Hello
Lovelies and welcome to McNaught-E November! From the start of November (yeah,
I know, I’m a bit late so for my first post) to the fourth of December I, and host of bloggers, will be sharing
excerpts and e-book giveaways of 14 Judith McNaught titles that are available
for the time in E-Book format.
If
you previously read any of these amazing titles, revisiting them in E-Book is
not “All for Naught,” as each E-Book will contain original, new content (a
letter) from Judith McNaught.
Make
sure to check back every Monday for McNaught-E Mondays to enjoy additional
excerpts and giveaways for remaining.
A saucy spitfire who has grown into a ravishing young woman, Whitney Stone returns from her triumphant time in Paris society to England. She plans on marrying her childhood sweetheart, only to discover she has been bargained away by her bankrupt father to the arrogant and alluring Clayton Westmoreland, the Duke of Claymore. Outraged, she defies her new lord. But even as his smoldering passion seduces her into a gathering storm of desire, Whitney cannot—will not—relinquish her dream of perfect love. Rich with emotion, brimming with laughter and tears, Whitney, My Love is “the ultimate love story, one you can dream about forever” (RT Book Reviews).
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Whitney, My Love
Chapter 1
As their elegant travelling chaise rocked and swayed along the
rutted country road, Lady Anne Gilbert leaned her cheek against her husband’s
shoulder and heaved a long, impatient sigh. “Another whole hour until we
arrive, and already the suspense is positively gnawing at me. I keep wondering
what Whitney will be like now that she’s grown up.”
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,
innuendoes, and intrigues. But in his personal life, he preferred the
refreshing alternative of blunt truth. “Allow me to refresh your memory,” he
said, groping in his pockets and retrieving the letter from Whitney’s father.
He perched his spectacles upon his nose, and ignoring his wife’s grimace, he
began to read:
“ ‘Whitney’s manners are an
outrage, her conduct is reprehensible. She is a willful hoyden who is the
despair of everyone she knows and an embarrassment to me. I implore you to take
her back to Paris with you, in the hope that you may have more success with the
stubborn chit than I have had.’ ”
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!” Anne protested heatedly.
“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.”
Anne smiled. “What spirit
she had, Edward. I thought for a moment her little freckles were going to pop
right off her nose. Admit it—she was marvelous, and you thought so too!”
“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 blonde smoothed her pink ruffled skirts and sighed in a way that
displayed a very fetching dimple. “Whatever do you suppose Whitney is planning
to do?” she inquired of the handsome light-haired man beside her.
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 inn. While he was pleasantly contemplating accepting
the innkeeper’s daughter’s whispered invitation to meet her later in the
hayloft, he’d glanced up and seen a familiar pair of bright green eyes peeping
at him through the window. Slamming his tankard of ale on the table, he’d
marched outside, grabbed Whitney by the elbow, and unceremoniously deposited
her on her horse, tersely reminding her that her father would be searching for
her if she wasn’t home by nightfall.
He’d stalked back inside
and ordered another tankard, but when the innkeeper’s daughter brushed her
breasts suggestively against his arm while refilling his ale and Paul had a
sudden vision of himself lying entangled with her voluptuous naked body, a pair
of green eyes peered in through yet another window. He’d
tossed enough coins on the planked wooden table to mollify the startled girl’s
wounded sensibilities and left—only to encounter Miss Stone again on his way
home.
He was beginning to feel
like a hunted man whose every move was under surveillance, and his temper was
strained to the breaking point. And yet, Paul thought irritably, here he
was standing in the April sun, trying for some obscure reason to protect
Whitney from the criticism she richly deserved.
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!”
“True. But I can’t very
well ride that horse without a saddle and risk having my skirts blow up around
my neck, now can I?” Whitney breezily argued while she twisted her long unruly
hair into a knot and pinned it at her nape.
“Ride without a saddle?
You can’t mean you’re going to ride astride—your father
will disown you if you do that again.”
“I am not going to ride
astride. Although,” Whitney giggled, “I can’t understand why men are allowed to
straddle a horse, while we—who are supposed to be the weaker sex—must hang off
the side, praying for our lives.”
Emily refused to be
diverted. “Then what are you going to do?”
“I
never realized what an inquisitive young lady you are, Miss Williams,” Whitney
teased. “But to answer your question, I am going to ride standing on the
horse’s back. I saw it done at the fair, and I’ve been practicing ever since.
Then, when Paul sees how well I do, he’ll—”
“He’ll
think you have lost your mind, Whitney Stone! He’ll think that you haven’t a
grain of sense or propriety, and that you’re only trying something else to gain
his attention.” Seeing the stubborn set of her friend’s chin, Emily switched
her tactics. “Whitney, please—think of your father. What will he say if he
finds out?”
Whitney
hesitated, feeling the force of her father’s unwaveringly cold stare as if it
were this minute focused upon her. She drew a long breath, then expelled it
slowly as she glanced out the small window at the group waiting on the lawn.
Wearily, she said, “Father will say that, as usual, I have disappointed him,
that I am a disgrace to him and to my mother’s memory, that he is happy she didn’t live to see what I have become.
Then he will spend half an hour telling me what a perfect lady Elizabeth Ashton
is, and that I ought to be like her.”
“Well,
if you really wanted to impress Paul, you could try . . .”
Whitney
clenched her hands in frustration. “I have tried
to be like Elizabeth. I wear those disgusting ruffled dresses that make me feel
like a pastel mountain, I’ve practiced going for hours without saying a word,
and I’ve fluttered my eyelashes until my eyelids go limp.”
Emily
bit her lip to hide her smile at Whitney’s unflattering description of
Elizabeth Ashton’s demure mannerisms, then she sighed. “I’ll go and tell the
others that you’ll be right out.”
Gasps
of outrage and derisive sniggers greeted Whitney’s appearance on the lawn when
she led the horse toward the spectators. “She’ll fall off,” one of the girls
predicted, “if God doesn’t strike her dead first for wearing those britches.”
Ignoring
the impulse to snap out a biting retort, Whitney raised her head in a gesture
of haughty disdain, then stole a look at Paul. His handsome face was taut with
disapproval as his gaze moved from her bare feet, up her trousered legs, to her
face. Inwardly, Whitney faltered at his obvious displeasure, but she swung
resolutely onto the back of the waiting horse.
The
gelding moved into its practiced canter, and Whitney worked herself upward,
first crouching with arms outstretched for balance, then slowly easing herself
into a standing position. Around and around they went and, although Whitney was
in constant terror of falling off and looking like a fool, she managed to
appear competent and graceful.
As
she completed the fourth circle, she let her eyes slant to the faces passing on
her left, registering their looks of shock and derision, while she searched for
the only face that mattered. Paul was partially in the tree’s shadow, and
Elizabeth Ashton was clinging to his arm, but as Whitney passed, she saw the
slow, reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and triumph unfurled
like a banner in her heart. By the time she came around again, Paul was
grinning broadly at her. Whitney’s spirits soared, and suddenly all the weeks
of practice, the sore muscles and bruises, seemed worthwhile.
* * *
At
the window of the second floor drawing room overlooking the south lawn, Martin
Stone stared down at his performing daughter. Behind him, the butler announced
that Lord and Lady Gilbert had arrived. Too enraged at his daughter to speak,
Martin greeted his sister-in-law and her husband with a clenched jaw and curt
nod.
“How—how
nice to see you again after so many years, Martin,” Lady Anne lied graciously.
When he remained icily silent, she said, “Where is Whitney? We’re so anxious to
see her.”
Martin
finally recovered his voice. “See her?” he snapped savagely. “Madam, you have
only to look out this window.”
Bewildered,
Anne did as he said. Below on the lawn there stood a group of young people
watching a slender boy balancing beautifully on a cantering horse. “What a
clever young man,” she said, smiling.
Her
simple remark seemed to drive Martin Stone from frozen rage to frenzied action
as he swung on his heel and marched toward the door. “If you wish to meet your niece, come with me. Or, I can
spare you the humiliation, and bring her here to you.”
With
an exasperated look at Martin’s back, Anne tucked her hand in her husband’s arm
and together they followed Martin downstairs and outside.
As
they approached the group of young people, Anne heard murmurings and laughter,
and she was vaguely aware that there was something malicious in the tone, but
she was too busy scanning the young ladies’ faces, looking for Whitney, to pay
much heed to the fleeting impression. She mentally discarded two blondes and a
redhead, quizzically studied a petite, blue-eyed brunette, then glanced
helplessly at the young man beside her. “Pardon me, I am Lady Gilbert,
Whitney’s aunt. Could you tell me where she is?”
Paul
Sevarin grinned at her, half in sympathy and half in amusement. “Your niece is
on the horse, Lady Gilbert,” he said.
“On
the—” Lord Gilbert choked.
From
her delicate perch atop the horse, Whitney’s eyes followed her father’s
progress as he bore down on her with long, rapid strides. “Please don’t make a
scene, Father,” she implored when he was within earshot.
“I make a
scene?” he roared furiously. Snatching the halter, he brought the cantering
horse around so sharply that he jerked it from beneath her. Whitney hit the
ground on her feet, lost her balance, and ended up half-sprawling. As she
scampered up, her father caught her arm in a ruthless grip and hauled her over
toward the spectators. “This—this thing,” he said, thrusting her forward toward her aunt
and uncle, “I am mortified to tell you is your niece.”
Whitney
heard the smattering of giggles as the group quickly
disbanded, and she felt her face grow hot with shame. “How do you do, Aunt
Gilbert? Uncle Gilbert?” With one eye on Paul’s broad-shouldered, retreating
form, Whitney reached mechanically for her nonexistent skirt, realized it was
missing, and executed a comical curtsy without it. She saw the frown on her
aunt’s face and put her chin up defensively. “You may be sure that for the week
you are here, I shall endeavor not to make a freak of myself again, Aunt.”
“For
the week that we are here?” her aunt gasped, but Whitney was preoccupied
watching Paul help Elizabeth into his curricle and didn’t notice the surprise
in her aunt’s voice.
“Good-bye,
Paul,” she called, waving madly. He turned and raised his arm in silent
farewell.
Laughter
drifted back as the curricles bowled down the drive, carrying their occupants
off to a picnic or some other gay and wonderful activity, to which Whitney was
never invited because she was too young.
Following
Whitney toward the house, Anne was a mass of conflicting emotions. She was
embarrassed for Whitney, furious with Martin Stone for humiliating the girl in
front of the other young people, somewhat dazed by the sight of her own niece
cavorting on the back of a horse, wearing men’s britches . . .
and utterly astonished to discover that Whitney, whose mother had been only
passably pretty, showed promise of becoming a genuine beauty.
She
was too thin right now, but even in disgrace Whitney’s shoulders were straight,
her walk naturally graceful and faintly provocative. Anne smiled to herself at
the gently rounded hips displayed to 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! All it needed was a good
trimming and brushing until it shone; Anne’s fingers positively itched to go to
work on it. Mentally she was already styling it in ways to highlight Whitney’s
striking eyes and high cheekbones. Off her face, Anne decided, piled at the
crown with tendrils at the ears, or pulled straight back off the forehead to
fall in gentle waves down her back.
As
soon as they entered the house, Whitney mumbled an excuse and fled to her room
where she flopped dejectedly into a chair and morosely contemplated the
humiliating scene Paul had just witnessed, with her father jerking her
ignominiously off her horse and then shouting at her. No doubt her aunt and
uncle were as horrified and revolted by her behavior as her father had been,
and her cheeks burned with shame just thinking of how they must despise her
already.
“Whitney?”
Emily whispered, creeping into the bedroom and cautiously closing the door
behind her. “I came up the back way. Is your father angry?”
“Cross
as crabs,” Whitney confirmed, staring down at her trousered legs. “I suppose I
ruined everything today, didn’t I? Everyone was laughing at me, and Paul heard
them. Now that Elizabeth is seventeen, he’s bound to offer for her before he
ever has a chance to realize that he loves me.”
“You?”
Emily repeated dazedly. “Whitney Stone, Paul 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. She surged to her feet and began to pace
slowly back and forth. “There has to be a way—but short of abducting him, I—” A
mischievous smile lit up her dust-streaked face as she swung around so quickly
that Emily pressed back into her chair. “Emily, one thing is infinitely clear:
Paul does not yet know that he cares for me. Correct?”
“He
doesn’t care a snap for you is more like it,” Emily
replied warily.
“Therefore,
it would be safe to say that he is unlikely to offer for me without some sort
of added incentive. Correct?”
“You
couldn’t make him offer for you at the point of a gun, and you know it.
Besides, you aren’t old enough to be betrothed, even if—”
“Under
what circumstances,” Whitney interrupted triumphantly, “is a gentleman obliged
to offer for a lady?”
“I
can’t think of any. Except of course, if he has compromised her—absolutely not! Whitney,
whatever you’re planning now, I won’t help.”
Sighing,
Whitney flopped back into her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her. An
irreverent giggle escaped her as she considered the sheer audacity of her last
idea. “If only I could have pulled it off . . . you know,
loosened the wheel on Paul’s carriage so that it would fall off later, and then
asked him to drive me somewhere. Then, by the time we walked back, or help
arrived, it would be late at night, and he would have to offer for me.”
Oblivious to Emily’s scandalized expression, Whitney continued, “Just think
what a wonderful turnabout that would have been on a tired old theme: Young Lady abducts Gentleman and ruins hisreputation
so that she is forced to marry him to set things
aright! What a novel that could have made,” she added, rather impressed with
her own ingenuity.
“I’m
leaving,” Emily said. She marched to the door, then she hesitated and turned
back to Whitney. “Your aunt and uncle saw everything. What are you going to say
to them about those trousers and the horse?”
Whitney’s
face clouded. “I’m not going to say anything, it wouldn’t help—but for the rest
of the time they are here, I’m going to be the most demure, refined, delicate
female you’ve ever seen.” She saw Emily’s dubious look and added, “Also I
intend to stay out of sight except at mealtimes. I think I’ll be able to act
like Elizabeth for three hours a day.”
* * *
Whitney
kept her promise. At dinner that night, after her uncle’s hair-raising tale of
their life in Beirut where he was attached to the British Consulate, she
murmured only, “How very informative, Uncle,” even though she was positively
burning to ply him with questions. At the end of her aunt’s description of
Paris and the thrill of its gay social life, Whitney murmured, “How very
informative, Aunt.” The moment
the meal was finished, she excused herself and vanished.
After
three days, Whitney’s efforts to be either demure or absent had, in fact, been
so successful that Anne was beginning to wonder whether she had only imagined
the spark of fire she’d glimpsed the day of their arrival, or if the girl had
some aversion to Edward and herself.
On
the fourth day, when Whitney breakfasted before the rest of the household was
up, and then vanished, Anne set out to discover the truth. She searched the
house, but Whitney was not indoors. She was not in the garden, nor had she
taken a horse from the stable, Anne was informed by a groom. Squinting into the
sunlight, Anne looked around her, trying to imagine where a fifteen-year-old
would go to spend all day.
Off
on the crest of a hill overlooking the estate, she spied a patch of bright
yellow. “There you are!” she breathed, opening her parasol and striking out
across the lawn.
Whitney
didn’t see her aunt coming until it was too late to escape. Wishing she had
found a better place to hide, she tried to think of some innocuous subject on
which she could converse without appearing ignorant. Clothes? 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.
Weak-kneed,
her chest heaving with each labored breath, Anne topped the steep rise and
collapsed unceremoniously onto the blanket beside Whitney. “I-I thought I’d
take . . . a nice stroll,” Anne lied. When she caught her breath, she noticed the leather-bound
book lying face down on the blanket and, seizing on books as a topic of
conversation, she said, “Is that a romantic novel?”
“No,
Aunt,” Whitney demurely uttered, carefully placing her hand over the title of
the book to conceal it from her aunt’s eyes.
“I’m
told most young ladies adore romantic novels,” Anne tried again.
“Yes,
Aunt,” Whitney agreed politely.
“I
read one once but I didn’t like it,” Anne remarked, her mind groping for some
other topic that might draw Whitney into conversation. “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,” she
added, her entire face lighting up with laughter, “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.” Whitney darted a glance at her aunt to see if she was
shocked, but her aunt was regarding her with an unexplainable smile lurking at
the corners of her eyes. “Aunt Anne, could you actually care for a man who
dropped to his knees and said, ‘Oh, Clarabel, your lips are the petals of a red
rose and your eyes are two stars from the heavens’?” With a derisive snort,
Whitney finished, “That is where I would have leapt for the hartshorn!”
“And
so would I,” Anne said, laughing. “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. The breeze ruffled the pages, and Anne’s
amazed gaze ricocheted from the print to Whitney’s tense face. “But this is in
Greek! Surely you don’t read Greek?”
Whitney
nodded, her face 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?”
“Despite
what Father thinks, Aunt Anne, I am only foolish, not stupid, and I plagued him
to death until he allowed me tutors in languages and history.” Whitney fell
silent, remembering how she’d once believed that if
she
applied herself to her studies, if she could become more like a son, her father
might love her.
“You
sound ashamed of your accomplishments, when you should be proud.”
Whitney
gazed out at her home, nestled in the valley below. “I’m sure you know everyone
thinks it’s a waste of time to educate a female in these things. And anyway, I
haven’t a feminine accomplishment to my name. I can’t sew
a stitch that doesn’t look as if it were done blindfolded, and when I sing, the
dogs down at the stable begin to howl. Mr. Twittsworthy, our local music
instructor, told my father that my playing of the pianoforte gives him hives. I
can’t do a thing that girls ought to
do, and what’s more, I particularly detest doing them.”
Whitney
knew her aunt would now take her in complete dislike, just as everyone else
always did, but it was better
this way because at least she could stop dreading the inevitable. She looked at
Lady Anne, her green eyes wide and vulnerable. “I’m certain Papa has told you
all about me. I’m a terrible disappointment to him. He wants me to be dainty
and demure and quiet, like Elizabeth Ashton. I try to be, but I can’t seem to
do it.”
Anne’s
heart melted for the lovely, spirited, bewildered child her sister had borne.
Laying her hand against Whitney’s cheek, she said tenderly, “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 a bit and then letting her shine—he persists in
trying to shape her into a common cameo.”
Whitney
was more inclined to think of herself as a chunk of coal, but rather than
disillusion her aunt, she kept silent. After her aunt left, Whitney picked up
her book, but soon her mind wandered from the printed page to dreamy thoughts
of Paul.
That
night when she came down to the dining room, the atmosphere in the room was
strangely charged, and no one noticed her sauntering toward the table. “When do
you plan to tell her she’s coming back to France with us, Martin?” her uncle
demanded angrily. “Or is it your intention to wait until the day we leave and
then just toss the child into the coach with us?”
The
world tilted crazily, and for one horrible moment, Whitney thought she was
going to be sick. She stopped, trying to steady her shaking limbs, and
swallowed back the aching lump in her throat. “Am I going somewhere, Father?”
she asked, trying to sound calm and indifferent.
They
all turned and stared, and her father’s face tightened into lines of impatience
and annoyance. “To France,” he replied abruptly. “To live with your aunt and
uncle, who are going to try to make a lady out of you.”
Carefully
avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes, lest she break down then and there, Whitney
slid into her chair at the table. “Have you informed my aunt and uncle of the
risk they are taking?” she asked, concentrating all her strength on preventing
her father from seeing what he had just done to her heart. She looked coldly at
her aunt and uncle’s guilty, embarrassed faces. “Father may have neglected to
mention you’re risking disgrace by welcoming me into your home. As he will tell
you, I’ve a hideous disposition, I’m rag-mannered, and I haven’t a trace of
polite conversation.”
Her
aunt was watching her with naked pity, but her father’s expression was stony.
“Oh Papa,” she whispered brokenly, “do you really despise me this much? Do you
hate me so much that you have to send me out of your sight?” Her eyes swimming
with unshed tears, Whitney stood up. “If you . . . will excuse
me . . . I’m not very hungry this evening.”
“How
could you!” Anne cried when she left, rising from her own chair and glaring
furiously at Martin Stone. “You are the most heartless, unfeeling—it will be a
pleasure to remove that child from your clutches. How she has survived this
long is a testimony to her strength. I’m sure I could never have done so well.”
“You
refine too much upon her words, Madam,” Martin said icily. “I assure you that
what has her looking so distraught is not the prospect of being parted from me.
I have merely put a premature end to her plans to continue making a fool of
herself over Paul Sevarin.”
E-BookTitles
Released
SEQUELS
SERIES
Once
and Always (9781501145520) $7.99
Something
Wonderful (9781501145544) $7.99
Almost
Heaven (9781501145698) $7.99
WESTMORELAND
DYNASTY SAGA
Whitney,
My Love (9781501145438) $2.99 (Offer Valid November 1st - December 4th, 2017)
A
Kingdom of Dreams (9781501145483) $7.99
Until
You (9781501145490) $7.99
Miracles (in A Holiday of Love) (9781501145711) $1.99
STAND-ALONES
Tender
Triumph (9781501145421) $7.99
Double
Standards (9781501145704) $7.99
FOSTER
SAGA
Remember
When (9781439140802) $7.99
PARADISE
SERIES
Paradise (9781439138793) $7.99
Perfect (9781439140710) $7.99
Night
Whispers (9781439140833) $7.99
Someone
to Watch Over Me (9781501145445) $7.99
About the Author: Judith McNaught is the New York Times bestselling author who first soared to stardom with her stunning bestseller Whitney, My Love, and went on to win the hearts of millions of readers with Once and Always, Something Wonderful, A Kingdom of Dreams, Almost Heaven, Paradise, Perfect, Until You, Remember When, Someone to Watch Over Me, the #1 bestseller Night Whispers, and other novels. There are more than thirty million copies of her books in print. She lives in HoustonSocial Media:
Promo
Code Giveaway Details:
For
McNaught-E Cyber Monday (11/28) we will announce the winner(s) of 14 promo
codes, one promo code for each title. Enter to win today! You can enter on all
blogs on the tour listed below, but you can only win once.
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