The memory of that and the other times he'd kissed her were hers alone to cherish. They did not belong to "Charise Lancaster." They belonged to her. She rolled onto her stomach, holding the memories close, and she fell asleep to dream of strong arms crushing her tightly and demanding kisses that stole her breath… of caressing hands that gentled and tantalized her and made her forget it was wrong to let him touch her in that intimate way. She slept, dreaming of things she would never know again in reality.


Wrapped in a dressing gown, Whitney stood in the nursery, gazing down at her sleeping son's cherubic face. She looked up as the door opened, admitting a wedge of light, and her husband walked in, his face more grim than she'd seen it in years. "I couldn't sleep," she whispered, leaning down and smoothing the light blanket over Noel's shoulders. He already had his father's square chin and dark hair.

Behind her, Clayton slid his arms around her waist, silently offering her comfort. "Have I thanked you recently for my son?" he whispered near her ear, smiling down at the three-year-old.

"Not since this time last night," she said, tipping her face up to his and trying to smile.

He wasn't fooled by her smile any more than she was fooled by his careful avoidance of the discussion of today's aborted wedding. "I feel so terrible," she confided.

"I know you do," he said quietly.

"I will never forget the look on Stephen's face as it became later and later and he realized she wasn't coming back."

"Nor I," he said tersely.

"He kept the vicar there until after ten o'clock. How could she do a thing like that to him? How could she?"

"None of us really knew her."

"Stephen was insane about her. I could see it every time he looked at her and when he was trying not to look at her."

"I noticed," he said curtly.

Swallowing over the lump of sorrow in her throat, she said, "If it hadn't been for Stephen's intervention, you would be married to Vanessa and I'd be wed to someone else, and Noel wouldn't exist."

Clayton reached up and smoothed her tousled hair off her shoulder and pressed a reassuring kiss against her temple, as she continued in an aching voice, "I always wanted to repay him for that, but all I could do was wish and wish that he would find someone who would make him as happy as we are."

"Come to bed, darling," Clayton said, leaning down and lightly tousling his son's hair. "Stephen is a grown man," he said as he drew her firmly toward their own bedchamber. "He'll get over her because he wants to get over her."

"Did you get over me as easily as that when we were-" she hesitated, carefully refraining from any mention of the hideous night that had nearly destroyed all chances of a marriage between them, "when we were estranged?"

"No."

When they were both in bed and she had curled into his arms, he added, "However, I had known you longer than Stephen knew Ch-Sheridan Bromleigh."

She nodded, her soft cheek sliding against his arm, and he tightened his hold, drawing her tighter against him because he, too, remembered the event that had nearly torn them apart.

"Time has little to say to the matter. Do you remember how long after we met again in England it was before you loved me?" she said into the darkness.

Clayton smiled at the memory. "It was the night you confessed you used to pepper your music teacher's snuffbox."

"If memory serves me well, I told you that story only a week or two after I came home from France."

"Something like that."

"Clayton?"

"What?" he whispered.

"I do not think Stephen is going to get over this as easily as you think. He could have any woman he wants, and yet in all this time, she was the only woman he ever wanted-except for Emily, and look how cynical he became after that!"

"All Stephen has to do is crook his finger, and dozens of desirable women will line up to soothe him. This time, he'll let them because his pride and his heart both took a more serious beating than the last," Clayton predicted grimly. "In the meantime, he'll get completely foxed and stay that way for a while."

She tipped her face up to his. "Is that what you did?"

"That's what I did," he confirmed.

"How very typically male," she said primly.

Clayton smothered a laugh at her tone and tipped her soft mouth up to his. "Are you feeling superior, madam?" he asked, a brow quirked in amused inquiry.

"Very," she replied smugly.

"In that case," he said, rolling onto his back and taking her with him, "I suppose I'd better let you be on top."

Some time later, sleepy and sated, Clayton settled her more comfortably against his side and closed his eyes.

"Clayton?"

Something in her voice made him warily force his eyes open.

"I don't know if you noticed, but Charity Thornton was in tears today when Sheridan Bromleigh didn't return." When he didn't reply, but continued to watch her, she said, "Did you notice?"

"Yes," he said cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, she told me in the most-most heartbreaking way-that she'd felt truly useful for the first time in decades because she was needed to act as chaperone. And she said she felt a useless old failure because she hadn't found another husband for Miss Bromleigh, besides Stephen."

"I heard her and so did Stephen," Clayton said, his unease and suspicion vibrating in his voice. "However, I believe her exact words were that she was sorry she hadn't been able to find some other unfortunate, gullible male for Miss Bromleigh to deceive and abandon, instead of her dear Langford."

"Well, that's almost the same thing…"

"Only if you consider idiocy almost the same thing as sense. Why," he said with gravest reservations about hearing the answer, "are we having this discussion right now?"

"Because I-I invited her to stay with us for a while."

To Whitney it seemed as if he had stopped breathing. "I thought she could help look after Noel."

"It would make more sense to ask Noel to look after her."

Uncertain whether his mocking tone disguised annoyance or amusement, she said, "Naturally, Noel's governess would be secretly in charge."

"In charge of who-Noel or Charity Thornton?"

Whitney bit back a nervous smile. "Are you angry?"

"No. I am… awed."

"By what?"

"By your sense of timing. An hour ago, before I wore us both out making love, I might have reacted more violently to having her in my house than I am able to now-when I'm too weak to hold my eyes open."

"I rather thought that would be the case," she admitted guiltily after he deliberately let the silence lengthen.

"I rather thought you did."

He sounded almost disapproving of that, and she bit her lip, carefully lifting her gaze to his face, searching his inscrutable features, one by one. "Finding what you're looking for, my love?" he asked mildly.

"I was looking for… forgiveness?" she hinted, and her glowing eyes were almost Clayton's undoing as he struggled to keep his face straight. "A manly attitude of benevolence toward his overwrought wife? A certain nobility of spirit that manifests itself in the quality of tolerance for others? Perhaps a sense of humor?"

"All of that?" Clayton said, a helpless grin tugging at his lips. "All of those qualities in one beleaguered male with a wife who has just invited the world's oldest living henwit into his home?"

She bit her lip to keep from laughing, and nodded.

"In that case," he announced, closing his eyes, a smile on his lips, "you may count yourself fortunate to have married just such a paragon."

43

"I've come to ask you a favor," Stephen announced without preamble two weeks later as he walked into the morning room of his brother's house, where Whitney was supervising the installation of sunny yellow draperies.

Startled by his abrupt arrival and curt tone, Whitney left the seamstresses alone, and walked with Stephen into the drawing room. In the past three weeks since the aborted wedding, she'd seen him at different functions, but only at night and always with a different woman on his arm. Rumor had it that he had also been seen at the theatre with Helene Devernay. In the revealing daylight, it was obvious to Whitney that time wasn't soothing him. His face looked as hard and cold as granite, his attitude even to her was distant and curt, and there were deep lines of fatigue etched at his eyes and mouth. He looked as if he hadn't been to sleep in a week and hadn't stopped drinking while he was awake. "I'd do anything you asked of me, you know that," Whitney said gently, her heart aching for him.

"Can you make a place for an old man-an under-butler? I want him out of my sight."

"Of course," she said, and then cautiously she added, "Could you tell me why you want him out of your sight?"

"He was Burleton's butler, and I don't ever want to see anyone or anything that reminds me of her."


Clayton looked up from the papers he was studying as Whitney walked into his study, her face stricken. Alarm brought him quickly to his feet and around his desk. "What's wrong?"

"Stephen was just here," she said in a choked voice. "He looks awful, he sounds awful. He doesn't even want Burleton's servant around because the man reminds him of her. His pride wasn't all that suffered when she left. He loved her," she said vehemently, her green eyes shimmering with frustrated tears. "I knew he did!"

"It's over," Clayton said with soft finality. "She's gone and it's over. Stephen will come around."

"Not at this rate!"

"He has a different woman on his arm every night," he told her. "I can assure you he's a long way from becoming a recluse."