Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  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.

  "They're gone," his wife spitefully said, pleased she could thwart her husband, who spent too much time with their grandson. He was spoiling the boy, just as he'd spoiled Justin and Jolie.

  "In that case, I'll be going out. Tomorrow at the King's then. You're looking beautiful as ever, Isabelle," he courteously added. Standing, he rested his fingertips lightly on the desktop, waiting for her to leave, feeling the vast melancholy overcome him, the familiar sense of emptiness.

  He'd go to the club. The hour was too late to ride.

  * * *

  The celebration of the King's birthday was the social event of the season in the aristocratic world of old pedigrees, new titles, and varying ages of money. Although exiled in England, Louis Philippe, Comte de Paris, Pretender to the throne, known in royalist circles as Philip VII, was the rallying point for conservatives of all persuasions: monarchists, clerics, the Army, discontented Republicans, Bonapartists. All hoped, for their own reasons, to overthrow the Republic. And Louis Philippe, still asserting his right to the throne twenty years after the proclamation of the Republic, served as catalyst for these factions.

  The Duc de Vec, while distant politically from the reactionary right, was not only obliged because of familial connections, but had consented to attend.

  Adelaide coaxed Daisy to go. "If you've never seen the Pretender's court, you'll enjoy the spectacle. The gowns if nothing else are breathtaking and," she added, "the strange assortment of political bedfellows makes for fascinating intrigue. After the Boulanger fiasco a year ago, new alliances are being sorted out. Some of the Ministers might be of help to you."

  Daisy considered not going despite the allure of pomp and circumstance, worth seeing at least once, Adelaide was insisting. Although she'd been a frequent visitor to Europe since she'd begun living with her father Hazard, their trips abroad were family affairs. Daisy had always been more loath than other members of her family to participate in the glittering world of society, her disposition preferring less brittle fellowship. But today perhaps Adelaide's coaxing alone hadn't drawn her to agree to attend the birthday occasion. Perhaps she hoped to see the Duc.

  How infantile, she thought, even as she adjusted the baroque pearls in her ears, as if she would be able to see him in the crush of people Adelaide predicted would attend this event. As i
f, she speculated with a touch of censure, she should be behaving like an adolescent hoping for a glimpse of her lover. She was acting infatuated, thoroughly out of character for her, disastrous in any event with a man like the Duc, known for his insensitivity toward infatuated women. He had only said thank you when they parted—nothing more.

  But she went.

  Scanning the crowd with impatient disquietude…

  Not hoping as most, for a glimpse of the Pretender's fat son and heir.

  The man she was looking for was lean and muscled.

  And utter perfection in bed.

  The weather couldn't have been more splendid, the temperature ideal, the sun gently warm, a light breeze wafting bonnet ribbons as though on cue. The gardens of the Palais Orleans were abloom with color and fragrance, the vivid display of blossoming trees, shrubs, and flowers dominating the setting, the air charged with attar of roses and jasmine's heady scent, with the sweet bouquet of lilac, muguet, and magnolia.

  Pretty pastel tents had been set up with lavish presentations of food and cool refreshing drinks for the guests. An army of servants also moved through the crowd offering chilled champagne. Consciously denying her nervousness—it was merely warm and she enjoyed chilled champagne—Daisy had begun her third glass when a fanfare announced the royal family. She, along with Adelaide, Valentin, and several of their friends, turned toward the sound.

  Daisy watched the mass of guests part, making way for the royal procession moving toward a low flower-decked dais situated in the center of a formal rose garden. A murmur of comment followed the promenade of royal blood, glasses were raised in salute, impromptu cheers broke out as the regal court passed by. But all Daisy could see over the press of people was the gliding progress of the procession.

  She was holding a champagne glass to her lips when a large woman in front of her attempting to improve her own view moved away, leaving Daisy's prospect unimpeded. Suddenly the man for whom she'd attended this affair was before her eyes.

  The Duc was taller than anyone on the dais, taller than the pudgy, bourgeois-looking Duc d'Orléans by more than a head. Dressed in uniform with medals and orders draped across his broad chest, Etienne was flanked by a small blonde woman and a dark-haired girl. Beside the girl were two men, one unmistakably her twin, taller though, like his father. Jolie and Justin. Daisy knew immediately. Their photographs had been scattered across the walls of Etienne's bedroom at Colsec. The pale-haired man must be Jolie's husband.

  And in the Duc's arms was his grandson, as fair as the Duc was dark, the young boy's white page-suit in sharp contrast to Etienne's black uniform tunic. A more incongruous sight couldn't be imagined—not only in the distinction of their coloring, but . also in the contrast between the gold and pink innocence of the plump toddler and the Duc's saturnine disreputable elegance. She realized, too, Hector was the only child present in the royal tableau—a concession no doubt to Etienne's inclinations.

  The petite blond woman, Isabelle apparently, turned and, reaching up, placed her hand on her husband's shoulder while she whispered something in his ear. She smiled when she finished. The Duc only nodded slightly.

  At least he didn't smile back, Daisy thought, apropos of nothing that made sense in the world, as though she could make him smile and his wife couldn't, as though it were a contest. It wasn't, of course; she was a fugitive entertainment to the Duc, someone to idle away a warm spring day with. Suddenly she felt immensely sad. .

  But then the Duc smiled at something his grandson was saying to him, Hector's small hand tracing a path along the Duc's bronzed jaw as he spoke in a gesture so intimate and companion-able Daisy ached with envy. Etienne laughed aloud and kissed Hector's soft rosy cheek.

  The Duc d'Qrléans turned to look.

  The crowd was already looking because Etienne Martel was infinitely more fascinating to watch than the stolid fat heir to the throne. The situation seemed singularly peculiar, some thought; first, having the young child at the ceremony and second, kissing him and laughing so informally in public. Such thoughts reflected those who knew the Duc de Vec only by repute. Those who knew Etienne more intimately knew he did very much as he pleased and he adored his grandson more than anything in the world.

  Then the guests who knew him most intimately, those exclusively female in gender, understood that Etienne laughed easily and kissed even more easily. And many a small repining sigh reflected a wistful desire to be once more the recipient of his warm affection.

  Daisy was wiping spilled champagne from her dress bodice when Adelaide noticed. "Champagne won't stain, darling. Here, have another. The heat is rising."

  "Thank you, I will," Daisy replied, taking the offered glass and drinking it down immediately as though she needed it.

  "Isn't Hector precious?" Adelaide went on, not aware of Daisy's discomfort.

  "I didn't notice," Daisy lied. "The Duc d'Orléans is less majestic than I expected."

  "Poor dear is less everything than one expects," Adelaide philosophically noted, "but he is the Bourbon heir." She shrugged the young Pretender's inadequacies away as had the feuding factions in the National Assembly. While the majority of those in Parliament agreed on very little, they did agree on the fact that France didn't need Louis Philippe on the throne. "Valentin," she added, turning to her husband, "are we going to de Vec's later?"

  "If you care to."

  Adelaide turned back to Daisy. "Do you?"

  "No, thank you," Daisy quickly retorted, for lack of a better excuse, relying on the weather for support. "This heat is beginning to make me uncomfortable."

  "The Hôtel de Vec will be cool. It was built in medieval times; the walls are six feet thick. The heat won't be a problem."

  Daisy's mind was an absolute blank; not one gracious social excuse came to her aid. "I'd rather not," she heard herself bluntly say and cringed inwardly at her discourtesy.

  When Adelaide pursed her lips faintly, Daisy fearfully waited for an inquisitive question. But Adelaide only nodded her head once and said, "I've never liked Isabelle. Why don't we all go to the river instead? Valentin will sail us down to Colsec." She smiled at Daisy. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

  Daisy was feeling genuinely ill at this point, the champagne, warm sun, and longing for Etienne combining to adversely affect her nerves. But if she pleaded illness, her statement would either be regarded as an incredibly feeble lie, drawing attention she didn't want, or she would be overwhelmed with solicitous concern which she also wished to avoid. "Tomorrow morning I've that early appointment with the Minister of Justice," she said, finding honesty a benevolent adjunct to her real reason for refusing. "I'm going to beg off."

  "Are you sure?" Adelaide was a perfect hostess, conscious her guest's wishes were paramount. "Do you want company at home?"

  "No!" Then Daisy altered the intensity of her voice to something more politic. Her tone was mild when she continued. "Please go without me, Adelaide. I understand the river is lovely this time of year." And she knew from personal experience, it was absolute heaven.

  * * *

  Daisy spent a restless night, tossing and turning, her mind absorbed with repetitive, useless speculation and wishful thinking, both of which she logically dismissed numerous times, in the course of the sleepless hours, as ludicrous. Not only shouldn't she be dwelling on senseless thoughts of the Duc de Vec, she should be sleeping because she'd need all her diplomacy and wits in dealing with the Minister who had to date refused all her requests to hasten legal procedures.

  But then her mind would reloop against her will, her feelings more potent than logic. What was Etienne thinking? Was he thinking of her? Was it possible he was dreaming of her tonight? Those considerations composed the wishful thinking. Her speculation, more pragmatic, was wondering where he was right now and with whom. Which thought always brought a twinge of jealousy she'd try to suppress. Only to be followed moments later by new combinations of the previous images, variations on a theme: Had he enjoyed the days at Colsec as much as she? He se
emed to. He'd never taken a woman there before. Surely that had to count for something. Would he call again, did he miss her, would he never call again, how many women had passed through his life in the last twenty years? He said he'd be forty this year.

  In the next pulsebeat she'd decry her obsession as an aberration she must put aside, a momentary unsoundness of mind she must control. She'd never been affected in this fashion by a man and it wasn't as though she hadn't had her share of suitors. Her family wealth alone, she realistically understood, had drawn as many men to court her as she cared to receive. She was also aware of her beauty, not immodestly, but with an objectivity directly related to the looks in men's eyes.

  So tired and irritable after a sleepless night, she hotly decided as the dawning sun colored the sky, her obsession was counter-productive to her emotions, to her professional duties, and to her future. More sensible in the bright light of the morning, many hours removed from the resplendent magic of the Duc, she decided to consider her rendezvous with the Duc at Colsec as simply a pleasant and enlightening experience. Nothing more.

  In any event, repining over love was unwise.

  It was equally unwise even to use the word love in the romantic sense when speaking of the Duc de Vec.

  Every practical consideration in Daisy's life reminded her one didn't lose all reason because a man was gentle and passionate and compellingly beautiful. Such unreason was the height of absurdity, she decided, reaching out to ring for her morning chocolate, her thoughts once again on track.

  flow best to approach the Minister, Comte de Montigny, now that her long-sought interview had been granted. Even Adelaide had been surprised yesterday when message of her appointment arrived. She hadn't expected Daisy's request to be approved without influence of some kind being exerted.