“Exactly,” Nicki agreed with a grin.
“In that case,” she mused in a laughter-tinged voice, “won’t this waltz ruin my reputation before I even have one?”
“No, but it may ruin mine.” Nicki saw her shocked look and said lightly, “It is not at all in my style to appear at debutante balls, Mademoiselle. And for me to be seen like this, actually enjoying myself dancing with an impertinent chit of your tender years, is unheard of.”
Whitney pulled her gaze from Nicolas DuVille’s ruggedly chiselled face and glanced around at the young dandies in their bright satin waistcoats. They were staring at Nicki in open irritation, and no wonder! Nicki’s impeccably tailored midnight black attire, his air of smooth urbanity, made them all seem somewhat overdressed and rather callow.
“Are they still staring?” Nicki teased.
Whitney bit her lip, trying to hold back the laughter that was already sparkling in her eyes as she looked up into his handsome face. “Yes, but I can’t really blame them—you are rather like a hawk in a room full of canaries.”
A slow, admiring smile swept across his features. “I am indeed,” he breathed softly. And then he said, “You have an enchanting smile, chérie.”
Whitney was thinking that he was the one possessed of a wonderful smile, when it vanished behind a dark frown. “Is—is something wrong?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied bluntly. “Do not let a man you aren’t betrothed to call you ‘chérie.’ ”
“I will stare them out of countenance if they dare!” Whitney promptly promised.
“Much better,” he applauded, and then boldly, “. . . chérie.”
At the conclusion of the waltz, he guided her back to her aunt, keeping his head bent toward her as if he were positively hanging on her every word. He waited there, rarely taking his eyes off of her as she danced in turn with each of his three friends.
Whitney felt a little giddy and reckless and wonderful. Already there were a gratifying number of gentlemen asking for introductions to her. She knew it was because of the extravagant and unprecedented attention she was receiving from Nicolas DuVille and his friends, but she was too relieved and grateful to care.
Claude Delacroix, a handsome, fair-haired man who had come with Nicolas, instantly discovered that Whitney loved horses, and the two of them had a thoroughly enjoyable disagreement about the merits of one breed over another. He even asked if she would care to go for a drive with him one day soon, which was certainly not at Nicki’s prompting. Whitney felt very pleased and flattered, and she was smiling as he returned her to her aunt.
Nicki, however, was not pleased, nor was he smiling, when he immediately claimed her for the next dance. “Claude Delacroix,” he informed her curtly as his arm encircled her, “is from a fine old family. He is an outstanding whip, an excellent gambler, and a good friend. He is not, however, a suitable companion for you, nor should you think of him as a possible suitor. In matters of the heart, Claude is an expert, but he loses interest very quickly, and then . . .”
“He breaks the lady’s heart?” Whitney guessed with mock solemnity.
“Exactly,” Nicki said severely.
Whitney knew her heart already belonged to Paul, and so it was not in any danger. With a soft smile, she said, “I shall guard my heart with great care.”
Nicki’s gaze lingered on her soft, inviting lips, then lifted to her glowing jade eyes. “Perhaps,” he breathed with a tinge of self-mockery that Whitney couldn’t understand, “I ought to warn Claude to guard his heart. If you were older, Mademoiselle, I think I would.”
When Nicki returned her to her aunt, there were more than a dozen gentlemen, all eager for a dance with her and waiting to claim it. Nicki detained her with a hand on her arm, and nodded toward the young man at the end of the line. “André Rousseau,” he said, “would make an excellent husband for you.”
Whitney gave him a look of laughing exasperation. “You really shouldn’t say things like that.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Now, am I forgiven for my rudeness yesterday?”
Whitney nodded happily. “I would say that I have just been ‘launched’ as beautifully as one of England’s ships.”
Nicki’s smile was filled with warmth as he raised her fingers to his lips. “Bon voyage, chérie,” he said.
And then he was gone.
* * *
Whitney was still thinking about the night before and smiling softly to herself as she descended the stairs the following morning, intending to ride her uncle’s spirited mare. Masculine voices drifted into the hallway from the drawing room, and as Whitney started to walk past, Aunt Anne appeared in the doorway, her face wreathed in a smile. “I was just coming up to get you,” she whispered. “You have callers.”
“Callers?” Whitney repeated, panicking. It was one thing to mouth the usual prescribed platitudes during the dancing last night, another thing entirely to charm and interest these gentlemen who had now exerted themselves to pay a morning call on her. “Whatever shall I say to them?” Whitney begged. “What shall I do?”
“Do?” Anne smiled, stepping aside and firmly placing her hand against the small of Whitney’s back. “Why, be yourself, darling.”
Hesitantly, Whitney entered the room. “I was about to ride—in the park,” she explained to her callers—three of the gentlemen she had danced with last night. The three young men leapt to their feet, each one thrusting a bouquet of flowers toward her. Whitney’s gaze slid to the bouquets they were holding, and a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “It appears that the three of you have just come from there.”
They blinked at her as it registered on each of them that she was teasing them about having purloined the flowers from the park beds. And then—surprise of surprises—they were smiling at her and arguing good-naturedly over who was to have the honor of accompanying her to the park.
In the true spirit of fairness, Whitney happily permitted all of them to accompany her.
* * *
That year Miss Stone was proclaimed “an Original.” At a time when young ladies were models of dainty fragility and blushing coquetry, Whitney was impulsive and gay. While other young ladies her age were demure, Whitney was clever and direct.
During the following year, Anne watched as nature collaborated with time, and Whitney’s youthful face fulfilled all its former promise of vivid beauty. Sooty black lashes fringed incredibly expressive eyes which changed from sea-green to deep jade beneath the graceful arch of her dark brows. Burnished mahogany tresses framed an exquisitely sculpted face with a softly generous mouth and skin as smooth as cream satin. Her figure was still slim, but ripened now, with tantalizing curves and graceful hollows. That was the year she was proclaimed “an Incomparable.”
Gentlemen told her that she was “ravishingly beautiful” and “enchantingly lovely” and that she haunted their dreams. Whitney listened to their lavish compliments and passionate pledges of undying devotion with a smile that was part amused disbelief and part genuine gratitude for their kindness.
She reminded Anne of an elusive tropical bird, surprised and delighted by her own appeal, who landed tentatively and then, when one of her suitors reached out to capture her, flew away.
She was beautiful, but gentlemen left the sides of equally beautiful young women to cluster around her, beckoned by the gaiety that seemed to surround her and the easy playfulness of her manners.
By the beginning of her third year “out” in society, Whitney had become a challenge to more worldly, sophisticated men who sought to win her merely to prove that they could succeed where others had failed—only to find themselves rather unexpectedly in love with a young woman who hadn’t the slightest inclination to reciprocate their feelings. Everyone knew she would soon have to marry; after all, she was already nineteen years old. Even Lord Gilbert was becoming concerned, but when he observed to his wife that Whitney was being excessively fussy, Anne only smiled.
Because it seemed to her that W
hitney had lately developed a decided partiality for Nicolas DuVille.
5
* * *
For the third time in ten minutes, Whitney realized that she had again lost track of the conversation, and she glanced guiltily at the girls who were paying a morning call on her. Fortunately, they were all enraptured with Therèse’s enthusiastic description of her new life as a married woman and seemed not to notice Whitney’s wandering attention.
Nervously, Whitney fingered the letter from Emily which had just been handed to her, wondering as she always did, if this was going to be the letter that brought the dreaded news that Paul had chosen a wife. Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she opened it, and her heart doubled its already rapid pace as she began to read:
“Dearest Whitney,” Emily wrote in her neat, precise hand. “Henceforth, I shall expect you to address me as ‘Lady Emily, Baroness Archibald, the Happiest Woman Alive.’ I shall expect you to bow and scrape and mince about when next we meet, so that I will truly believe this has happened.” The next two pages were filled with wondrous praise of Emily’s new husband and details of the marriage which had been performed by special license. “What you said about France is also true of England,” Emily said. “No matter how grotesque he is, if a gentleman has a title, he is considered a great matrimonial prize, but I promise when you meet him, you will agree that my husband would be wonderful without any title.”
Whitney smiled, knowing that Emily would never have married her baron unless she loved him. “Enough about me,” she continued, “I have something else to tell you which I forgot to mention in my last letter. Six of us from home were all at a rout party in London, where our hostess introduced a gentleman who at once took the ladies’ fancy. And no wonder, for he was very handsome and tall, and from a distinguished French family. Whitney, it was M. Nicolas DuVille! I was quite certain he was the same gentleman you mention in your letters, and I asked M. DuVille if he was acquainted with you. When he said that he was, Margaret Merryton and the other girls flocked around him to try to offer their ‘sympathy.’
“How you would have laughed, for after giving them a look that should have turned them to stone, M. DuVille quite flayed them alive with tales of all your suitors and conquests in Paris. He even implied that he was rather taken with you himself, which made the girls absolutely livid with jealousy. Is what he said true? And why haven’t you told me that ‘Paris is in the palm of your hand’?”
Whitney smiled. Although Nicki had mentioned meeting Emily in London, he had never mentioned meeting Whitney’s childhood arch foe, Margaret Merryton, or the other girls. The pleasure she felt at his defense of her vanished, however, when she considered the possibility that Nicki might truly want to be something more than just her friend. For nearly three years, he had merely been a handsome vision who appeared without warning at her side to claim her for a dance or tease her about one of her many suitors. Then he would vanish with some dazzling female clinging possessively to his arm.
But a few months ago that had suddenly changed. They had met each other at the theatre and Nicki had unexpectedly invited her to an opera. Now he escorted her everywhere, to balls and routs, musicales and plays. Of all the men she knew, Nicolas DuVille was the one Whitney most enjoyed being with, but she couldn’t bear the thought that he might actually have serious intentions toward her.
Whitney stared blindly at the letter, her eyes cloudy and sad. If Nicki were to offer for her, and she were to decline (which she would), she would be jeopardizing her friendship with Therèse, her aunt and uncle’s friendship with the senior DuVilles, and her own friendship with Nicki, which meant a great deal to her.
She forced her attention back to Emily’s letter. At the end of it was news of Paul. “Elizabeth is in London for the season, and when she returns home, everyone is expecting Paul to offer for her, since her parents now feel it is past time for her to marry.”
Whitney, who had been bursting with joy for Emily’s wonderful news, now felt like crying her heart out. After all her practicing, all of her planning, she was at last ready to win Paul’s love, but her father was keeping her in France, ignoring her pleas to come home.
As soon as she had ushered her friends from the house, Whitney went to her room to write to him. This time, she would send her father a letter he couldn’t just ignore as he had her others. She wanted to go home—had to go home—and she had to do it at once. After considerable thought, she composed a letter to him, this time appealing to his wounded pride and dignity, by telling him how she longed to come home and prove to him that he could be proud of her now. She finished by telling him how dreadfully she missed him. Then she wrote to Emily.
When she brought the letters downstairs to have them sent off, she was informed by a footman that Monsieur DuVille had just arrived and wished to see her immediately. Puzzled by this imperative command from Nicki, Whitney went down the hall to her uncle’s study. “Hello, Nicki. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
He turned. “Is it?” he replied tersely, and there was no mistaking the rigid set of his shoulders or the taut line of his jaw.
“Well, yes. Sunny and warm, I mean.”
“Just exactly what possessed you to engage in a public horse race?” he snapped, ignoring the polite amenities.
“It was not a public horse race,” Whitney said, amazed by his vehemence.
“No? Then perhaps you will explain how it appeared in the paper today.”
“I don’t know,” Whitney sighed. “I imagine that someone told someone who told someone else. That’s the way it usually happens. Anyway,” she finished with a pretty toss of her head, “I won, you know. I actually beat Baron Von Ault.”
Nicki’s voice rang with authority. “I will not permit you to do a thing like that again!” He saw her stiffen in angry confusion and drew a long breath. “I apologize for my tone, chérie. I will see you at the Armands’ masquerade this evening, unless you will change your mind and permit me to escort you?”
Whitney smiled her acceptance of his apology, but shook her head at the suggestion of his escorting her to the Armands’. “I think it’s best if I go with my aunt and uncle and meet you there. The other ladies already resent me for monopolizing so much of your attention lately, Nicki.”
Momentarily, Nicki cursed himself for allowing her to get under his skin, when for nearly three years his own good judgment had warned him away. And then, four months ago, after an exceedingly disagreeable evening with a lady who had once amused him and now bored him with her clinging ways, Nicki had encountered Whitney at the theatre and impulsively asked her to accompany him to an opera.
By the end of the evening, he was utterly captivated by her. She was an intoxicating combination of beauty and humor, of exhilarating intelligence and disarming common sense. And she was as elusive as hell!
He looked at her now. Her sensuous mouth was curved into an affectionate smile of the sort one bestows on a loved brother, not one’s future husband, and it irritated Nicki into action.
Before Whitney could guess his intent, his hands caught her upper arms, pulling her against the length of his hard frame as his mouth began a purposeful descent. “Nicki, don’t! I—” Instantly his mouth silenced her startled protest, his lips moving sensuously, tasting and courting hers. In the past, only clumsy, overzealous suitors had tried to kiss her, and Whitney had easily put them off, but Nicki’s arousing kiss was awakening a response in her that amazed and alarmed her. She managed to remain perfectly still and unresponsive, but the moment his arms loosened, she stepped back quickly. “I suppose,” she said with false calm, “that I ought to slap your face for that.”
She looked so coolly unaffected that Nicki, who had been unexpectedly shaken by the feel of her soft mouth beneath his, and the pressure of her breasts against his chest, was furious. “Slap my face?” he repeated sarcastically. “Why should you? I can’t believe that I’m the first, or even the hundredth, man to steal a kiss from you.”
“Rea
lly?” Whitney flung back, stung to the quick by his intimation that she would play fast and loose. “Well, I’ve obviously just had the honor of being your first!” The words weren’t past her lips before Whitney saw the rigid anger in his expression and realized that she’d made a serious tactical error in insulting his masculinity. “Nicki—” she whispered in warning, cautiously stepping backward and out of his reach. Nicki advanced on her. She scooted behind her uncle’s desk, facing him across it, her hands braced on the top. Each time Whitney moved one way, Nicki countered. They stood, two combatants separated by Uncle Edward’s desk, each waiting for the other to make a move. Suddenly, the childish absurdity of the situation struck Whitney, and she began to laugh. “Nicki, have you the faintest idea what you’re going to do if you catch me?”
Nicki had an excellent idea what he would like to do if he caught her, but he also appreciated the foolishness of the scene. He straightened, and the mask of anger fell away. “Come out from behind the desk,” he chuckled. “I give you my word I shall behave as a gentleman.”
Scanning his face, Whitney assured herself that he meant it, then obediently did as he bade her. Linking her hand through his arm, she escorted him to the door. “I’ll see you tonight at the masquerade,” she promised.
6
* * *
Lord Edward Gilbert stood before the drawing room mirror, his eyes wide with shock and repugnance as he stared at himself in the scaly green crocodile costume his wife had chosen for him to wear to the Armands’ masquerade.
His revolted gaze slid from the top of his grotesque head with its fierce jaws open wide, ready to snap, down to his claw-like reptilian feet, then along the thick tail dragging the floor behind him. Precisely at the center of what should have been the crocodile’s sleek green body, Edward’s stomach swelled majestically. Turning his back to the mirror, he looked over his shoulder and experimentally rotated his hips, watching in morbid fascination as his tail undulated behind him. “Obscene!” he snorted in disgust.