Whitney, My Love

Judith McNaught

Whitney, My Love

(Westmoreland Dynasty Saga – 2)

In memory of Michael – my friend, my husband, my love

ENGLAND

1816

Chapter One

AS THEIR ELEGANT TRAVELLING CHAISE ROCKED AND SWAYED along the rutted country road, Lady A

She lapsed into silence and gazed absently out the coach window at the lush, rolling English countryside covered with wild pink Foxglove and yellow Buttercups, trying to envision the niece she hadn't seen in almost eleven years.

"She'll be pretty, just as her mother was. And she'll have her mother's smile, her gentleness, her sweet disposition …"

Lord Edward Gilbert cast a skeptical glance at his wife. "Sweet disposition?" he echoed in amused disbelief. "That isn't what her father said in his letter."

As a diplomat attached to the British Consulate in Paris, Lord Gilbert was a master of hints, evasions, i

" 'Whitney's ma

Edward chuckled. "Show me where it says she's 'sweet-tempered.'"

His wife shot him a peevish glance. "Martin Stone is a cold, unfeeling man who wouldn't recognize gentleness and goodness if Whitney were made of nothing else! Only think of the way he shouted at her and sent her to her room right after my sister's funeral."

Edward recognized the mutinous set of his wife's chin and put his arm around her shoulders in a gesture of conciliation. "I'm no fonder of the man than you are, but you must admit that, just having lost his young wife to an early grave, to have his daughter accuse him, in front of fifty people, of locking her mama in a box so she couldn't escape had to be rather disconcerting."

"But Whitney was scarcely five years old!" A

"Agreed. But Martin was grieving. Besides, as I recall, it was not for that offense she was banished to her room. It was later, when everyone had gathered in the drawing room- when she stamped her foot and threatened to report us all to God if we didn't release her mama at once."

A

"Well, yes," Edward agreed sheepishly. "I rather thought she was."

As the Gilbert chaise bore inexorably down on the Stone estate, a small knot of young people were waiting on the south lawn, impatiently looking toward the stable one hundred yards away. A petite blond smoothed her pink ruffled skirts and sighed in a way that displayed a very fetching dimple. "Whatever do you suppose Whitney is pla

Glancing down into Elizabeth Ashton's wide blue eyes, Paul Sevarin smiled a smile that Whitney would have forfeited both her feet to see focused on herself. "Try to be patient, Elizabeth," he said.

"I'm sure none of us have the faintest idea what she is up to, Elizabeth," Margaret Merryton said tartly. "But you can be perfectly certain it will be something foolish and outrageous."

"Margaret, we're all Whitney's guests today," Paul chided. "I don't know why you should defend her, Paul," Margaret argued spitefully. "Whitney is creating a horrid scandal chasing after you, and you know it!"

"Margaret!" Paul snapped. "I said that was enough." Drawing a long, irritated breath, Paul Sevarin frowned darkly at his gleaming boots. Whitney had been making a spectacle of herself chasing after him, and damned near everyone for fifteen miles was talking about it.

At first he had been mildly amused to find himself the object of a fifteen-year-old's languishing looks and adoring smiles, but lately Whitney had begun pursuing him with the determination and tactical brilliance of a female Napoleon Bonaparte.

If he rode off the grounds of his estate, he could almost depend on meeting her en route to his destination. It was as if she had some lookout point from which she watched his every move, and Paul no longer found her childish infatuation with him either harmless or amusing.

Three weeks ago, she had followed him to a local i

He'd stalked back inside and ordered another tankard, but when the i

He was begi

A pretty girl, several years younger than the others in the group, glanced at Paul. "I think I'll go and see what's keeping Whitney," said Emily Williams. She hurried across the lawn and along the whitewashed fence adjoining the stable. Shoving open the big double doors, Emily looked down the wide gloomy corridor lined with stalls on both sides. "Where is Miss Whitney?" she asked the stableboy who was currying a sorrel gelding.

"In there, Miss." Even in the muted light, Emily saw his face suffuse with color as he nodded toward a door adjacent to the tack room.

With a puzzled glance at the flushing stableboy, Emily tapped lightly on the designated door and stepped inside, then froze at the sight that greeted her: Whitney Allison Stone's long legs were encased in coarse brown britches that clung startlingly to her slender hips and were held in place at her narrow waist with a length of rope. Above the riding britches she wore a thin chemise.

"You surely aren't going out there dressed like that?" Emily gasped.

Whitney fired an amused glance over her shoulder at her scandalized friend. "Of course not. I'm going to wear a shirt too."

"B-but why?" Emily persisted desperately.

"Because I don't think it would be very proper to appear in my chemise, silly," Whitney cheerfully replied, snatching the stableboy's clean shirt off a peg and plunging her arms into the sleeves.

"P-proper? Proper?" Emily sputtered. "It's completely improper for you to be wearing men's britches, and you know it!"