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.'Īnne smiled. Besides, as I recall, it was not for that offense she was banished to her room.

'But Whitney was scarcely five years old!' Anne protested heatedly.

'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.' '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.'Įdward recognized the mutinous set of his wife's chin and put his arm around her shoulders in a gesture of conciliation. 'Show me where it says she's 'sweet-tempered.'' 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.''Įdward chuckled. She is a willful hoyden who is the despair of everyone she knows and an embarrassment to me. ''Whitney's manners are an outrage, her conduct is reprehensible. He perched his spectacles upon his nose, and ignoring his wife's grimace, he began to read: 'Allow me to refresh your memory,' he said, groping in his pockets and retrieving the letter from Whitney's father. But in his personal life, he preferred the refreshing alternative of blunt truth. 'That isn't what her father said in his letter.'Īs a diplomat attached to the British Consulate in Paris, Lord Gilbert was a master of hints, evasions, innuendoes, and intrigues. 'Sweet disposition?' he echoed in amused disbelief. Lord Edward Gilbert cast a skeptical glance at his wife. And she'll have her mother's smile, her gentleness, her sweet disposition.' 'She'll be pretty, just as her mother was. 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. I keep wondering what Whitney will be like now that she's grown up. 'Another whole hour until we arrive, and already the suspense is positively gnawing at me.

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.

Book whitney my love