Whitney My Love Read online

  He felt better now that her ring was on his hand where it belonged, and he sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him, slowly sipping brandy while he stared in silence at the big four-poster bed they had shared. He knew he had to come to grips with her betrayal now, before he found her. Otherwise he would take one look at her, and his temper would erupt and destroy them both again.

  Very well, Whitney had given herself to another man before their marriage. If he didn’t let himself wonder who the man was, it was easier to bear. It was he himself who had deprived Whitney of her virginity, he who had probably driven her into the arms of that other man. So whose fault was it that she had given herself once to someone else in a moment of loneliness and despair? Once. He would allow her that much—one time. With a sigh, Clayton leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Or a hundred times—because no matter what she had done before, he could not face living without her now.

  * * *

  In a state of frenetic restlessness, Clayton rode for miles the next day. He rode Whitney’s horse because Khan was something that belonged to her—as Whitney had haughtily reminded him. Ultimately he arrived at the same high ridge where he had brought her the day after she’d come to Claymore. Sitting down, he propped his shoulders against the same tree trunk where he had sat that day with Whitney cradled on his lap. He gazed idly out across the valley where brilliant sunlight danced and glanced off the wide stream that meandered through it.

  With one knee drawn up, he idly tapped the side of his boot with his riding crop, remembering how Whitney had wanted to ride down into that valley because she was afraid he was going to try to make love to her. God, that was almost eight months ago. Eight months! Eight of the most glorious, wonderful, tormented, miserable months of his life.

  He smiled a little sadly. Eight months. If Whitney had had her way the night she came to Claymore, they would just be getting married in the next week or two. She had insisted she would need eight months to make the wedding preparations and . . . eight months! Swearing savagely under his breath, Clayton surged to his feet, his mind in a turmoil. Whitney had wanted eight months to prepare for the wedding. Even she was not that naïve! If she’d believed she was pregnant, if she’d come to him because she was, or thought she was, pregnant, she’d never have wanted to wait eight goddamn months.

  Hating himself with a virulence that nearly strangled his breathing, Clayton pushed her fleet-legged gelding to the limits of Khan’s endurance. Whitney wasn’t naïve enough to want to wait eight months to get married if she’d thought she was pregnant—but she must have been naïve enough to think he could have gotten her with child the night he abducted her. And she was proud enough to consider using that as a ploy to bring him to her . . . and honorable enough to give up the idea and come to him at Claymore herself.

  “Cool him down,” he snapped at the groom as he flung Khan’s reins at the surprised servant and began half running, half walking toward the house. “Tell McRea to have the bays put to and be out in front in five minutes,” he called over his shoulder.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Emily Archibald received a smoothly worded invitation from Clayton, which she correctly construed as an “order” to accompany his servant down to the coach which would convey her to his house in Upper Brook Street. She obeyed the summons with a mixture of concern and trepidation.

  The butler showed her into a spacious, panelled library at the side of the house where the Duke of Claymore was standing, staring out the windows with his back to her. To Emily’s surprise, he didn’t greet her with any of his usual open friendliness, nor did he turn around and face her as he said in a cool, remote voice, “Shall we indulge in polite trivialities for the next five minutes, or shall I come directly to the point?”

  A shiver of fear danced up her spine as he slowly turned and studied her. Never before had Emily seen this Clayton Westmoreland. He was, as always, implacably calm, but now he positively emanated ruthless determination. She stood there, staring at him.

  With a brief, almost curt inclination of his head toward the chair beside her, he told her to sit down. Emily sank into the chair, trying to equate this man with the one she had known.

  “Since you seem to have no preference, I will be direct. I presume you know why I have asked you here?”

  “Whitney?” Emily guessed in a whisper. She gave her head a slight shake and cleared her parched throat.

  “Where is she?” he demanded abruptly. And then with a touch of his former gentleness, he added, “I have not approached you before this because I did not want to put you in the position of betraying her confidence, and because I had every reason to believe I could find her through my own sources. Since that hasn’t been the case, I am going to have to insist that you tell me.”

  “But I—I don’t know where she is. I never thought to ask her where she was going. I never dreamt she would stay away so long.”

  A pair of cool gray eyes held hers captive, measuring her response, judging it for truth.

  “Please believe me. Now that I’ve seen you I’d never be so unkind as to keep her from you, if I knew where to find her.”

  He drew a long breath and nodded slightly, his expression no longer coldly forbidding. “Thank you for that,” he said simply, “I’ll have my driver take you home.”

  Emily hesitated, still vaguely intimidated by his aura of command, and yet grateful that he had trusted her enough to accept what she said as truth. “Whitney said you found that awful note.” With a whimsical smile she shook her head. “You know, she couldn’t quite decide at the time whether to send it to you as ‘dear sir’ or . . .”

  Naked pain flashed across his handsome features, and Emily trailed off into silence. “I beg your pardon—I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Since we seem to have no secrets from one another,” he said quietly, “do you mind telling me why Whitney wrote the note in the first place?”

  “Well, it was her pride she was trying to save. She hoped, no, preferred, to bring you to her, if possible. And she thought that with a note like that—I suppose it was really terrible of her even to consider it, but . . .”

  “The only ‘terrible’ thing Whitney has ever done in her life was marrying me,” Clayton interrupted.

  Tears sprang into Emily’s hazel eyes as she arose to leave. “That’s not true. Whitney adored . . . adores you, your grace.”

  “Thank you again,” he said humbly.

  For a long time after Emily left, Clayton stood there, feeling the minutes ticking by and knowing that, as each moment passed, Whitney’s hurt and anger would be hardening into hatred.

  * * *

  The Dowager Duchess of Claymore dined quietly with her daughter-in-law that evening, mentally berating her eldest son for his tardiness in coming to fetch his wife, who was growing more lost and forlorn with each day. When Whitney had arrived eight days ago and asked if she could stay here until Clayton had time to think things through and come for her, Alicia Westmoreland had considered urging her to return at once to her rightful place beside her husband, insisting upon it, in fact. And yet, there was something about Whitney’s hurt, determined look that had reminded the dowager duchess of herself, many years before—of Clayton’s father striding across her parents’ drawing room, where he had found his wife after an absence of four days: “Get into that carriage immediately,” he had ordered her. And then, “Please, Alicia.” Having thus made her point, Alicia Westmoreland had dutifully and obediently done as she was bidden.

  But Whitney had been here for eight days, and Clayton had not made the slightest effort to come for her. Lady Westmoreland wanted grandchildren, and she could not see how she was likely to have any if these two willful, stubborn young people were living miles apart. Really, the entire thing was preposterous! Never had two people loved each other more than they did.

  It was over dessert that evening that a thought occurred to the dowager duchess that brought her half out of her chair. Accordi