expected a confrontation later; she had not expected to find Clayton waiting for her at the stables. He was standing there with one shoulder propped casually against the whitewashed fence, his features composed as he conversed with the head groom. Inwardly, Whitney quailed at the sight of him. She knew that relaxed, almost indolent stance of his was only a surface calm, beneath which was a murderous fury which he would unleash on her.

As she trotted briskly past him, Clayton reached out in a deceptively casual move and caught Khan's bridle, jerking the horse around to a teeth-jarring stop. His eyes held a terrifying menace and his voice was so icy, so soft, that Whitney's heart pounded in fear. "Get down!"

Whitney had scarcely conceived the notion of whirling Khan and racing for parts unknown, when in that same awful voice he said, "Don't try it, I'm warning you."

To her consternation and fury, Whitney felt her cheeks grow hot and her hands shake. She swallowed and reached her arms toward him in an unconsciously childlike gesture. "Then will you help me down?"

Clayton lifted her roughly from the sidesaddle. "How dare you disobey me," he hissed, his fingers closing cruelly on her upper arm as he marched her away from the curious grooms and stablekeeps.

Whitney waited until they were out of earshot of the stable and approaching the rear door of the house before she pulled her arm away and turned on him. "Disobey you?!" she repeated, stamping her foot. "Do you mean to actually remind me of my vows? Why of all the- Would you like me to remind you of yours, my lord?"

"I will give you a warning. Just one," Clayton enunciated viciously. "Call it advice, if you prefer."

"If I wanted advice," Whitney retorted, her eyes sparkling with jade fire, "you would be the last person on earth I would ask!" She opened her mouth to say more, then changed her mind at the boiling wrath her outburst brought to his features.

"Defy me one more time-just once more, and I will have you locked in your rooms until your brat is born."

"I'm sure you would like nothing more!" Whitney said, hating him for calling her baby a brat. "You are the meanest, cruelest.. . you're a fraud and a liar! How dare you have told me you love me and then treat me so! And another thing, my lord duke," she added in choking fury, "which I'm sure will come as a tremendous surprise to you: It so happens that making love makes babies!"

Clayton was so stunned by her ridiculous "revelation" that he never saw the blow coming. She caught him full on the side of the face with the flat of her hand, then reared back, looking like a tempestuous goddess in all her fine fury.

"Go ahead and hit me back," she raged. "You want to hurt me. What's wrong-have you lost your desire to torture me?" she taunted, ignoring the drumming pulse at his temple. "Well good, because I'm just angry enough to do it again!" She swung wide, then gasped with pain as her wrist was caught in a vise-like grip a split second before her hand would have crashed into his face.

Jerking her wrist up behind her back, Clayton brought her slamming against his chest. "You are a beautiful, conniving, deceitful little bitch," he said furiously. "But just once in our misbegotten lives together, tell me one small truth. Just one honest admission. I swear that whether the answer is 'I don't know' or 'yes' I won't care either way."

"You swear to me?" Whitney hurled back at him. "As you swore at our wedding? As you swore in this house never to hurt me? Your word isn't worth the-"

"Is the child mine?" Clayton snapped, viciously tightening his cruel grip.

Her eyes widened until they were huge green orbs; her soft lips parted in shocked disbelief that was so convincing Clayton wondered for a split-second if somehow he was wrong about everything. Tears of outrage sprang into her eyes. "Is it yours? Yours?" Her voice rose and then, unexpectedly, she collapsed against him, her shoulders quaking violently.

Clayton released his grip on her wrist. He wanted to thrust her slender, shaking form away from him And he wanted just as much to gather her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. But more than anything, he longed to take her into the house and ease the pain in his heart with her body. She was clinging with both hands to his lapels, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in his chest, saying over and over again, "Is it yours?"

Clayton put his hands on her arms, not gently but not roughly either, and moved her away from him. She was sobbing, he thought with an unwanted pang of guilt. He dropped his hands, and Whitney slowly raised her head. She wasn't weeping-she was laughing! She was laughing hysterically. She was still laughing when she hit him full across the side of the face with a crashing blow that snapped his head around, and then she ran inside.

Slowly, thoughtfully, Clayton followed her into the house. He went into his study, closed the doors behind him, and poured himself a liberal drink. He now knew two things for certain: Whitney had a powerful right arm. And the baby was his.

Whatever else she had lied about-the reason for her coming to him here, the reason she had married him- whatever else, her look of contemptuous scorn when he asked if the child was his-that look had been real. She had not lain with her lover on her trips to London. No human being alive who was guilty could have fabricated that look of stunned horror or shocked outrage. She had not betrayed him since they were married. Whatever else she had done, she had not done that. The child was his. Clayton knew it as surely as he knew she had come to him here seven months ago because she thought she needed a father for someone else's child. His wrath went from a roiling boil to a steady sunnier.

Unfortunately, Whitney's did the opposite. Of all the vile, vulgar, contemptible … He was insane! Insane! And she would be too, if she stayed with him. For, even when he had called her terrible things a few minutes ago and hurt her arm with his punishing grip, she had felt joy in being pressed tightly to his heart again. Even then, she had wanted his arms to go around her. If she stayed, she would go mad.

Whitney tried to ignore the stab of anguish that came with knowing she had to leave him, while she tried to think of a place she could go. Her father wasn't strong-willed enough to shelter her from her husband if Clayton chose to demand her return to Claymore. Aunt Anne and Uncle Edward would help her. She would write to them and ask if she could come to France for a visit. When she was there, she would explain. She didn't know if Clayton's awesome power could touch her in France, or if he would retaliate by using his influence in England to damage her uncle's diplomatic career.

All she could do was explain to her Uncle Edward and let him decide.

Whitney sank down into the chair at her writing desk, pulled open the drawer and, as she reached for a sheet of blue stationery, she saw the crumpled ball of blue paper on top of the neat stack. Without much curiosity she turned it in her fingers, saw that it had writing on it, and smoothed it out to see if it was something she had kept because she might need it.

"To my very great mortification . . ." Blankly she remembered having secreted the unsent note among her unused stationery when she had been at Emily's because she didn't want a servant to find it. But now it was crumpled up and on top of the stack. Someone had found it, but only Mary and Clarissa served her at Claymore, and they would never search through her desk.

It was humiliating to think of someone reading that note, and she tried to imagine who could have been in her desk. Two days ago, when she had joyously tucked the little infant gown in the drawer for Clayton to find, the drawer had been neat and no one, other than Clayton, had been . . . Oh, my God!

Whitney half rose from her chair-she had sent Clayton to her desk and asked him to find her aunt's letter. "And you found this," she breathed aloud, as if he were in the room. "Dear God, you found this." Her hands were shaking and her mind was reeling as she tried to concentrate on what Clayton might have made of what he had read. She forced herself to look at the note as if she had found it, instead of written it. The date. They had promised to celebrate, each year, the date she had come to Claymore, and the note was dated just one day before that. Reading this, Clayton would wonder if-no, believe-she had come to him that night because she thought she was pregnant! That would hurt him deeply, because he had told her once that nothing she could ever do would mean more to him than the way she had come to him that night because she loved him and wanted him to know it.

Very well, then the next thing she would wonder about, if she had found the note, was whom it was meant for. Getting up with the note still in her hand, Whitney began to pace agitatedly back and forth. Based on Clayton's reaction, he must have thought the note bad been meant for someone else. All right-but he knew he had taken her virginity that terrible night and she could have been carrying his child as a result of that. How dare he be so angry merely because she might have turned to someone else for help or advice! Well, why shouldn't she have done so-after all, when that note was written they weren't even on civil terms with each other. Why, she could have been writing to her father or her aunt or anyone! But judging from the violence of Clayton's reaction, he obviously thought not.

He was torturing her this way because he was hurt. And because he was angry that she might have turned to another … another man … for help. He was hurt. And jealous.

"You fool!" Whitney hissed into the empty room. She was so relieved and so happy that she could have flung her arms out and twirled around. It wasn't because Clayton didn't want their baby! Yet weak with relief though she was, she could also cheerfully have killed him!

He had done it again! Just what he had done the awful night he had dragged her here. He had accused her of something in his mind, tried and convicted and sentenced her, without ever telling her what crime she was accused of committing. Without ever giving her an opportunity to explain! And now-and now-he actually believed he could just set her aside, move to another wing of the house and pretend that their marriage was as dead as if it had never existed.

Whitney was shaking with relief and quaking with determination. This was the last, the last time his temper was going to explode against her before she was given some explanation for the reason first!

And if Clayton thought for one moment that he could love her as deeply as Whitney knew he did, yet turn his back on her and coldly walk away, well, he was now going to learn differently. How could he be so wise, so intelligent, and actually think he could set her aside in anger, no matter what she did-or what he thought she did?

Somehow, some way, she was going to make him explain why he was acting this way. Whitney didn't care how it came about or how he did it. He could hurl the accusations in her face, for all she cared. In fact, she thought with a sad smile, that was undoubtedly how it would happen, because she was not going to plead with him to explain; she had tried that already and it did no good. Which left her with no choice but to force his hand, to make him angry enough or jealous enough to lose control completely and confront her with what he thought she'd done.

And when he did, she would coldly explain about the note. She would make him grovel at her feet and beg for her forgiveness. A brilliant smile dawned across her features. Oh rubbish! She would never be able to do that. She would explain as quickly as she could and then fling herself against his hard chest and feel faint with joy and longing when his strong arms went around her.

But for now, she had to make herself be anything but meek or sad. She would be charming and gay until Clayton missed what they had together so badly that he couldn't stand it. She would goad and needle him gently at first, and only if that didn't work would she force his hand by making him truly angry.

The Clifftons were having a huge affair tonight. Whitney couldn't be sure whether Clayton still meant to go. But she did.

She dressed with great care in an emerald-green gown she had ordered in Paris on their wedding trip. It was the most revealing gown she had ever worn and she smiled to herself as she put on the emerald and diamond necklace and matching bracelet and ear drops. "How do I look?" Whitney asked Clarissa, twirling around.

"Bare as the day you were born," Clarissa decreed with a censorious state at Whitney's bodice.

"It's a little less than I normally wear," Whitney agreed with a faint twinkle in her eyes, "but I don't quite think my husband will want me going anywhere without him in this gown, do you?"

In a rustle of emerald silk, Whitney swept into the drawing room. Clayton was pouring himself a drink at the sideboard, his tall, athletic frame resplendent in midnight-blue jacket and trousers. In contrast to the deep blue superfine, his shirt and neckcloth were dazzling white. He looked unbearably handsome. He also looked utterly furious as his insolent gaze swung over the shimmering green gown and froze on the daring display of tantalizing flesh swelling above her bodice.

"Where," he asked in a low, ominous voice, "do you think you are going?"

"Think I am going?" Whitney repeated, managing to look extremely innocent, despite the seductive allure of her gown. "We promised to go to the Clifftons' tonight. I would love a glass of wine, if you wouldn't mind," she added with a languorous smile.

Clayton jerked a bottle of wine from the rack built into the cabinet. "That's too damned bad, because we aren't going to the Clifftons'."

"Oh?" Whitney said as she crossed to bun to take her glass. 'That's a shame, for you will miss a splendid party. I have always thought the Clifftons' parties are the most delightful of any in…"

Clayton turned slowly and perched a hip on the cabinet beside him, one leg swinging idly, his weight braced against the other foot. "I am not going to the Clifftons'," he told her icily. "And you are not going out tonight at all. Is that clear enough, Whitney?"

"The words are quite clear," Whitney told him. She turned, carrying her glass, and swept regally off to the dining room, trailing emerald silk in her wake. She was crushed. Clayton wasn't going to take her to the Clifftons', and he wouldn't let her go alone.

In the candlelit dining room their meal progressed in stiff silence. Whitney watched him surreptitiously throughout the meal. It was nearly over when her gaze fell on his hand. It was devoid of the ruby ring she'd given him on their wedding night Her heart constricted as she stared at the light mark across his finger; from the moment she had placed the ring on his hand on their wedding night, he had never taken it off.

She looked up and found bun observing her pained reaction with a smile of cynical amusement. And as hurt as she was, Whitney was even angrier. She was going to that party, she decided with a determined lift of her chin. If she had to walk, she was going without him.

Before dessert was brought in, Whitney stood up and said, "I am going to my room. Good night." She was going to her room because she didn't want to alert him to the fact that she was also going to the party, and risk having Clayton forbid their drivers to take her anywhere.

It was well past one o'clock in the morning, but in the exclusive gentlemen's gaming club to which Clayton belonged, tune was never of much importance. He was relaxing in his chair, not paying much attention to the discussions going on around him, or, for that matter, to the cards he held.

No matter how much he drank tonight, or how hard he tried, he couldn't concentrate on the game or the hearty masculine conversation of his friends and acquaintances. He had married a witch who had gotten under his skin like a thorn. It hurt unbearably to have her there and it hurt to pull her out. His mind kept riveting itself on the way Whitney had looked tonight in that goddamned green gown with her charms displayed in such gorgeous wantonness. His hands had actually ached for the feel of that petal-soft skin against his palms, and his lust had been almost past bearing. Lust, not love. He wouldn't call it love anymore. All he felt for Whitney was an occasional pang of desire. More than an occasional pang.

How dare she even consider going out in that dress alone! And what in hell did she mean by acting as if he'd forbidden her to ride in order to torture her? He had given that order at the stable days ago when he had suspected her pregnancy and thought she was unaware of it. Not that he gave a damn what the 'conniving little liar thought. He didn't have to offer explanations for his actions; she would have to do as she was bidden. And that, he thought as he threw chips onto the pile in the center of the table, was irrevocably that!

"Good to see you, Claymore," William Baskerville said with amiable cordiality as he took a vacant chair at the table of six across from Clayton. "Surprised to see you, in fact."

"Why is that?" Clayton said indifferently.

"Just saw your wife at the Clifftons' crush. Thought you must be there, too," Baskerville explained, absorbed in stacking his chips into piles, preparatory to joining the heavy play in progress. "She looked lovely-told her so, too." This innocent discourse earned Baskerville a look of such stunned disbelief from the duke that Baskerville hastened to heap on polite reassurances. "Your wife always looks lovely. I always tell her that." In dismayed bewilderment, Baskerville watched the duke slowly come erect and rigid in his chair, his expression glacial. Searching his mind frantically for how he could possibly have given offense, Baskerville unfortunately arrived at the incorrect conclusion that his compliments must sound watery to the lady's husband who was, according to gossip, inordinately fond of his young bride. With a helpless glance at the other men seated around the table, Baskerville said desperately, "Everyone thought the duchess looked ravishing-she was wearing a green gown that matched her eyes. I told her it did, too. Had to wait in line just to tell her, in fact. Surrounded by all the young bucks and old fossils like me, she was. Quite a gathering of admirers."

Very quietly, very deliberately, Clayton turned his cards over on the table and slid his chair back. He stood up, nodded curtly to the other men seated at the table, and without a word to any of his friends, turned on his heel and strode purposefully from the room.

All cardplay suspended as the five remaining men at the table watched the duke making his way to the door leading out onto the street. Of the five, four were married. Baskerville, a confirmed bachelor of five and forty years, was not. Of the five faces at the table, four of them were either grinning or valiantly trying to hide a grin. Only Baskerville's expression was alarmed.

"Blast it!" he whispered, looking around at the others. "Claymore gave me the devil of a look when I said I'd just seen his duchess at the Clifftons'," He paused, seized by a terrible thought. "I say-have the Westmorelands been married long enough to quarrel, would you think?"

Marcus Rutherford's lips twitched with laughter. "I would say, Baskerville, that as of about three minutes ago, the Westmorelands have now been married long enough to quarrel."

Distress furrowed Baskerville's kindly brow. "Good God! I'd never have mentioned seeing her if I thought it would cause a quarrel. She's a lovely young thing. Feel wretched about causing trouble for her. I'm sure she'd never have gone to the deuced party if she realized Claymore wouldn't approve."

"You think not?" Lord Rutherford said after sharing a derisive grin with the other married men.

Baskerville was positive. "Well, of course not! If Claymore told her not to go, she wouldn't have gone. She's his wife, after all. Vows, you know-obedience and all that!"

Guffaws greeted this announcement, bursting out around the table like cracks from a cannon. "I once told my wife that she didn't need the fur she was pining for-she had a dozen already," Rutherford told him as the gambling was temporarily forgotten. "I put my foot squarely down and told her she could not have it!"

"Surely she didn't buy it anyway?" Baskerville asked in a horrified tone.

"Certainly not," Rutherford chuckled. "She bought eleven new gowns instead, to match the furs she already had. She said that if she had to appear in outer rags, at least no one would have cause to criticize her gowns. She spent three times the cost of the new fur."

"My God! Did you beat her?"

"Beat her?" Rutherford repeated in amusement. "No-beating's not at all the thing,' you know. I rather dislike the idea of it myself. I bought her the new fur instead."

"But-but why?" Baskerville sputtered in shock.

"Why, my good man? I'll tell you why. Because I'd no wish to own all of Bond Street before she got over her being miffed. Gowns are devilish costly things, but jewels-jewels she hadn't even thought of yet! I saved myself a fortune by getting her the fur."

Dawn was already streaking the sky as Whitney trailed quietly up the broad marble staircase to her room. She had missed Clayton terribly tonight; missed the feel of his hand lightly riding her waist, of his bold gaze capturing hers, and of the joy of knowing he was near. How could he have become so essential to her life in so short a time? She felt desolate without him, and it was an awful temptation to bring the note to his room and explain. But what would happen the next time if she couldn't find a clue like the note, to explain his fury? Then he would punish her again with his wrath, and she would be helpless to defend herself-and it was agony to have someone you loved furious with you, without knowing why. She did not in the least regret her open defiance of Clayton's command tonight, because she was hoping that when he discovered her disobedience, it would bring about the confrontation she wanted and needed.

In fact, she wondered if she ought to mention-quite casually-that she had had a lovely time at the Clifftons', when she saw Clayton at breakfast in the morning. Yes, Whitney decided, as she groped in the darkness of her room for the lamp, it would be an excellent idea.

On second thought, it was not a good idea at all, she realized with a lurch of fear as the room flared to light and from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a gleaming, booted foot resting casually atop the other knee, a pair of dark blue gloves being idly slapped against a blue-clad thigh. From somewhere in the depths of her momentary panic, inspiration seized her, and Whitney pretended not to have seen him. She reached up behind her and began to unfasten her dress on the way into her dressing room. If she could just make him wait until she could change into one of her most seductive negligees, she might have a slight advantage-then desire might overcome anger, and-

"Keep it on!" his voice slashed out, "until I leave."

Whitney swung around, startled by his scathing tone.

Clayton came to his feet, advancing on her with the predatory grace of a stalking panther. Reflexively, Whitney started to back away, then checked herself and held her ground. He loomed over her, his gaze a frigid blast. In a silky, menacing voice, he said, "Do you remember what I told you would happen if you dared to disobey me again, Whitney?"

He had threatened to lock her in her rooms until her baby was born. Whitney was angry and frightened-and so much in love with him that even her voice throbbed with it. "Yes, I remember," she said in an aching whisper. "I remember all sorts of other things, too. I remember the words you have whispered to me when you are so deep inside of me that you have touched my heart. I remember . . ."

"Shut up!" he snapped furiously. "Or so help me God,

I'll…"

"I remember exactly the way your hands feet against my skin when you touch me and . . ."

He caught her shoulders ma bruising grip and shook her so hard that Whitney's head snapped back. "Damn you! I said stop!"

"I can't." Whitney shuddered from the pain his hands were inflicting. "I can't stop, because I love you. I love your eyes, and your smile, and your . . ."

With a vicious jerk, Clayton yanked her into his arms, his mouth capturing hers in a savage, punishing kiss that was meant to silence and hurt and retaliate. He was bruising her lips, and she was crushed so tightly against him that she couldn't breathe. But Whitney didn't care; she could feel the hardness of his need swelling rigidly against her, and when his mouth began to slant fiercely over hers with wild hunger and desperate urgency, she wrapped her arms around his neck and dung to him.

As abruptly as he had caught her to him, Clayton pushed her away. His breathing was harsh and ragged, his expression so incensed, so bleakly embittered that Whitney almost lost her resolve and brought up the note herself. Instead she raised her chin to its bravest angle and said in quiet defiance, "I wiD willingly commit myself to being locked in this room for as long as you wish-provided you are willing to stay locked in here with me. Otherwise, nothing-and no one-will beep me in here. If I have to set fire to the house to get out, then I will."

It took a moment for Clayton to react. She looked so unbearably beautiful, so young and vulnerable, facing him in this outrageous mutiny, that if he didn't hate her and hate himself, he would have grinned. He had to remind himself that she was a calculating schemer; even so, his earlier wrath was momentarily defused by her impertinent suggestion that he lock himself into her room with her. Lock himself in with her? Christ! He could barely stand to live in the same house with her, despising her with an uncontrollable virulence half the time, and wanting her until he ached with it the rest.

"If you ever again leave the grounds of this estate without my permission," he said in a low, savage voice, "you will yearn for the 'tenderness' I showed you the first time I brought you here."

Clayton had taught her to be proud of the power she held over his body, and that one brutal kiss had shown Whitney how badly he still wanted her. The knowledge gave her the courage to look at him and say with a faint blush, "I already do yearn for it, my lord." Then, reverting to her former air of proud rebellion, she added as she turned and walked into her dressing room, "However, I shall obey you to the extent of at least asking for your permission before I leave the grounds."

Whitney heard the outer door close and leaned weakly against the wall of her dressing room, more shaken by the confrontation than she had let him see. Her idle threat about setting fire to the house had not been what had stopped him from having her confined to her room. She knew, and he knew, that he could very easily have her kept there with a loyal servant acting as guard in her room to prevent her from doing anything harmful. But she had thrown him off balance by boldly inviting him to stay here with her.

She was playing with fire, Whitney knew. She couldn't risk angering him to the point where he might have her removed entirely from his presence. She had to be with him so that she could force him into accusing her of this nonsense he believed. She had to be near him so that she could continue to stoke the fire of his desire; one of them, either fury or desire, was going to drive him from his stony silence.

In the east wing, Clayton lay awake in his bed, coldly contemplating his past and his future. By now he had managed to find an explanation for every heretofore unexplainable word or action on Whitney's part. At long last, the reason for her behavior at Elizabeth's wedding banquet was crystal clear. She had meant every cold, vile word she had said to him as they danced. After the banquet, in the ensuing weeks, Whitney had discovered her pregnancy, or thought she was pregnant, and when the father couldn't or wouldn't offer her his name, she had concocted the scheme of coming here and renewing their dead betrothal. And he, like a goddamned fool, had, with great joy, allowed himself to be cuckolded.

He didn't know how long he could stand this living arrangement. His heart and his mind understood the harsh reality mat there could never be anything between Whitney and him again, but his body tormented him with the same insatiable desire for her he'd always felt.

If they weren't living under the same roof, perhaps he could find some relief from his agony. He could remove to the townhouse in Upper Brook Street and resume a semblance of his former life, or he could go to France or Spain for a few months. That would be ideal, but Whitney was, after all, carrying his child and, in the event of some complication with her pregnancy, he shouldn't be so faraway.

No, the townhouse would be better. His need for diversion and his physical needs could both be satisfied in London. All I he had to do was take Whitney to a few social affairs during r the next month or two, then, once her pregnancy was apparent, she would not be able to go out into society anyway, so no one would find it odd that she was no longer seen on his arm. When they saw him with other women, the old biddies would chick their tongues and whisper to oat another that "the little nobody" he had married hadn't been able to hold him very long, and that they had known all along, that this was how h was going to end. The thought gave Clayton a certain perverse pleasure.

He hoped to God that Whitney was carrying a boy, for this was going to be his only opportunity to get an heir. Otherwise he would have to leave it up to Stephen to sire the heir. Thank God he could count on Stephen for that; the lands and title had always been held by a Westmoreland, and his father had been the only boy of five children.

The following morning, Whitney composed a carefully worded note to Clayton to the effect that Lord Archibald's parents were celebrating their anniversary and mat Whitney had promised Emily and Michael to attend the gala affair this evening, and that she would appreciate it very much if Clayton would escort her. She sent the note into the east wing with Clarissa, then paced back and forth, waiting for Clay-ton's response.

With trembling fingers she unfolded her note across the bottom of which was a curt reply in Clayton's bold handwriting. "Advise my valet whether the dress is formal or informal." She could have laughed with joy.

That night she spent more time than ever in her life on her appearance. Clarissa swept her hair up into intricate coils entwined with a finely wrought gold chain which had belonged to Whitney's grandmother. Nestled in the hollow between her breasts was a simple topaz pendant surrounded by a ring of diamonds, which had belonged to Whitney's great-grandmother. She was not wearing any of the Westmoreland jewelry. She was not, in fact, wearing her splendid betrothal ring. Far a few minutes Whitney actually considered removing her wide gold wedding band, but that she could not do-not even to make her point.

Clayton was standing at the far end of the white and gold salon, staring moodily out the windows with a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking utterly magnificent in his black evening clothes. With a gleam of mischief dancing in her eyes, Whitney floated into the salon in a swirl of glittering gold-spangled chiffon. She did not remove the golden stole that was lying softly across her breasts, draped in a gentle half circle down her back, nor did she intend to do so until they arrived at Michael's parents' home.

The hour and a half ride was made in frosty silence, but Whitney contented herself by relishing what Clayton's reaction was going to be when he saw the tantalizing display of swelling breasts exposed by the gown's provocatively plunging bodice. If Clayton hadn't liked the emerald gown in his current mood, he was definitely not going to approve of this one.

"We don't clash," Whitney remarked when they arrived at their destination and Clayton was helping her down from the closed carriage.

"Meaning what?" he said coldly.

"Meaning the colors we are wearing," she innocently explained. In a deceptively casual gesture, Whitney pulled off the gold stole and let it flutter from her fingers as she stepped forward beside him toward the house.

"I cant imagine what damned difference-" Clayton came to a complete hah, his eyes like shards of ice as they froze on the swelling expanse of glowing skin exposed above the glittering bodice. In a low, incensed voice he said, "Are you trying to see exactly how far I can be provoked?"

"No, my lord," Whitney replied demurely, aware of the carious looks from other arriving guests. "How could I possibly provoke you more than I already have simply by offering you a child."

"If you will take some advice," he snapped, making a visible effort to control his fury, "you will remember your condition and behave accordingly tonight."

Whitney gave him a vivacious smile, aware that his blazing eyes were riveted on her swelling breasts. "Of coarse," she said lightly, "I meant to do exactly that, but my knitting wouldn't fit inside my reticule." In humorous proof, she held op her little beaded bag, then gasped aloud in surprised pain as Clayton's hand locked onto her forearm, his fingers biting cruelty into her flesh.

"Do not fail to enjoy the party this evening to its fullest, because it is the last you will be attending. You will remain at Claymore until the child is born, and I am moving into the townhouse."

All the optimistic hope and determination went out of her, leaving Whitney numb and desolate. She tried to pull her arm free, but his painful grip was relentless. "Then please don't shame us both tonight by leaving the marks of your contempt on my arm."

His grip loosened so abruptly that it seemed as if he had been unaware of even touching her. "Pain," he snapped at her as they passed by the butler, "like love, is a thing to be shared."

From the first minute she entered the drawing room, Whitney was vaguely aware that something was amiss, but she could not quite put her finger on what it was. It was just that everyone seemed so … normal. No, too painstakingly normal-as if they were making a concerted effort to seem normal. Nearly an hour later, Whitney glanced up and saw Lord Esterbrook; she smiled at him and he nodded and bowed, but when he would have started toward her, Whitney made a great show of being deeply involved in her conversation with the group surrounding her. She had never believed that Lord Esterbrook had said "unkind" things about her to Vanessa at the Rutherfords' party, but he had an extremely perverse sense of humor and could deliver a cut with a razor's edge-, so she always made a practice of keeping him at a distance.

Emily, who arrived shortly thereafter, immediately provided the answer to the strange atmosphere pervading the evening. "Oh good Lord in heaven," she said, hauling Whitney off to one side and whispering while she cast furtive looks around her. "My father-in-law is the veriest loose screw about some things. I could not believe my ears when he told me five minutes ago what great pains he'd taken to lure her here as a surprise for my mother-in-law."

"What are you talking about?" Whitney whispered back as premonitions of disaster began to pound in her brain.

"Marie St. Allermain. She's here! Michael's father went through friends of friends to entice her to come and sing here tonight. She's a guest at the palace where she is to perform tomorrow night, and . . ."

Whitney didn't hear the rest. Her legs and arms had begun to tremble from the moment Emily had mentioned the name of Clayton's beautiful and most famous former mistress. Marie St. Allermain was in London, in the very house with Clayton. And not more than an hour ago, he'd announced his intention of moving into the London house. Whitney didn't remember what she said to Emily or how she managed to return to the circle of acquaintances she'd left. She waited in sick dread for the moment when Marie St. Allermain would walk into the room.

The huge drawing room was packed beyond capacity. From the corner of her eye, Whitney watched Clayton enter the room at the same time the accompanist seated himself at the big grand piano, and the musicians picked up their instruments. There was a crackling tension in the room, although whether it was due to the appearance of a woman whose voice and beauty were legendary, and who was in demand in all the capitals of Europe, or whether it was because everyone was secretly waiting to see Clayton and her come face to face, Whitney didn't know.

Clayton, who had paused to talk to someone, finally made his way to Whitney's side. It was as if the crowd parted to clear a path so that they could both stroll to the very front row of guests clustered around the piano.

Whitney stood with her hand linked through Clayton's arm. She knew he didn't want it there, but she was feeling ill and desperately needed something to hold onto. "No voice in the world like St. Allermain's, if you ask me," the elderly man beside Clayton said. Beneath her fingertips, Whitney felt the muscles in Clayton's forearm tense into rigidity and then slowly relax. He hadn't known! she realized. Ob God! Why did he have to look so devastating^ handsome tonight, so completely desirable? And why, she thought, with tears burning behind her eyes as the blond singer entered the room, did Marie St. Allermain have to be so lushly, provocatively, enchantingly beautiful? Whitney could not tear her unwilling gaze from the woman. She had the body of a slender Venus and the magnetism of a woman who is confident of her extraordinary beauty without being at all obsessed with it.

And when she began to sing, Whitney felt the room swim dizzily. She had the sort of lilting voice that could fail gently upon the ears, or deepen until it was rich and sensual. There was a glint of laughter in her eyes white she sang, as if she found the silent adoration being lavished upon her by the hundreds of people who were listening and watching her, secretly very silly.

In comparison to her, Whitney felt girlish and plain and unsophisticated. And deathly ill. Far she now knew exactly what being Clayton's mistress really meant. That woman with the laughing blue eyes had known Clayton's drugging kisses, had lain naked in his arms and shared the exquisite ecstasy of his body driving deeply into hers. Whitney knew she must be as pale as death; her ears were ringing and her hands felt like ice. She was going to faint if she stayed in here; if she left, she would create a scene that would feed the malicious gossips for years. She tried to tell herself that, after all, Clayton had broken off his affair with Marie to pursue her. But that was before; now he detested and despised her. And very soon, even if he came back to Claymore, her body would be ungainly and swollen with child.

Whitney wished, very sincerely, that she were dead. She was so anguished that she had no idea precisely when Clayton's hand had come to rest upon her cold, clammy one which was linked through the crook of his arm, or for how long he had been lightly, reassuringly squeezing her fingers. But when she realized it, she shamelessly took what little support he was offering her and curled her fingers tightly around his. At least now she felt as if she could breathe. But only momentarily. For when Marie St. Allermain was accepting the thunderous applause with a faintly amused inclination of her head, her blue eyes met Clayton's, and a current leapt between the two of them that Whitney felt with a painful jolt.

Soon after, the ballroom was opened for dancing. For the next half hour, Clayton did not leave her side, but neither did he speak to her or so much as glance at her. He was there though, and Whitney clung to that fact as if it were the beginning of the reconciliation she had been waiting for. Her hopes were dashed to pieces the moment Clayton led her onto the dance floor and took her in his arms. "Where in the living hell is your betrothal ring?" he snapped angrily as he whirled her effortlessly in perfect time to the waltz.

"The token of your love?" Whitney asked him, her chin proudly high, her pale face fragile and beautiful. "That betrothal ring?"

"You know damned well which ring."

"Since it was a token of the love I no longer have from you, I felt it was hypocrisy to wear it." She waited breathlessly for Clayton to say his love for her wasn't dead.

"Do as you damn well please," he said with cynical indifference. "You always have."

When the dance ended they remained together, each of them putting on a convincing performance of participating in the light-hearted conversation directed at them by the dozen guests surrounding them. A short time later, however, an imperceptible tension seemed to take root and spread through the group, and their laughter suddenly became too hardy and forced as they flicked nervous glances over Whitney's right shoulder. In her heightened state of nervous awareness, Whitney noticed the change in the atmosphere and turned to see what was causing it. One glance, and she jerked her head around, but it was too late to do more than brace herself. Lord Esterbrook, with Marie St. Allermain on his arm, was approaching them from behind.

"Claymore!" Esterbrook's mocking voice cut through the little group's forced joviality like a hot knife through butter. "I'm sure that no introductions are necessary between the two of you."

Every pair of eyes swivelled to them as Clayton turned automatically at the sound of his name and found himself confronted by a grinning Esterbrook and his former mistress. Whitney, who had no choice but to turn around also, heard the frantic buzzing and gasps, the muted laughter, and felt the weight of avidly curious gazes focusing on them. There was no doubt that everyone present in the huge ballroom was now fully cognizant of the import of the meeting taking place . . . everyone, that is, except Clayton and Marie St. Allermain, who seemed to find the situation rather amusing.

With a lazy grin, Clayton lifted Marie's hand to his lips for a brief kiss. "I see, Madam, that you still have only to walk into a room to bring the entire male population to your feet."

An answering sparkle twinkled in Marie's smoky blue eyes as she inclined her head in a gracious acceptance of his gallant compliment. "Not quite the entire population," she said meaningfully. "But then I would be astonished to find you in such an excessively silly position, your grace."

Whitney listened to this light repartee in a state of angry, humiliated pain, wondering if Clayton were going to introduce his wife to his mistress, being absolutely certain that he could not, in the interest of politeness do so, nor avoid doing so without being impolite. In that moment, Whitney hated Clayton. She despised Esterbrook. She loathed every prying eye in that room. They were all her enemies, brittle, sophisticated, gossiping strangers who resented her intrusion into their select society and who were relishing the mortifying position in which she was now placed. They were Ester-brooks, one and all. Including her polished, urbane husband. She wished she had married Paul and lived quietly in the security of a place where she could belong. And that was before Whitney realized that Esterbrook, with a look of sham innocence, was now introducing Clayton's mistress to her.

Fortified by her anger, Whitney met Marie St. Allermain's silently assessing gaze with quiet composure. Graciously, in flawless French, Whitney said, "Thank you for sharing the gift of your beautiful voice with me, Mademoiselle. It was a joy to be able to hear you."

With equal graciousness, Marie replied, "Most accounts of feminine beauty and charm are gross exaggerations. However, I can see that accounts of yours were not." A slow, sensual smile curved her lips. Glancing provocatively at Clayton, she added with devastating candor, "And, I must say it is excessively disappointing to find it so." With that, she nodded regally at both of them, took Esterbrook's arm, and swept away to content herself with the fawning admiration of the other three hundred male occupants of the room.

For a while, Whitney basked in the warmth of Clayton's unspoken approval; she knew he was proud of the way she had handled the confrontation. She also knew when, an hour later, Clayton and Marie each left the room via separate doors out onto the terrace. She had seen the subtle look Marie passed to him across the ballroom and witnessed the 'imperceptible inclination of Clayton's dark head in reply.

Smiling in the summer moonlight, Marie extended both her hands to be clasped in his strong, warm ones. "It is wonderful to see you, Clayton. Esterbrook must bear you great malice to have deliberately manipulated our brief encounter in there."

Clayton grinned down at her. "Esterbrook is a stupid son of a bitch, as you have already surmised on your own, Marie." He watched the way the moonlight turned her hair to shining silver, white he relished her lush beauty and the keen intelligence in her violet-blue eyes. She took no missish offense at his blunt summation of Esterbrook; she was as astute a judge of character as was he, and they both knew it.

"Marriage does not agree with you, my lord?" She said it as a question, but it was more a quiet observation.

Clayton stiffened slightly. He reminded himself that nothing would rock the foundations of London society so violently as his taking Marie St. Allermain as his mistress again. They were both so well known that the gossip created by a renewed liaison between the two of them would be endless, and the humiliation Whitney would suffer as a result of it would be immeasurable. And Marie was a passionate bed partner who suited him perfectly. And even while he told himself all this, he could almost feel Whitney's cold, trembling hand on his arm, the way her fingers had clutched his for support while Marie was singing.

Damn her! How dare she take off her betrothal ring! She was a schemer, a liar, and a fraud. But she was also his wife. And right now, she was young and afraid and pregnant with his child. To Clayton's intense disgust, he realized that he could not bring himself to make the overture which he knew would be welcome to Marie. He would take another woman as his mistress, someone who would create less notoriety.

"Marriage does not seem to agree with your wife either," Marie was observing quietly. "She is very beautiful-and very unhappy."

"Marriage agrees with both of us," Clayton said grimly.

A slow, provocative smile trembled on her lips. "If you say so, Clayton."

"I say so," he said irritably. If Marie had noticed that Whitney was unhappy and distressed, others in the ballroom may have noticed that as well. He didn't want Whitney shamed in front of their friends. It was one thing for him to hate her and humiliate her in private, another entirely for society to be taking notice of it. And he was thoroughly incensed to discover that he even gave a damn.

"In that case," Marie mused, displaying the perspicacity that Clayton had always enjoyed in her, "it might be wise if you now went back into the ballroom. Because I am of the opinion that Esterbrook's intent in bringing us together in front of your wife, was to make himself available to console her later." She saw Clayton's shoulders stiffen and the dangerous glitter in his eyes. A winsome smile touched her lips. "I've never seen you look like this before. You are terrifying-and devastating attractive-when you're angry. And jealous."

"Leave it at angry," Clayton replied in a clipped voice which be softened as he bid his former mistress farewell.

When he strode back into the ballroom, he looked first for Esterbrook, then for Whitney. Esterbrook was there, Whitney was not. With a feeling of relief, Clayton noted that no one seemed to have observed his absence with Marie, and judging by the boisterous level of conversation in the room, whatever gossip had begun at their public meeting had died a polite death. Clayton was glad of that because these people were Whitney's friends as well as his, and she would need to know that she didn't have to cringe from seeing them the next time.

Except that Whitney wouldn't know that. Because the duchess, as the butler solemnly explained, had already left. Damned little fool! Clayton thought savagely. What was she thinking of, walking out on him like this? Now there would be hell to pay! He couldn't go back in there without her, or everyone would immediately realize that she had left in distress or anger, and that would cause gossip. Personally, he couldn't have cared less about the talk, but Whitney would be the one who had to face it, and who had left because she couldn't. And he couldn't leave either, dammit-because she had taken the carriage.

Emily and Michael Archibald solved that problem within seconds by walking into the entryway and asking to have their carriage brought round so that they could leave. Without question or comment, they provided him with a ride to his London townhouse, where Clayton spent a very angry, uncomfortable night. He kept seeing Whitney in that glittering golden gown that displayed her ripe breasts to such glorious advantage. She'd worn it deliberately to provoke him and, by God, she'd succeeded! Hadn't he had to stand beside her all night, watching men's gazes lingering lustfully on the tantalizing display of her creamy flesh?

If she hadn't worn that damned gown and taken off her betrothal ring, if her hair weren't so thick and lustrous with that shining gold chain entwined in it, if she hadn't looked so heart-breakingly beautiful and desirable, he'd never have accepted Marie's silent invitation to join her on the terrace in the first place.