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528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
"I wish I could find the right words to tell you how much I loathe you and everything you represent."
"I hated you from the first moment I met you …"
"I’m very sorry to hear that." He said softly. "Because I thought that you were the loveliest, most enchanting creature God ever created."
"I’m drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Just as you are to me."
Love was a silly, romantic, notion that had no place in his life.
"You beautiful, infuriating, wonderful little fool."
"Don’t cry darling. Please don’t cry anymore."
"Where is your home?" she asked.
"Wherever you are."
"Oh my God, little one," Clayton whispered in his heart.
"Behold your new mistress, my wife. And know that when she bids you, I have bidden you; what service you render her, you are rendering me; what loyalty you give or withhold from her, you give or withhold from me."
"Clayton," she said softly, her voice threaded with tears, "When Vanessa asked about my accomplishments tonight, I forgot to mention that I do have one. And it's--it's so splendid that it compensates for my lack of all the others."
Stephen and Clayton grinned at each other, neither of them hearing the emotion that clogged her voice.
"What splendid accomplishments is that, little one?" Clayton asked.
Her shoulders hunched forward and began to shake.
"I made you love me," she whispered brokenly.
"Somehow, some way, I actually made you love me."
"If I ever think you are even considering leaving me again, no matter how good you reasons, I'll have you locked in your rooms and the doors barricaded, so help me God."
He lifted her foot and began to dry it.
Her voice shaking, Whitney asked, "Will you stay locked in there with me?"
He raised her dainty foot to his jaw and tenderly laid his cheek against it, then turned his head and kissed it.
"Yes," he whispered
She was his … body, heart and soul.
Clayton looked up automatically as she began descending the staircase, and what he saw stopped his breath and made his heart burst with pride.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes and the muscles of her throat constricted as he tenderly traced the elegant curve of her cheek. "Forgive me?" he asked her softly.
Wildly, Whitney struggled, trying to draw enough air into her lungs to tell him yes! Her ribs felt as if they were being cracked; he was suffocating her and growing more enraged at her helpless, involuntary silence. She forced her hand up along his chest, futilely trying to wedge some space between them, until her fingers finally encountered the male lips locked fiercely to hers.
She didn't realize it was the unintentional tenderness of laying her hand against his face that made him release her so abruptly.
Her eyelids fluttered, and Clayton almost groaned with relief. Gently smoothing the heavy, rumpled hair away from her forehead, he leaned close to her. "It's all right now, little one. Where are you hurt? Can you speak?"
Sea-green eyes opened, regarding him calmly and steadily. She had such beautiful eyes, he thought as she gave him a shaky, reassuring little smile.
He surged to his feet. "Turn around!" he snapped. Before Whitney could utter a protest, he caught her by the shoulders and whipped her around. With one vicious jerk, he ripped her dress down the back and the sound of tearing fabric screamed in Whitney's ears, while satin-covered buttons scattered across the carpet to shine in the firelight. He turned her back toward him and smiled malevolently. "I own the dress too," he reminded her.
' "I love to hear you say my name. It makes me want to take you in my arms, to have your sweet tongue in my mouth, to caress your breasts and feel your nipples rise up proudly against my hand." ' ~ The Grade A Asshole.*(The .5 occurred when I begged him to stop half way through the 343rd time. Surprisingly enough, he did).
" 'I thought you were going to snare the most eligible bachelor alive right in front of our tiresome neighbors. I expected to hear a betrothal announcement, and instead, I find you standing by yourself.'And, Whitney’s Aunt, Lady Anne Gilbert:
Whitney beamed a smile. 'I have snared him and you’ll hear an announcement as soon as Paul returns from his trip.'
'Paul?' Lady Eubank echoed blankly. 'Paul Sevarin?' she repeated. Unabashed glee danced in her eyes as she scanned the crowd. 'Is Westland [Westmoreland] coming tonight?' she demanded.
'Yes.'
'Good, good.' Her ladyship chuckled and said, 'This should be a most diverting evening!' "
"Your father wants a daughter who is like a cameo; delicate, pale, and easily shaped. Instead, he has a daughter who is a diamond, full of sparkle and life, and he doesn't know what to do with her. Instead of appreciating the value and rarity of his jewel; instead of polishing her and letting her shine; he persists in trying to shape her into a common cameo."And, most of all...
She lapsed into silence and gazed absently out the coach window at the lush, rolling English countryside covered in wild pink Foxglove and yellow Buttercups, trying to envision the niece she hadn't seen in almost eleven years.
Emily tapped lightly [...] 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.
Whitney [...] was too thin right now, but even in disgrace Whitney's shoulders were straight, her walk naturally graceful and faintly provocative [this girl is FIFTEEN]. Anne smiled to herself at the gently rounded hips displayed to an almost immoral advantage by the coarse brown trousers, the slender waist that would require no subterfuge to make it appear smaller, eyes that seemed to change from sea-green to deep jade beneath their fringe of long, sooty lashes. And that hair- piles and piles of rich mahogany brown!
"Whitney Stone, Paul [local dude Whitney stalks and harasses because she has a crush on him] avoids you like the plague, and well you know it! And who could blame him, after the mishaps you've treated him to in the last year?"
"There haven't been so many as all that," Whitney protested, but she squirmed in her chair.
"No? What about that trick you played on him on All Soul's - darting out in front of his carriage, shrieking like a banshee, and pretending to be a ghost, terrifying his horses."
Whitney flushed. "He wasn't so very angry. And it isn't as if the carriage was destroyed. It only broke a shaft when it overturned."
"And Paul's leg," Emily pointed out.
"But that mended perfectly," Whitney persisted, her mind already leaping from past debacles to future possibilities.
Personally, she knew nothing of fashions and cared even less: she looked hopeless no matter what she wore. After all, what could clothes do to improve the looks of a female who had cat's eyes, mud-colored hair, and freckles on the bridge of her nose? Besides that, she was too tall, too thin, and if the good Lord intended for her ever to have a bosom, it was very late in making its appearance.
"I read one once but I didn't like it," Anne remarked. [...] "I cannot abide a heroine who is too perfect, nor one who is forever swooning."
Whitney was so astonished to discover that she wasn't the only female in all of England who didn't devour the insipid things, that she instantly forgot her resolution to speak only in monosyllables. "And when the heroines aren't swooning [...] they are lying about with hartshorn bottles up their nostrils, moping and pining away for some faint-hearted gentleman who hasn't the gumption to offer for them, or else has already offered for some other, unworthy female. I could never just lie there doing nothing, knowing the man I loved was falling in love with a horrid person."
"What do you read then, if not atrocious romantic novels?" She pried the book from beneath Whitney's flattened hand and stared at the gold-embossed title. "The Iliad?" she asked in astonished disbelief. [...] "But this is in Greek! Surely you don't read Greek?"
Whitney nodded, her faced flushed with mortification. Now her aunt would think her a bluestocking - another black mark against her. "Also Latin, Italian, French, and even some German," she confessed.
"Good God," Anne breathed. "How did you ever learn all that?"