With a joyous laugh, Whitney remembered and hurried over to her bookshelves. Taking down the leather-bound Bible from the shelf, she quickly fanned through the pages, but found nothing. Finally she grasped the book by its covers and turned it upside down, giving it a hard shake. A small scrap of paper, smudged and folded several times, drifted to the floor. Picking it up, Whitney smiled as she began to read:
"I, Whitney Allison Stone, being fifteen years of age and in full possession of my mind and all my faculties (despite what Papa says) do hereby Vow, Swear and Promise that I shall someday manage to make Paul Sevarin marry me. I shall also make Margaret Merryton and everyone else take back every single horrid tiling they have said about me. Sworn this day and duly signed by the future Mrs. Paul Sevarin."
Beneath the signature, she'd written "Whitney Allison Sevarin" and then, apparently carried away by her longing, had practiced the wished-for name at least a dozen mote times.
Reading that note after so many years, remembering the despair that had driven her to write it, made her joy at possessing Paul's ring swell within her until Whitney thought she would burst if she couldn't show her ring to someone and share her glad tidings.
Going to bed when she felt like this would be hopeless; she was more in the mood for singing and dancing! She had to tell someone, she just had to …
Whitney hesitated for a few minutes, and then happily decided to tell her father that Paul was going to offer for her. He would remember how she had chased after Paul years ago, and he would be gratified to know that at last, the villagers would no longer have any reason to ridicule her antics. Now, it was Paul Sevarin who was pursuing her. He wanted to marry her!
Whitney checked her appearance in the mirror, straightened the high mandarin collar of her red dressing robe, tightened the sash around her slender waist, and tossing her glossy hair off her shoulder, marched to her bedchamber door.
Trembling with anticipation and a bit of apprehension, she walked along the hall, her robe rustling behind her. In the aftermath of so much laughter and gaiety there was something almost melancholy about the silence now, but Whitney ignored the feeling as she raised her hand to tap on her father's door. .
"Your father is in his study, Miss." The footman's voice echoed hollowly from the darkened entrance foyer below.
"Oh," Whitney said softly. Perhaps she ought to show her ring to Aunt Anne tonight, and wait until tomorrow to tell her father everything. "Has my aunt retired yet?"
"No, Miss. Lady Gilbert is with your father."
"Thank you. Good night."
Whitney hastened downstairs, knocked on the study door, and in response to her father's call to enter, she swirled into the room, closing the door behind her. Flattening her palms against the thick oaken panel, she leaned against it. Her smiling gaze took in her father, seated behind his desk directly in front of her and, over to her left, Aunt Anne, who was watching her alertly from a wingback chair at right angles to the fireplace. With only the glow from the cheery link fire to illuminate the room, Whitney completely overlooked the shadowy form seated in the wingback chair opposite her aunt's, with its high back concealing its occupant.
Her father's voice was faintly slurred but friendly as he splashed brandy into his glass. "Yes, Daughter, what is it?"
Drawing a long, deep breath, Whitney plunged in. "I have something wonderful to tell you, Papa, Aunt Anne, and I'm so happy that you're here together, so that I can share it with you both at the same time."
Strolling over to her father, Whitney moved the brandy glass aside and perched a hip on his desk. For a moment she gazed fondly into his glassy-eyed, upturned face, then she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his forehead. "I, Whitney Stone, love you very much, Papa," she said softly. "And I am deeply sorry for the grief I brought you when I was growing up."
"Thank you," he murmured, flushing,
"And," Whitney continued, getting up and coming around the front of the desk so that she could face Aunt Anne, "I love you too, Aunt Anne, but then you've always known that."
She drew another long, quavering breath, and suddenly her words came tumbling out, gathering excited momentum. "And I also love Paul Sevarin. And Paul loves me and wants to marry me! And, Papa, when he returns, he's going to ask your permission to do so. I know how- Is something wrong, Aunt Anne?"
Bewildered, Whitney stared at her aunt who had half-risen from her chair and was staring straight ahead with a look of such horrified alarm that Whitney leaned forward and peered into the shadows. She gasped when she saw Clayton Westland sitting there. "I-I beg your pardon! I'm sorry to have interrupted the three of you. As you've probably guessed, Mr. Westland, I had no idea you were sitting there. But since you are," Whitney persevered, determined to finish now that she'd begun, "I hope I can depend upon you not to mention my forthcoming betrothal to anyone. You see …" The screech of chair legs on the planked floor as her father heaved himself to his feet, checked Whitney in mid-sentence. The fury in his voice brought her whirling around to face him.
"How dare you!" he bellowed. "What is the meaning of this?"
"The meaning?" Whitney echoed in bewilderment. Her father was standing with palms flat against the top of his desk, his arms trembling. "Paul Sevarin has asked me to marry him, that's all." In defiance of his thunderous glower, which she recalled so well as a child, Whitney added, "And I am going to do it."
Slowly, distinctly, as if he were addressing an idiot, her father said, "Paul Sevarin hasn't a pittance to his name! Do you understand me? His lands are mortgaged, and his creditors are hounding him!"
Despite her shock, Whitney managed to make her voice sound calm and reasonable. "I had no idea Paul was pressed for funds, but I can't see why it should signify one way or another. I have money of my own from my grandmother. And there's my dowry, besides. And whatever I have will be Paul's."
"You have nothing!'* her father hissed. "I was in worse straits than Sevarin. The duns were after me. I used your inheritance and dowry to pay them."
Recoiling as much from the vicious tone of his voice as the words he said, Whitney turned to her aunt, expecting her support. "Then Paul and I will have to live simply, without the luxuries my dowry and inheritance could have provided."
Aunt Anne just sat there, clutching the arms of her chair.
In helpless confusion, Whitney turned back to her father. "Papa, you should have told me that you were in such trouble! Why, I-I spent a fortune on clothes and jewels and furs before I came home from France. If only I'd-"
It penetrated through the wave of guilt and alarm sweeping over her that there was something amiss in all of this, something that didn't make any sense. Then it dawned on Whitney what it was. Cautiously, she said, "The stables are filled with new horses. The house and grounds are swarming with more servants than we could possibly need. If you are in such dire circumstances, why are we living in this extravagant manner?"
Her father's face took on a frightening purple hue. He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.
"Surely I have a right to an explanation," Whitney persisted carefully. "You have just told me that I must marry Paul as a pauper, without dowry, and that my inheritance is gone. If all this is true, how do we manage to live like this?"
"My circumstances unproved," he hissed.
"When?"
"In July."
Unable to keep the accusation from her voice, Whitney said, "Your circumstances improved in July, yet you aren't going to replace my inheritance or my dowry?"
His fist crashed against the desktop; his roar reverberated through the room. "I'll tolerate no more of this farce. You're betrothed to Clayton Westmoreland. The arrangements have been made. The settlement has already taken place!"