For the Love of Whiney, would Clayton have gone?

The book I had clamored for since my early years had almost beenworn out, tattered, yellowed its dilapidatedpages to indicate the years it's been read over and over, flipped from here to there,dog ears foldedto indicate the reader's last known page,and yet,I clung to it like it was a priceless possession, a jewel in the midst of a treasure chest of nonsensible paraphernalia’s. But the book had not been mine. Only mine tobehold, mine to read and cherish at thatcertain moment in time.

It was the firstbook of Judith Macnaught I had read back inhighschool. That was of years past. I read it now asI've read it before, clutching the bookbetweenmyhands,my fingers fidgeting as I smoothened onepage after the other,quickly flipping theintroductory part to feast my eyes onthe first chapter, where apparently, Whitney had begun her lifelong journey as an alleged outrage of a girl for pursuing the man she dreams of to become her better half. And now, I am still consumed with the emotionsthat have drowned me the first time I read it.

Whitney Allison Stone’sundyingdevotion and almost a disturbing obsession to make Paul Sevarin hers is ultimatelythe turmoil her father bears of her from day one.Her constant chase after him made hera publicmockery; a scrutinyfrom the minutest of people to the highest tons of society (or at least in their village), a shame to her father and an object of ridicule to her circle or friends and fiends. She was barely sixteenwhen her father decided he hashad enough of herand sent her to her uncle Edward and Aunt Anne Gilbert’shome in France for proper etiquetteand formal lessons inFrench and English society. Thus, her real education to the trivialities of womanhood had begun.

For months, before her grand debut to the ton, she had learned as much as she can from curtsying to the gentlemen and appropriately bearing her composure to endless calls for visits and chitty chats on parties set out for people of her same class. Apparently, not a lot of people have known her financial plight as they were sinking to their necks caused by her father’s mishaps and misdoings. Had the public known of this sham, she would have as easily been extinguished from society as quickly as she was bestowed upon them. Her charms spreading like wildfire, captivating every man’s soul with her ravishing looks, astounding wit and intelligence, and perfectly seductive physique every man desires and all of the women envy! For all that and her extremely unconventional experiences as a young, energetic and adventurous girl that she is, she instantly became the most sought-after belle in all of Paris, almost in all of France.

A few years since she has been introduced to public amazement and adoration, Whitney has not found the appropriate man to marry, or rather that she intended not to prefer one to the hundreds, as her flame for Paul had not vanished through the years. In fact, it merely strengthened. Not even Nicolas Du Ville, who among this lavish society, is regarded as a predator amongst the prey of beautiful lasses abound, and is also quite a catch himself, could capture Whitney’s heart, neither can this scheming, apparently besotted hunk of a duke, Clayton Westmoreland, could easily fracture that sense of madness insidiously engulfing her principled mind. Neither could his persistent arrogance in his display of capturing Whitney into his arms and stealing hot passionate kisses from her, rapidly enticing her every bit of senses, luring her into his warm embrace and trailing treacherous fingers and hands maneuvering at her back and her luscious body, make Whitney forget her Paul. The only man she intends to wed.

Little did she know that this Satan of a Man she had met at a ball had secretly offered her father a hefty sum in exchange of her hand in marriage, thus, her father sending her back to their village in England where lie their estate totally mortgaged by her father, Martin, and yet saved in secrecy by Westmoreland. Clayton, too, had his scheme planned to know her better by purchasing a modest place not a half hour’s ride from Whitney’s place.

From a series of embarrassing encounters at the stream during a horse ride to a casual meeting with Nick in the village, and into an incriminatingly ardorous yet unspeakable play of connivance and jealousy at her second coming out that took place this time in England, any chance of them meeting would only bring about more anger from Whiney towards Clayton. His air of superciliousness and egotism made her hate him of his conceit! Much more when he tried to seduce her in over their conversations, turning her flushed red with every exchange of words and turning her body helplessly watery by a mere look she gets from him, shuddering at the touch of his skin on hers, his experienced hands leavings tracks of heat and fervor wanting on her skin, his yearning tongue viciously exploring the crevices of her mouth with every kiss, leaving Whitney dumbfounded by this act of ungentlemanly treason on her being. Never had she known a man to arouse in her from the deepest core of her sensualities to the most superficial nerves on her plump, young, and unscathed skin. How she felt she had betrayed Paul for allowing this to happen! And yet, the competition they had put up for between Paul and Clayton had worked, for in a matter of weeks, she’d had Clayton finally revealing his intentions of her betrothal through Martin, causing Whitney to lose her calm, and since then she had been angrily snapping at Clayton and at her father for setting up their marriage without her knowledge, and Whitney had been offered by Paul, which she had hoped throughout her life for.

Whitney is caught between maneuvering a deceitful engagement with Clayton and cunningly planning eloping with Paul to Scotland, only to find out the latter has no further intentions from her other than her non-existent dowry. Now, she must face the inconceivable " actually believing that this devious schemer of a man that Clayton is to her could truly be worth her affection.

A series of balls and parties they had both graced certainly proved Clayton’s jealousy of her over her many admirers, and how he could have easily claimed her as his betrothed if she had not deserved anything more than a luxurious and publicly elaborate courtship. She deserved that and more. And yet, Clayton’s restless suspicion that Whitney had lain with another man, even more than he could have imagined, before he had even lain his hands on her, had led him to destroy her in one swift act of intimately humiliating her being, as he forcefully had her copulate with him that night, at a time in which their courtship was to peak, and when she had been intentionally meaning to tell him that she will marry him. He had inadvertently hurt her through this great mortification and yet she had deliberately given herself to him. But upon knowing Clayton’s reason for his violent lovemaking sent her sobs of abhorrence at this man whom she thought had loved her and whom she might have had affections for. Thus came the bitter end of such a short but wildly lingering courtship, as Whitney had bowed never to ever cross paths with him and as Clayton sulked into pits of drunkenness and desperation for having inflicted so much pain on that one shamelessly wanton chit he had dearly loved.

Whitney’s friend, Elizabeth, was being wed when Clayton had purposely been invited by Emily to see Whitney, and yes, there was a chance of their gazes meeting and freezing at each other’s sight, and Clayton had wittingly come closer to Whitney outside the church, and she leaned back on him to feel him as he feels her in his warm secret embrace around her waist. He’d adored her. She had loved him. It was only after that trunk of clothes along with Clayton’s earlier mail sent for her on his withdrawal of their betrothal enclosed with a sum of money to aid her in her supposed underprivileged marriage to Paul, did Whitney lose it and evidently spent the rest of the wedding banquet agonizingly “flirting” with men, avoiding Clayton’s presence that even at the confession of his love for her, was to her a pure joke. Painfully, Clayton had suffered her wrath, refused to remember his feelings for her and welcomed the thoughts of using his mistress for comfort.

It was only after Emily, Whitney’s confidant, had awakened Whitney to her senses did the latter arranged a way to see Clayton " at his own house. As he did not call for her, she intentionally sought to meet him at his house, at Claymore. Being welcomed by Clayton’s brother, Stephen, at the time of Clayton’s supposed presentation of his fiancée to his family, the fiancée that being Vanessa Stanfield, one of Clayton’s mistresses he had intended to replace Whitney with. But the sight of Whitney in his house aggravated him, as the battery of wits and altercation of intelligent insults upon each other merely severed and rose up to his throat that he had taken her involuntarily into his drawing room, which was what she and Stephen had connived Clayton would and should do! Trapped in the four-walled room, Clayton had glared at Whitney and she had retaliated back with sweetness, only to humbly acknowledge her grave blunder of inexorably refusing his love and begging him to listen to her plea. Yes! She did so and she proclaimed her desire to marry him, as she loves him so. And he does not have it in mind to make this surrender an easy one for Whitney. From the long end of the room, she walked towards him, eyes fixed at him throughout the duration and as she stood at his front, barely inches from his throbbing heart’s ceaseless beating, she professed her aching love for him and so did he for her. It was not long enough until Vanessa’s name disappeared and preparations for their long awaited matrimonial ceremony were laid out for only good eight weeks.

After weeks, instead of the eight months Whitney had asked from him, in preparation for the wedding and after so many nights of taunting fear of that dreadful night in bed with her husband, sharing in the dimly lit room the soften sheets warmed by the heat emanating from their bodies. With that shameful episode of ever parting her thighs to welcome his rigidness, and that painful aching of her body as he is joined with her inside her warmth, emits an endless pang of hurt and pain and remorse from within her, Whitney had knowingly made a truce with his beloved Clayton before the nuptials to postpone their act of becoming one as husband and wife in bed, until the right time has come. She had made him agree.

Indeed, Whitney had blossomed more as a bride than she ever did as a stunner at any ball she had attended, and more gorgeous was her groom, as Clayton stood up waiting for her at the altar, mesmerizing at this goddess of a beauty striding past onlookers and familiar faces in the pew and proudly walking towards the altar to meet him and offer herself to be his wife for a lifetime. Forever.

The party had been a buzz, the night full of gleaming beautiful people all extending their warm greetings to the new couple, and so busy were they that they had to be reminded to retire for the night or the guests would not be able to retire themselves. This has been that appalling night she dreaded would come and how she had forthrightly delayed her nearness to torture. But at last as they strode towards the bedchambers that once solely belonged to Clayton here in Claymore, a fresh surge of pain and awkwardness swept through Whitney of her memories of the first time she stepped foot unto this house. Clayton had promised her of days back not to initiate unless the right time has come, and she, unfaltering upon the truce, asked that they be indulged in a conversation. Alas! The night slowly slid by them and Clayton could no more than appease his unrelenting and insatiable desire to engulf the entirety of her, feeling the luxurious warmth of her glowing skin as it converges his, as he slowly takes his lovely wife to his bed, now it’s theirs to share.

It only took a little time before Clayton could lay in bed with her, his head propped up on his elbow, his stare lovingly gazing at this gentle nymph sheepishly scared to death to be provoked yet her senses seem to have been blinding her. Clayton had a way with words and a way with her, that as he professed his promise never to hurt her, only to make her feel the joy and pleasure of his love, and the love they will make, Whitney was overwhelmed by this, in his presence, his longing and wandering kisses, and she, gently parting her lips to welcome his and his probing tongue meandering by the crevices of her orifice. Too unyielding to decipher the sundry sensations surmounting her and too engrossed in the love that she thought and believed he had offered her, as if she had been reciprocated by that great adoration she has for him, “Oh, God!” she might have thought, to be blissfully lying there in the arms of the man she could ever hoped for to be the rightful lord and master of her own flesh and soul and heart. That wondrous image of Clayton amorously suffocating her senses with pleasurable sensations she is succumbing into and that sense of trust she now feels for him, allowed her to let her husband do as he pleases with her despite that unconscious twinge of mistrust she felt earlier for him. She had become his wife, and he, her husband, in church and on this divan right now, as he had loved her and she felt it, and he had loved her so much so to let her lose herself in his scorching ardor that she reached the pinnacle of rapture as Clayton did in that last plunge of love he could ever hope to be the jostle of his seed into Whitney’s womb. They had made love that night of their wedding and Whitney could never have been happier if not the happiest woman to have ever lived. And how she longed for an encore of that feat, and no more could the act be repeated unless she makes the move. They ultimately almost have worn each other out!

Their tumultuous love tale did not end up just there like a fairy story romance, although you would not be surprised to know it will somehow end as you expected. Not later than a year, in fact, it was that hidden note Whitney had planned to give to Clayton on the night at Claymore, which Clayton found inside Whitney’s notebooks in her study, that made him insanely angry at her he ordered for all his belongings to be moved to another room at the other wing of this humungous residence they now share. Unsuspectingly, Whitney had been meaning to tell him she might be of child, his child, when the sweetness in Clayton turned the sourest and bitterest of all wines! He had once again turned unsympathetic and as cold as ice, that his grip would sore her skin and flesh as he grabs him away from the stable and away from the one horse she knows she only possesses in his lovely estate. Not only that Clayton was unknowingly aware of her with child but also he was suspecting her to carry the unborn child of another man. That note he found hidden under her desk had made him decide so.

That cynical treatment she received from him did not spare the last party they went to together. He left her to be with someone who was his former mistress, Marie, apparently noticing with aloft discernment what their ill-begotten marriage had done to them both. It was crystal clear to most people how they have become awkwardly cold and distant to each other, that once envied couple separated by thoughts, and exchanging nothing but polite nods and obligatory dances, false pretenses to society at that ball. At the instant Marie revealed to him that another fellow sought to be at Whitney’s arms to console her, Clayton rushed to find the man if he was with his wife. Relieved to see that she wasn’t, he looked for her only to find out that his wife had left him and brought his carriage.

Clayton left to his townhouse knowing Whitney was at Claymore, but not knowing that was the last party they would go together and the last night he would probably see his beautiful goddess of a wife, heavy with child, his child. Days went by and the unwariness in him raised his bile as he had suspected his missing wife to elope with the man she was supposed to send the note to and who clearly is the father of the child she carries. A mixture of guilt, pain and hate stung him at the thought of his bright possession, gaiety and vibrancy painted all over her face "Whitney, with another man unknown to him and connivingly living the days and maybe even the rest of their lives together. Time yet flies fast as it had been almost eight months since that night her wanton chit had come to Claymore to capture him again, and eight months was what she required and asked for the preparations to be done for their wedding. Eight months. Surely Whitney would have not waited that long to be wed to him if she knew she was of child from some man he had not known of. He recalled every word she said as she avowed her love for him and the joyous moments they have spent together. He had been mistaken to think she was a scheming, manipulative, conniving bitch as he had told her nights before. How could he be so stupid as not to see that she had only declared her love for him and no one else? And now his love is nowhere to be found. Not even the investigators he hired found traces of her anywhere. She just vanished and banished herself away from him. The man who loathed her was evidently the man to loathe! He was the devil he despised himself to be. The Satan at that masquerade who lured the innocence out of her, the light that sparkled in her eyes as tears gushed from them unto her soft pink cheeks. He loathed himself.

Sulking in drunkenness and seclusion in his own house and despite being surrounded by friends at the club, Clayton was a picture of an abandoned man, there but barely there. Calm and stern among his peers, but poignantly gloomy in his solitude, he heard it right that night at the club when his brother had mentioned Whitney was to attend the party at Grand Oak which his mother had prepared for their relatives. At last, a clue to where she is, this wound up man, stood erect, and walked immediately towards his carriage, hoping to salvage the marriage that he had twice ruined.

Barely gaping at the house where his wife could have been dwelling for the last eight days they have not seen each other, he rushed immediately amidst familiar faces to ask his mother the whereabouts of his precious wife. The Dowager Duchess Alicia’s face went from being meaningfully happy to see his son at the banquet turned to unyielding seriousness as she saw the look at her son’s face.

He was right outside her chambers, the doorknob scorching to his touch, as he knows not what to do or to say to her. He found himself most unworthy to be there in her presence. He opened it anyway, and found himself staring at his wife, her back to the room, her maid, Clarissa, bathing her with soap and cloth. He took the paraphernalia from Clarissa who had gone out of the room, and gently scrubbed her back, purposely evading his hands from her sight. Clarissa had been extra careful of her these days and she appreciated the comfort as much as the scrub at her back. She lathered her legs and moved forward, and after a while Clarissa rinsed her fragile body with water. As Whitney stood up to grab a towel to dry herself, Clarissa had bound her with the towel and started drying her moist body, particularly lingering at her waist and legs. As she was about to thank Clarissa for the extended help, Whitney turned around and was stunned to see that it was Clayton warming her body, gently patting her soft skin to dry it from the bath. Dumbfounded as she, Whitney stiffened at the sight of him humbling himself to her not like a husband but more like a servant. A servant! The cynical and arrogant duke of Claymore at her feet unassumingly wiping her feet and patting her ankles, the sight made her heart burst into flabbergasting heap of love, compassion and stir of forgiveness to this man she ought to abhor. She tried to stop him, but he could only capture his feet to his cheek and kiss it as he boldly stated that if she leaves him again he swore he would lock her in this room. Whitney replied back that she would agree so as long as he stays with her inside. Cradled in his arms robed in soft blue, laying Whitney on her bed seemed like the last remedy he could to prove to her that his love is more prized than all the jewels he had given her, more valuable than the note he found in her desk; more consuming than the bottle of whisky he imbibed himself to sleep; more satiating than the sight and sound of his singing mistress and all other ladies combined; more worthy of his pride he had swallowed as he bathed her and became her servant; and yet blissful as the smell of her in a warm embrace and the dizzying passionate kisses of yearning to become one and whole on the freshly pressed sheets with his precious possession that had possessed him evidently- Whitney, His Love.