Whitney My Love Read online

  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 months ago because she thought she needed a father for someone else’s child. His wrath went from a roiling boil to a steady simmer.

  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 had 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 stare at Whitney’s bodice.

  “It’s a little less than I normally wear,” Whitney agreed with a faint twinkle in her eye