N RESPONSE TO WHITNEY'S NOTE, LADY ANNE GILBERT arrived the following morning, ready to help with the wedding preparations, and an almost instant friendship sprang up between her and the duchess.

For Whitney, the next four days drifted by in a haze of comfort and togetherness, of smiles exchanged across the table, and stolen moments of joy in each other's arms.

True to Clayton's mother's prediction, all the various shops agreed to meet their eight-week deadline, despite the fact that the fashionable modistes were already overburdened with orders for the next season. Frequently, it was the proprietors themselves who arrived, carrying large sketches and boxes of swatches, all of them eager to claim that they had been of assistance to the future Duchess of Claymore in her wedding preparations.

On the fifth day, however, Whitney received a rather perfunctory summons from a footman who informed her that "His grace wishes to see you in his study-at once." Trying to smother the apprehensive feeling in her breast, Whitney hurried down the hall, nodded toward a distinguished-looking man she passed who was carrying a large, flat, oblong case under his arm, and entered Clayton's study. Closing the doors behind her, she bobbed a funny little servant's curtsy and said teasingly, "You rang for me, your grace?"

Clayton was standing in front of his desk, and he gazed at her silently across the room, his expression very somber.

"Is-is something wrong?" Whitney breathed after a moment.

Although he spoke gently, there was a strange new gravity to his tone. "No. Come here, please."

"Clayton, what is it?" Whitney said, hurrying toward him. "What has-"

He caught her to him in a crushing embrace. "Nothing is wrong," he said in an odd, rough voice. "I missed you." With one arm still around her waist, he turned aside and picked up a small velvet box from the desk behind him. "I thought about an emerald," he said in that same gentle, grave voice, "but it would be outshone by your eyes. So I decided on this instead." He unsnapped the lid of the box with his free hand, and a magnificent diamond shot prisms of color across the intricate plasterwork scrolls at the ceiling.

Whitney stared at it in awed wonder. "I've never seen anything so..." She stopped as tears of poignant happiness welled in her eyes.

Taking her hand, Clayton slid the exquisite gem onto her long finger. Whitney looked down at her own hand which now bore the first tangible proof that she was actually Clayton's. She belonged to him now, and all the world would see the ring and know it.

No longer was she Whitney Allison Stone, her father's daughter, Lord and Lady Gilbert's niece. She was now the promised bride of the Duke of Claymore. In the space of one moment, she had lost her identity and been given a new one. She wanted to tell him that his ring was beautiful, that she worshiped him, but she only managed to whisper, "I love you" before the tears came, and she turned her face into his chest. "I'm not sad," she tried to explain as the reassuring strength of his arms encircled her, "I'm happy."

"I know, little one," he whispered, holding her until the same emotion that had unexpectedly rocked him when he'd chosen the ring a few minutes ago, had passed through her.

Finally Whitney drew back, smiling a little sheepishly, and held her hand out in front of her to admire the glittering splendor of the single stone. "It's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen," she said, "except for you."

A surge of hot desire swept through Clayton at the sound of her words, and he bent his head to capture her mouth with his, then he checked the motion-there was a limit to how much stimulation his body could tolerate these days. Instead, be said ma tone of mock severity, "Madam, I hope you'll not make a habit of crying whenever I give you a jewel, else we'll have to send for buckets when you see the ones that belong to yon from my grandmothers."

"Didn't this ring belong to one of your grandmothers?"

"No. Westmoreland duchesses are never betrothed with a ring that has belonged to another-it's tradition. Your wedding band will be an heirloom, though."

"Are there any other Westmoreland traditions?" Whitney asked, her smile filled with love.

Clayton's restraint broke; he gathered her into his arms, his mouth descending with hunger and need on hers. "We could start one," he whispered meaningfully. "Tell me you want me," he said thickly, his mouth fiercely tender as it ravaged hers.

"I love you," she answered instead, but Clayton felt her intoxicating body straining automatically to be closer to his. A deep, knowing laugh sounded in his chest as he drew back. "I know you love me, little one," he said, tipping her chin up. "But yon want me, too."

Whitney conveniently remembered, then, that her aunt and the seamstresses were waiting for her in the other room. Only half reluctantly, she stepped away. "Win that be all, your grace?" she smiled, bobbing another servant's curtsy.

Clayton's tone was politely impersonal. "For now, thank you," he said, out when she turned, he gave her an affectionate smack that landed squarely on her derriere.

Whitney halted. Over her shoulder she regarded him with an expression of exaggerated severity, and warned, "If I were you, I'd not forget what happened when you did that to me after the Rutherfords' party."

"At the Archibalds' house?" he clarified. "When I brought you home?"

Her lips twitched with laughter, but she managed a slow, haughty nod. "Precisely."

"Am I to understand," Clayton mocked, trying unsuccessfully to keep his face straight, "that you're threatening to knock these paintings off the wall?"

Puzzled, Whitney glanced at the portraits in heavy carved frames hanging along the wall, and then at Clayton's laughing face. "I thought I slapped you."

"You missed."

"I did?"

"I'm afraid so," he confirmed gravely.

Whitney muffled a giggle. "How provoking."

"Undoubtedly," he agreed.

Bemused, Whitney turned and started to walk away. His second smack landed with a little more force upon her derriere than the first, and although she managed to look quite disapproving, she couldn't stifle her laughter.

That night after dinner, the family all retired to the drawing room. The duchess and Aunt Anne were deeply engrossed in gossip, white Stephen was regaling Whitney with hilarious versions of Clayton's most infamous boyhood transgressions, to which Clayton was listening with alternating expressions of extreme discomfort and bored disgust.

"Then there was the time when Clay was twelve and he didn't come down to breakfast. When he wasn't in his room either, Bather and the servants began combing the grounds. Late in the afternoon, Clay's shut was found on the bank of the stream where the water is fast and deep. His boat was still there, because Father had forbidden him to take it out for one month..."

Breathless with laughter from the last story, Whitney turned to her betrothed and gasped, "Why-why weren't you allowed to take your boat out?"

Clayton glowered his displeasure at Stephen, then gazed down into Whitney's vivid, laughing face and grinned in spite of himself. "As I recall, I had not come down properly attired for dinner the night before."

"Not properly attired?" Stephen hooted. "You appeared a half hour late, in riding boots and hacking clothes positively reeking of horse sweat and leather, with gunpowder on your face from sneaking out and practicing with Father's old dueling pistols."

Clayton hurled a look of excruciating disgust at Stephen, and Whitney dissolved with laughter. "Go on, Stephen," she gasped merrily. "Tell me the rest about finding Clayton's shirt by the stream."

"Well, everyone thought Clay had drowned and they came rushing to the scene, with Mother in tears and Father as white as a sheet, when, around the bend came Gay on the most rickety, makeshift raft you have ever seen. Everyone held their breath, expecting the raft to swamp when he tried to bank it, but Clay guided it right in. With his fishing pole in one hand and a stringer of prime fish in the other, he got off and looked around at us as if he thought we were all odd for standing there, gaping at him. Then he strolled up to Father and Mother, still carrying that huge stringer of fish.

"Mother promptly burst into tears and Father finally recovered his voice. He was in the middle of delivering a thundering tirade about Clay's irresponsible behavior, his recklessness, and even his lack of a shirt, when your future husband said very patiently that he did not think it was seemly for Father to be dressing him down in front of the servants."

"Oh, you didn't!" Whitney whispered hoarsely, stomping lower in her seat. "Then what happened?"

Clayton chuckled. "Father obliged me by sending the servants away," he said, "and then he boxed my ears."

Into this utterly congenial atmosphere of charming conviviality intruded the black-coated figure of the butler who intoned magisterially, "Lord Edward Gilbert has arrived." This announcement was immediately followed by the appearance of Lord Edward Gilbert himself, who strode into the drawing room, glanced around, and beamed his general approbation on all the occupants.

"Good heavens! It's Edward!" gasped Lady Anne, coming to her feet and staring at her beloved husband. Afraid that her letters had finally caught up with him and that he had hastened here to rescue Whitney from an unwanted match with the duke, she thought madly for some concise explanation to give him for the momentous events which had led to this gathering at Claymore.

Whitney also lurched to her feet, her thoughts identical to her aunt's. "Uncle Edward!" she burst out.

"Glad that everyone recognizes me," Lord Edward Gilbert drily remarked, looking from Anne to Whitney in obvious expectation of some more sentimental greeting than he had thus for received.

Unnoticed, Clayton rose and strolled over to the fireplace, where he leaned an elbow upon the mantel, and with visible amusement watched the unfolding scene.

Edward waited for someone to introduce him to the duchess and Stephen, but when neither his wife nor his niece seemed capable of speech, he shrugged and strode directly over to the duke. "Well Claymore," he said, warmly returning Clayton's handclasp, "I see the betrothal has come off without a hitch."

"Without a hitch?!" Lady Gilbert whispered in a strangled voice.

"Without a hitch?" Whitney echoed as she slowly crumpled to the sofa.

"Almost without a hitch," Clayton corrected mildly, ignoring the gaping stares of the other occupants of the room.

"Good, good. Knew it would," said Lord Gilbert. Clayton introduced him to his mother and Stephen, and when the civilities had been exchanged, Edward finally turned again to his rigid wife. "Anne?" said he as he advanced upon her and she retreated, step for step. "After months apart, Madam, it strikes me that your greeting thus far has been less than enthusiastic."

"Edward," Lady Gilbert breathed, "you clothhead!" "Can't say that's much of an improvement over, 'Good heavens, it's Edward," he pointed out with asperity.

"You knew about this betrothal from the very beginning," she accused, transferring her dark frown from Edward to a grinning Clayton, who immediately smoothed his face into more suitably grave lines. "I have been subjected to enough suspense to drive anyone to raving lunacy, and the two of you have been in communication all along, haven't you?! I can't think which of you I should more like to murder."

"Do you want your hartshorn, my dear?"

"No, I do not want my hartshorn," his lady replied, "I want an explanation!"

"An explanation for what?" Edward asked, bewildered.

"For why you have not answered my letters, for why you did not tell me you were aware of this betrothal, for why you didn't advise me what to do..."

"I only got one of your letters," he defended a trifle brusquely, "and an you said was that Claymore was in residence near Stone's place. And I can't imagine why you needed me to tell you what to do, when it was perfectly obvious that all you had to do was chaperone two people whom anyone could see were ideally suited to each other. And I did not tell you I was aware of the betrothal because I was not aware of it until Claymore's letter was brought to me in Spam a month and a half ago."

Lady Gilbert was not to be so easily pacified. With a brief glance of apology to Clayton, she burst out, "They most certainly were not 'ideally suited!'"

"Of course they were!" Edward defended stoutly. "What possible objection could you have to a match with Claymore?" Suddenly, a look of amused understanding crossed his face. "So you were worried about his reputation, were you? Lord, Madam," he chuckled tolerantly, momentarily oblivious to the presence of the Westmoreland family in the room, "haven't you ever heard the saying that 'reformed rakes often make the best husbands'?"

"Why, thank you, Lord Gilbert," Clayton said wryly.

Lord Gilbert cast a puzzled look at Stephen who was suddenly seized with a fit of strangled laughter, then continued speaking to his wife. "I thought they would make an excellent match the night I saw them together at the masquerade, and I knew something was in the wind when I was informed the Westmoreland solicitors were making inquiries about Whitney in Paris. Then I thought Martin had spoiled everything by sending for her, but when I got your letter and you said Claymore was in residence not three miles away from Stone's doorstep, I knew exactly what was happening."

"Oh no you didn't!" Lady Anne exclaimed heatedly. "I'll tell you what happened. From the moment Whitney clapped eyes on his grace in England, she was at daggers-drawn with him. And..."

Lord Gilbert turned his head and peered sternly at Whitney over the top of his spectacles. "Oh, so Whitney was the problem, was she?" He transferred his gaze to Clayton and said, "Whitney needs a husband who'll keep a firm hand on the reins. That's why I was in favor of your suit from the very beginning."

"Why, thank you, Uncle Edward," Whitney said ungratefully.

"It's the truth and you know it, m'dear." To Lady Anne, he added, "She's much like you in that respect."

"How very kind of you to say so, Edward," Anne said tartly.

Edward glanced from his wife's indignant face to Whitney's rebellious one, and then toward Clayton, who was regarding him with a dark brow arched in sardonic amusement. He looked at Stephen Westmoreland, whose shoulders were rocking with silent laughter, and then at the duchess who was much too polite to show any emotion at all. "Well," said he to the duchess with a sigh, "I can see that I've now offended everyone. Amazing, is it not, that I am purported to be a competent diplomat?"

The duchess broke into a smile. "I am not in the least offended, Lord Gilbert. I have a decided partiality for rakes. After all, I was married to one, and I have raised"-she looked meaningfully at Stephen-"two."