I am a kept woman, she thought as she listlessly pushed at a stuffed oyster with her fork. He had paid for the clothes she was wearing, the jewels, even her underthings. To add to her unwholesome feelings about herself, her cousin Cuthbert's slavering gaze kept slithering sideways as he tried to steal a glimpse of what her bodice concealed.

Her father, she noted, was behaving with artificial joviality, proclaiming to his guests how happy he was that they'd come, and how sad he was that they were departing tomorrow. Whitney thought that he probably was sorry to see them go. After all, he had been using them as a shield to insulate himself from her impending wrath. So much the better, Whitney thought. She didn't want a confrontation with him. All she felt for him now was a frigid core of nothingness.

After the gentlemen had enjoyed their port and cigars, they joined the ladies in the drawing room, where tables were set up for whist. The instant Cuthbert saw her, he started toward her table. He was pompous, balding and, to Whitney, wholly repulsive. Mumbling a quick excuse to Aunt Anne about not wanting to play whist, Whitney hastily stood and left the room.

She wandered down the back hall and into the library, but could not find anything of interest among the hundreds, of books lining the shelves there. The salons were being used for parlor games, and Cuthbert was in the drawing room. Under no circumstances could Whitney endure another moment near him, which left her the choice of either returning to her bedroom and the plaguing problems that would haunt her there, or else going into her father's study.

She chose the latter and, after Sewell brought her a pack of cards and added a log to the cheerful fire burning in the grate, Whitney settled into a high-backed chair beside the fire. I am becoming a hermit, she thought, slowly shuffling the deck, then laying the cards, one at a time, on the parquet table in front of her. Behind her, she heard the door open. "What is it, Sewell?" she asked without looking around.

"It isn't Sewell, Cousin Whitney," chanted a singsong voice. "It is I, Cuthbert." He sauntered over and stood beside her chair where he could avail himself of this new view of the creamy swells above her bodice. "What are you doing?"

"It's called solitaire," Whitney explained in a cool, ungracious voice, "or Napoleon at St. Helena. It can only be played by one person."

"I never heard of it," said Cuthbert, "but you must show me how."

Gritting her teeth, Whitney continued to play. Every time she leaned forward to place a card on the table, Cuthbert leaned forward too, feigning interest in the play while his gaze delved into her bodice. Unable to endure it a moment longer, Whitney slapped the cards down and leapt to her feet in irritated resentment. "Must you stare at me?" she snapped. "Yes," Cuthbert rasped, grasping her arms and trying to pull her toward him, "I must."

"Cuthbert," Whitney warned ominously, "I'll give you just three seconds to take your hands off of me before I start screaming the house down."

Unexpectedly, Cuthbert did as she commanded, but as his arms dropped, his body followed. Falling to one knee, he placed a hand over his heart, preparatory to proposing matrimony. "Cousin Whitney," he murmured hoarsely, indulging himself in a visual fondling of her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head and back down. "I must tell you what is in my heart and mind-" "I know what is in your mind," Whitney interrupted scathingly. "You've been ogling me for hours. Now get to your feet!"

"I have to say it," he persisted in rising tones. His pudgy hands felt the hem of her blue gown and Whitney snatched her skirt away, half convinced that he intended to lift it and peak beneath it. Deprived of her hem, his hand returned to cover his heart. "I admire you with every fiber of my being. I have the deepest regard for-" Gulping, he broke off, his widened eyes riveted on a point behind her. "I sincerely hope," drawled a lazily amused voice from the doorway, "that I am not interrupting a devoted man at his prayers?" Strolling to Whitney's side, Clayton looked down at an angry Cuthbert until Whitney's cousin finally staggered to his feet.

"My cousin was teaching me a new game of cards, and only one can play," he said.

The indulgent amusement in Clayton's expression vanished. With a curt nod toward the door, he said, "Now that you have learned, go and practice."

Cuthbert clenched his fists, hesitated, took a second look at the coldly determined line of his opponent's jaw, and left. Whitney watched the door close behind him and looked up at Clayton with relieved gratitude. "Thank you, I-"

"I ought to break your neck!" Clayton interrupted.

Too late, Whitney realized that she shouldn't have been standing all this time on her "injured" knee.

"Allow me to congratulate you on a fine day's work, Madam," he said sternly. "In less than twelve hours, you've brought Whitticomb to your side and Cuthbert to your feet."

Whitney stared at him. Although his tone was very grave, one corner of his mouth was quirked into something that looked suspiciously like a grin. To think she'd been quaking with fear because she thought he was furious! "You devil!" she whispered, torn between laughter and anger.

"I would hardly describe you as an angel," Clayton mocked.

All day, Whitney's emotions had been careening crazily between anger, dread, fear, and relief, rebounding from one near calamity to the next narrow escape. And now, gazing up at the darkly handsome man who was amused instead ot enraged, as she'd expected, the last vestige of her control slipped away. Tears of exhausted relief sprang to her green eyes. "This has been the most awful day," she whispered.

"Probably because you've been missing me," he said with such ironic derision that Whitney's shoulders trembled with mirth.

"Missing you?" she giggled incredulously. "I could cheerfully murder you."

"I'd come back to haunt you," he threatened with a grin.

"And that," she said, "is the only reason why I haven't tried." Without warning, what had started as a giggle became a choked sob, and tears came spilling down her cheeks.

Clayton's arm slid gently around her. He was offering her comfort, and Whitney accepted it. Turning into his arms, she buried her face against his dove-gray jacket and wept out her troubles in the embrace of the man who was responsible for causing them. When the tears finally subsided, Whitney remained where she was, her cheek resting against the solid, comforting wall of his chest.

"Feel better now?" he murmured.

Whitney nodded sheepishly and accepted his proffered handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes. "I can't remember crying after I was twelve years old, but since I came back here a few weeks ago, it seems as if I'm forever weeping." Glancing op, Whitney surprised a look of panted regret in his eyes. "May I ask you something?" she said softly.

"Anything," Clayton replied.

"Within your power, and within reason, of course," Whitney reminded him with a teary half smile.

He accepted her mild jibe with an amused inclination of his head.

"Whatever made you do this Gothic thing?" she asked him quietly, without rancor. "Whatever made you come to my father, without speaking to me first, scarcely knowing me?" Although there was no change in his expression, Whitney felt his muscles tense, and she quickly explained, "I'm only trying to understand what you could have been thinking of. We didn't get along well at the Armands' masquerade. I mocked your title and rebuffed your advances, yet you decided you wanted to marry me, of all people. Why me?" "Why do you think I chose you?" "I don't know. No man offers for a woman merely to make her miserable and ruin her life, so you must have had another reason."

Despite the unintended insult in her words, Clayton grinned. She was letting him hold her, and he was feeling extremely tolerant. "You can't condemn me for wanting you, unless you condemn every other man who has. And arranged marriages may be Gothic, but they have been a custom in the best families for centuries."