Forbidden (12 page)

"No."

He was uncomfortable, she could see, as if too many dissatisfying memories were recalled. "If you don't smile, I'll never fuck you again."

Her astonishing declaration brought a smile. "Never say I'm a fool," he pleasantly replied.

"I've three brothers," she said as though in explanation of her crudity.

"How nice," he casually responded. He required no explanation; he hadn't been shocked by anything in years. "And now since I've smiled, I think we're ready for your gracious offer." Playfully tumbling her onto his bed with a small nudge, he followed her down onto the quilted cotton bedcover, his body lightly pinning hers beneath his, his hands gently framing her face. The sun had moved across the sky, the lengthening shadows of late afternoon casting the room in a soft golden glow. Daisy lay against the white coverlet, her dark hair spread in silky disarray, the enchantment she was feeling evident in her large eyes, her soft mouth delicious with temptation. Her golden skin was so silken and fine he thought of sentimentally romantic phrases like "smooth as monumental alabaster, beauty unadorned" and the warmth of her body beneath his was lushly hot like the evening air at the Pyramids. Another seriously romantic analogy, he thought with mild amazement—he was treading on unfamiliar ground. Uncomfortable with the feeling, he bent to kiss her because he knew the sensations of physical lust so much better.

His mouth touching hers was all the dreams young girls dream, possessive and gently demanding, moving across the softness of her lips with enough pressure so she felt an answering heat spread like molten gold deep inside her. Daisy kissed him back like a young girl might, offering everything to him, reaching up and clinging to him, wanting him never to leave her. But she wasn't a young girl, and he was the least available man in the world, so in the next pulsebeat she consciously pushed aside the adolescent dream, opened her eyes, took in the diaphanous golden light suffusing the small white room, took in the beauty of the man she held in her arms and said, like an adult would, her lips brushing his, her breath warm against his mouth, "I think I'll keep you for a day or so."

His smile was easy, his answer so smoothly compatible she was unable to decide if he was only scrupulously polite or equally moved. "My thought exactly," he said very low so as not to disturb the magic in the room. "You'll have to let cook know what you want for supper."

"I didn't necessarily mean it literally," she explained, her words more a feeling of content. "Don't you have plans?"

"None more interesting than spending a day or so in bed with you."

"Now that I've finally inveigled my way into your bed." Her emphasis on the last word implied her knowledge of the accomplishment.

"Yes," he said, "now that you have…" He replied more softly than he intended, more slowly, as though perhaps he was unconsciously aware of the prophecy in those simple words.

They made love in the sanctified bed and he thought afterward that the altar of his isolation couldn't have been violated with more perfect pleasure. Daisy reminded him of laughter and youth and the refreshing candor of feelings he'd forgotten existed.

Much later when she fell asleep in his arms, exhausted by her singular foray into a world of sensation she'd never experi-enced, he lay awake. Etienne's days and nights were often physically demanding; he was immune to Daisy's type of exhaustion. But he was pleasantly content—more—filled with a rare and satisfying serenity. As though there were no need to fill his social schedule to allay the boredom, as though it didn't matter if he'd summarily canceled two days of commitments without concern, as though he didn't have an obligation to attend the King's pre-birthday celebration tonight. The one set aside for family alone.

When his manservant came up later, knocked lightly and opened the door to see what Etienne wished for dinner and stood stock-still in the threshold, his gaze on the lady in bed, the Duc motioned him away. He'd have to speak to François and Cook when Daisy woke. Since he'd never had a woman at Colsec, he didn't want her embarrassed by their obvious stares or goggling inspection. Unlike Parisian servants, who wouldn't turn a hair in a similar situation, those with country mores were slightly less blind.

When Daisy woke, he offered her facilities for washing, put several of his robes out for her choice and convenience and went downstairs to inform François and Cook he had a guest for the night. He also politely warned them the lady was special, she was to be treated with extreme courtesy (both of which the servants had already concluded the previous hour below-stairs in the kitchen), and left after arranging a menu he thought might appeal to Daisy.

Dinner was the stuff dreams were made of—like the Queen playing milkmaid. The small cottage dining room was candle-lit, the servants unobtrusive, Cook had outdone herself for Mademoiselle, pleased their employer had company and wasn't his usual brooding self. Both servants peeked through the door occasionally and smiled at each other. The lord and his lady, dressed only in their robes, were obviously in love; they were holding hands across the small table, smiling and laughing. He would feed her and then she him. And then they'd kiss and smile again.

The Duc and Daisy fell asleep in each other's arms and when they woke to the freshness of morning, Etienne showed her the pleasure of swimming in the river. Diving off the balcony railing first, he cut the water in a clean smooth entry, surfacing some distance away, smiling, motioning her in. She hesitated only a moment before following him into the green-blue water, her own slicing dive the product of a childhood spent camped near the Yellowstone and mountain lakes. They swam and splashed and kissed, frolicking like youngsters let out of school. Then much later, breathless and light-hearted from their waterplay, they made love on the soft green riverbank beneath the lacy canopy of weeping willows.

He was beyond contentment now and disturbed. Infatuated and obsessed as well. He couldn't get enough of her.

Daisy was telling herself it was obvious why women adored him. He was incomparable.

When the time came to leave, too soon—as though happiness conspired to speed the hands on the clock, Daisy found her clothes all washed and pressed, neatly hung in the wardrobe beside Etienne's collection of country clothes. They dressed—she in her flowered frock that would forever remind him of these passion-filled hours and he in a sand-colored linen suit she wondered if his wife had selected. A new silence lay between them as they saw to their toilettes, although they both contributed as politeness required to a desultory conversation. Their ride back to Paris was even more silent, both absorbed in their thoughts, both aware they were reentering the former routine of their lives.

The Duc didn't leave the carriage at Adelaide's. He only said, "Thank you," in a hushed low voice and kissed Daisy briefly on the mouth.

With good fortune Adelaide was still out for the afternoon and Daisy could enter her suite without explanation other than the note she'd sent yesterday saying she was staying with friends on the river. She intended pleading a headache for dinner, knowing she'd be unable to join Adelaide's guests that evening. She felt beyond banal conversation; she felt melancholy, and dizzy with wanting something completely out of reach.

The Duc found a note from his wife when he arrived home. She wished to talk to him immediately. He sighed, ran his hands through his hair and stood absolutely still for a moment, holding his head. Then he rang for a servant to have his wife informed he would be available in the library in ten minutes.

Isabelle was still in her tea gown when she came into the library. Without greeting him, only nodding in acknowledgment of his salutation, she sat before the Duc in the chair his grandfather had bought after Napoleon's furnishings had been dispersed. The Empire style suited Isabelle's cool beauty. Petite as a Meissen shepherdess, blonde, the same age as he, she was slim as the day the Duc had married her. Isabelle saw discipline as her greatest virtue.

"She must have been exceptional to keep you from the King's family party," his wife pointedly said. "Your absence was remarked on."

"I'm sorry," Etienne replied, simply, long past the time when Isabelle's barbs could draw blood. "I'll send my apologies."

"You
will
be at the public function tomorrow, I trust? Justin and Jolie will be there of course with Henri and Hector."

He knew Henri would be with his daughter Jolie. Unlike he and Isabelle, his daughter and her husband enjoyed each other's company. "Hector too?" he said. "How nice."

Knowing Etienne's adoration of his grandson, Isabelle had made it a point to see Hector would be in attendance. Insurance, as it were, to guarantee that Etienne accompany the family to the public celebration of the King's birthday. Status and position were of prime importance to Isabelle; both her family and Etienne's were closely related to the Bourbons, and Orleans and court functions were a prestigious display of their prominence, an opportunity to remind others that her family and the de Vecs were some of the oldest and richest in France.

"The King's garden party begins at two; our small reception follows at, perhaps, seven?" She left the statement casually open.

"We're having a reception?" He thought they'd agreed not to have one.

"Just a few close friends… for drinks and dinner."

That translated fifty or more, involved a long night of essentially Isabelle's friends proving she'd done exactly as she pleased again—as usual. He wondered when he would learn her word meant nothing. "Are we driving together?" he asked instead of arguing about a reception that was at this late
date
a fait accompli.

"Yes."

"I'll be ready," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Is there more?" he asked when she didn't immediately rise. Their conversations were reduced to essentials. Isabelle never stayed simply to chat.

"Justin," she said.

"Yes?" He hated her habit of surrendering each bit of information slowly rather than simply stating the facts. And he disloyally thought of the frankness of the beautiful Mademoiselle Daisy Black. She always said exactly what she meant.

"I can't convince him."

"Of what, Isabelle?"

"You know how insistent he is."

"At times I suppose he is, as we all are. Is this pertinent?"

"The trip."

"The trip?"

"To Egypt. He's still insisting on his trip to Egypt."

There. At last. He couldn't restrain his small sigh of irritation. "I thought this had all been agreed on months ago." Justin wished to travel—nothing terribly remote—Egypt was practically at France's back door, a regular stop on all the tours.

"What if he's hurt or catches some filthy disease or drowns in some murky dirty river?" Her perfectly made-up face reflected her distaste.

"Isabelle," Etienne quietly said, with utmost patience, since he'd gone over this a dozen times already. Isabelle saw anything beyond the major cities of Europe as an outland peopled with brigands, foreigners, and barefoot peasants, all of whom she viewed as subhuman, none of whom she cared to view at close proximity. "Justin is twenty now. The Nile is not some dirty river but the cradle of an ancient civilization well worth seeing. He's old enough to travel where he pleases and has more than enough money to travel without either of our consents. He's only being polite to even discuss it with us. Now leave the poor boy alone."

Her lips were pursed in an expression the servants often saw when she was displeased. "You always did take the children's side. That sort of laxity as a parent is related, I presume, to your socialist tendencies."

Isabelle was a royalist, viewing any political stance left of the restoration of the monarchy as socialist. Etienne was a moderate in his politics, even having served two terms in the Senate years ago when the Republic was shakily trying to find its way after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. He believed in individual rights, not divine right, and he also believed children deserved respect for their wishes. "I'm sorry," he neutrally said, "if you feel that way." This argument too was years old. Isabelle regarded anyone not agreeing with her as an enemy. Over the years he'd been obliged to stand up for the children often against her more rigid strictures of conduct.

"Look, Isabelle," the Duc went on soothingly, weary of the age-old controversy, "the children are grown. Jolie's happily married with a child of her own. They both came into their trusts two years ago. We have to stop interfering in their decisions."

"You want Justin to be just like you, traveling all over the world like a vagabond."

"I don't want him to be like me," the Duc said, his voice as mild as possible. It was the last thing he wanted for his son, this empty world of his. "I want him to have some freedom."

She sniffed then, and he always thought it made her look and sound like a cat. "Certainly you've had enough
freedom
," she scathingly replied.

Within the solid bars of convention their families and traditions had forged, he reflected, but this also had been a topic of conversation a thousand times before. "I want a different freedom for him, Isabelle. You probably wouldn't understand. Now if we're finished, I think I'll go and see Hector." His daughter and family lived in their own apartment across the courtyard garden in another wing of the Hôtel de Vec.