Dinner was announced, but Clayton hung back, hoping that Whitney might come to him before she went in to the banquet. "Ah-Claymore! Good to see you again," a jovial masculine voice said at his elbow.
Clayton glanced briefly at the short, elderly man beside him, recognizing him as Lord Anthony, an old friend of his father's.
"How's your lovely mother?" Lord Anthony asked, sipping from his champagne.
Clayton watched Whitney walk into the banquet room; she was not going to come to him. "She's well," he answered absently. "And yours?"
"I imagine she's about the same," Lord Anthony replied. "She's been dead for thirty years."
"Good," Clayton said. "Glad to hear it." He put his glass down and strolled off to take his assigned place at one of the banquet tables.
In the true spirit of a matchmaker, Elizabeth had contrived to place Clayton at the table facing the bridal party's, directly across from Whitney. Clayton ate little of his meal, and what he did eat, he couldn't taste. He was too preoccupied with an elusive and beautiful young woman who owned his heart, but who seemed either afraid, or unwilling, to meet his gaze. He watched her chatting playfully with the groomsmen on either side of her, winding them around her slender fingers, and jealousy pulsed through his veins.
To add to his mounting frustration, he was seated between two matrons who had discovered his title and immediately singled him out as a prospective husband for their unmarried daughters. "My Marie plays the pianoforte like an angel," one mother said. "You must come to one of our musicales, your grace."
"My Charlotte sings like a bird!" the other mother instantly countered.
"I'm tone deaf," Clayton drawled without taking his eyes from Whitney.
After what seemed like an eternity, the guests adjourned to the ballroom. Peter guided Elizabeth to the center of the floor and they danced together, their fine young bodies moving in perfect harmony with each other, then the newly married couple was joined by the bridal party, who also danced together When the required first dance was finished, Clayton waited for Whitney to come to him. Instead she drifted into the arms of another groomsman, and then another, smiling into their eyes in a way that made Clayton want to wring her neck!
She was dancing the fourth dance with Paul Sevarin, when it finally dawned on Clayton that Whitney was waiting for him to come to her, and he was dumbstruck at his own stupidity. She had taken the first step toward a reconciliation at the church, and naturally she expected him to take the next one. The instant the dance ended, Clayton strode directly to her. "Good to see you again, Sevarin," he lied politely as he firmly placed Whitney's hand on his arm. "I believe the next dance is mine," he added, covering her long fingers with his and drawing Whitney onto the dance floor.
Although she didn't object, Clayton was a little taken aback by the courteous, but impersonal smile she gave him as she turned into his arms for the waltz.
She was slimmer than before, and Clayton drew her protectively closer to him. It was his fault that she had lost weight. "Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked, his voice unfamiliar to her with its tone of tenderness and guilt.
Whitney nodded brightly. She nodded because she couldn't trust her voice. From the moment he had walked into this house, her senses had been screamingly aware of his presence. She felt as if she were dying inside, slowly and painfully suffocating. He had stolen her virginity and then coldly withdrawn his offer of marriage, suggested calmly that she marry Paul and then tossed his money in her face to appease her. And even so, it was all she could do not to humble herself at his feet, to plead with him to tell her why, to beg him to want her again. Only one thing kept her silent and upright: pride-outraged, stubborn, courageous, abused pride. Her face ached with the effort it took to smile, but she had been smiling all night, and she was going to keep right on doing it until Clayton walked out of this room. And then she was going to die.
For the first time since he had met her, Clayton didn't know what to say to her. He felt as if he were in a dream, and he was afraid to speak lest he say the wrong thing and break the spell. He thought of apologizing for ravaging her, but in view of the crime he had committed against her an apology was ludicrously inadequate. What he really wanted to say was, "Marry me tomorrow," but having already deprived her of her wedding night, Clayton was resolutely determined that she would have a spectacular wedding, complete with all the splendor and trappings, all the glittering pomp and circumstance, that she was entitled to enjoy as the bride of a duke.
Since he couldn't beg her forgiveness, or ask her to marry him at once, he decided to say the only other thing that mattered to him. Gazing down at her bent head, he said the words he had never spoken to another woman. Very quietly and very tenderly, he said, "I love you."
He felt the emotional impact his words had on her because she went rigid in his arms, but when she lifted her beautiful face the laughter in her expression almost made him stumble.
"I am not in the least surprised to hear it," she teased breezily. "I seem to be all the rage this season-particularly with tall men." She tipped her head to the side, considering the possible reasons for such a thing. "I believe it is probably because I am rather tall for a woman. It must be quite awkward for tall men to be forever bent over, trying to speak to tiny women. Or," she added jokingly, "it could be because I have very good teeth. I take excellent care of them and-"
"Don't!" Clayton commanded, trying to stop her banter.
"I shall never brush them again," Whitney agreed with sham solemnity.
Clayton gazed down at her entrancing cream and roses face and wondered how in the hell he had started to speak of love and ended up in an inane discussion of personal hygiene. If his emotions weren't in such a turmoil, if he weren't trying so desperately to make things right between them, he would have noticed that her overbright eyes were sparkling with suppressed tears, not laughter, and that the muscles in her slim throat were constricting spasmodically. But he was in a turmoil, and he didn't notice. "Elizabeth is a beautiful bride," he said, trying to guide their discussion around to marriage.
Whitney laughed. "All brides are beautiful. It was decreed centuries ago-by a duke, no doubt-that all brides must be beautiful. And blush."
"Will you blush?" he asked tenderly.
"Certainly not," she said, managing to smile despite the catch in her voice. "I have nothing left to blush about. Not that I mind, you see, because I've always harbored a secret contempt for females who blush and swoon at the slightest provocation."
Clayton's frustrated confusion reduced his voice to a tense whisper. "What's wrong? You weren't like this when you were in my arms outside the church-"
Whitney's jade green eyes widened in apparent bewilderment "Was that you?"
Ignoring the wild curiosity they were generating among the wedding guests, Clayton jerked her hard against his chest. "Who in the living hell did you think it was?"
Whitney felt as if her heart was breaking. "Actually, I couldn't be absolutely certain who it was. It might have been …" She inclined her head toward the two groomsmen who'd been dancing attendance on her all night. "John Clifford or Lord Gilmore. They say they 'adore' me. Or it might have been Paul. He 'adores' me. Or it could have been Nicki, he-"
In one swift motion, Clayton whirled her off the dance floor and thrust her away. He stared down at her with cold savage contempt, his voice dangerously low, hissing with fury. "I thought you were a woman with a heart, but you're nothing but a common flirt!"