"Very good, sire. The towels you asked for are on the small jetty near the boathouse."
"And the champagne?"
"In the boathouse."
"Tell Gabriella I'm having some more playthings sent out for your grandchildren. Au Nain Bleu's manager promised me tomorrow."
François bowed with a peasant gesture, his hand over his heart. "Thank you, sire," he said to the man he knew as Baron Fermond. "Gabriella will be pleased."
"How long have you employed them?" Daisy asked after François had disappeared into the dense willow grove.
"They came with the estate. Their family was young then… it must be twenty-some years ago." His answer was more casual than his memory. He remembered precisely to the day, for he'd bought Colsec directly after Isabelle had informed him shortly after the twins' birth that he would no longer be welcome in her bed. That same day, he'd had his steward look into a retreat for himself near Paris. A week later he'd bought Colsec. He'd come here often over the years when society became intolerable and his moodiness needed surcease. "They were afraid they'd be turned out," he went on, "and I'd bring in my own servants. But I was looking for anonymity, no ties to my Paris staff. Their children work for me now, too, either in the village or here. Their youngest boy heads my library in the village."
Daisy raised her brow in silent query. French peasants were rarely librarians, and a small village with a library was exceptional.
"Your clan isn't the only beneficent unit of humanity in the world, darling." His soft irony was teasing.
"You surprise me," Daisy said in genuine admiration. "I thought your charity was confined to gifts of jewelry to fashionable ladies."
"In time, no doubt, I'll astonish you with my… charity."
Her voice when she answered was husky with seductive suggestion. "I certainly hope so."
"You'll have to meet my nuns," the Duc went on, amusement coloring his tone. "I endow a nunnery too."
"A nunnery?" Daisy's eyes had narrowed slightly in licentious suspicion.
"I've never felt the urge," Etienne said with a faint smile, reading her expression correctly. "The Bishop had cut their funds and they were starving, that's all."
"You support a great number of people." She said it almost grudgingly, reluctant to admit she had been almost entirely wrong in her assessment of Etienne.
"Many of them contribute to my wealth. I'd be a fool not to." His simple answer, unique to his class, was delivered with his usual casual logic.
Daisy had been raised in a culture where the individual contributed to the welfare of the tribe and, while she hardly needed another reason to find the Duc de Vec appealing, enamoured as she was already, the fact that he had a social consciousness in a society known for its selfishness was gratifying. No, more—she found it another temptation to love him. Which thought immediately struck her with alarm. Lifting her champagne glass for refilling, she said by way of suppressing disastrous thoughts of love—hopeless and impossible in relation to the Duc de Vec, "Should we sample the extraordinary salmon aspic? And I warn you, considering what I relinquished for Gabriella's serenity, I expect the ambrosia of the gods."
Five minutes later, glancing up from her comfortable half-reclining position on the settee, her portion of aspic devoured, she said to Etienne's knowing look, "Don't look so smug and cut me another serving."
"I think this is where I'm allowed to say something superior."
"Not if you value your life."
He only grinned and served her another sizable portion. In silence, he watched her eat, watched her lick the fork clean, watched her small considering pause before she said, "It's an aphrodisiac, isn't it?"
"I don't think it has to be. Gabriella tells me it's a family recipe ceremoniously cooked for weddings. The ice required for it makes it of course a luxury for peasant households."
"What's in it?" Despite his mild denial, she was already feeling a slow seeping desire drift through her senses.
He shrugged like any nobleman would when confronted with a question related to the kitchen. "Don't ask me. Would you like me to call Gabriella?"
"No," Daisy instantly retorted, not currently in the mood for additional company.
"Could I interest you in some wild strawberries or some génoise? Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Don't you feel it?" she asked, incredulous he could so casually converse about food when she was beginning to feel the Egyptian cotton of his shirt as though it were heated silk.
"Of course." He'd eaten too.5
"And this was why you delayed me… it wasn't concern for a servant's feelings."
"It was both," he said. "Gabriella terrifies me." His smile negated his latter statement and in truth, Gabriella coddled him. For which he, as a grateful man, reciprocated. "More champagne?"
"No, thank you." Leaning over, she placed her plate on the floor. Settling back against the cushions, she unbuttoned the small closures at her wrists, then slid the crested silver buttons of the shirt-front open. Smiling up at the Duc, who had set his champagne glass down, she let the shirt slowly slide down her shoulders and arms until it lay in puddled white ripples on the deep purple of the cushions. Lifting her hands free, she raised herself enough to slip the shirttail away before lying back against the grape-colored cushions. "I'm waiting for my promised reward," she said, her smile lighting up her eyes.
She was, he thought as he gazed at her, the most perfectly formed woman he'd ever seen. Slender, toned, her long legs lazily crossed, her arms resting against the settee back and curve of pillows, she was every man's erotic dream. Her full splendid breasts were suspended by the position of her raised arms so their weighted volume appeared almost perfectly round, soft and luscious, and waiting to be touched… her nipples peaked, tautly subject to Gabriella's aspic. He could already imagine her whimper of excitement when he finally sucked on them. And when his glance drifted downward to the heating juncture of her thighs, she shifted in a small restless movement as though he had touched her there.
Putting out his hand, he said, "Come," knowing she would obey. When she rose to walk to him, he watched each step, counted them with the rhythm of his pulsebeat, wondered in a small corner of his brain- not yet inundated with desire whether anyone in history had lost his reason so willingly. A blithe, ingenuous thought, it brought a smile to his lips.
The warmth of her hand slid into his curved fingers. He pulled her close and for that millisecond before their lips touched, the air between them seemed liquid and scented. That first contact of their lips, delicate and subtle, her small mouth shaping itself against the champagne coolness of his, instantly scorched their -senses, burned through their bodies, ignited an appetite for sensation already roused by Gabriella's festive delicacy. And they clung to each other for a moment—breathless… stunned by the violence of their need.
"The settee's too small," Daisy said first, her voice still touched with a suffocated quiet.
"I'll show you my boat." Etienne's voice in contrast was terse. He was already pulling her toward the pavilion entrance facing the river.
They walked together under the dense willow boughs, the path moss-covered and spongy beneath their feet, the coolness exquisite contrast to their heated bodies. "Wait," Daisy said once, frantic to touch him, and reaching up, pulled his face down so she could kiss him. And had Etienne not known the comforts waiting on his river barge, he would have tumbled her to the ground right there. As it was, he said, "no," softly once to her importuning mouth and body and the second time held her arms to her side while he said in a hushed low breath of command, "Soon." Lifting her into his arms he quickly carried her the remaining distance to his boathouse, shoved the door open with his foot and stood for a moment in the cool dimness of the interior while his eyes became accustomed to the diminished light. Daisy was nibbling at his ear, whispering intriguing suggestions, so he moved swiftly to the small causeway leading to the barge. The vessel had been built a century before, in the decade before the Revolution
, for parties on the river, for frolic and merriment, and while the deck had been designed in large enough dimensions for an orchestra and dancing, the salons on the lower deck were fitted for activities of a more amorous nature.
The main stateroom was opulent, gilded in all the exuberance of the classic years of the rococo, mirrored and garlanded, decorated with painted murals of shepherds and shepherdesses engaged in pastel-hued play, dominated by an enormous chase gold bed.
"Where did that come from?" Daisy asked with a mixture of curiosity and awe. The oval bed shaped like a sculptured shell was detailed in hammered bas-relief with scenes of seduction and love, a magnificent work of goldsmithing, exotic, arresting, distinctly Eastern, imbued, it seemed, with a former life.
"From a harem."
"I shouldn't be so naive, should I? I imagine you need a harem bed quite often." She'd gone rigid in his arms, her eyes in contrast were alight with fomenting resentment.
"The bed came with the barge," he said, placing her on the peach silk coverlet, careful to keep his response scrupulously serious. "A Russian prince was the former owner, I'm told. A Russian prince with a jealous wife. He sold the bed."
"I don't doubt she preferred less potent memories in her bedroom. Is this the usual second course then, after the aspic?" Her jealousy painted each word with sweet sarcasm.
"The bed is virginal as my nuns here on my estate, so you can damp the fire in your eyes."
"Your nuns?"
"A nonliteral phrase. Good God, Daisy, be reasonable." He would have liked to say he had all the women he needed for entertainment without encroaching on a nunnery, but an admission in those terms would have been imprudent.
Daisy must have reconsidered the absurdity of her jealousy for her expression became suddenly contrite. "I'm sorry," she said with a small smile, sitting splendidly nude in the center of his golden bed.
"And had I answered differently?" he asked, pulling his shirt over his head, gazing down at her with a teasing smile, his developed skill at omission having averted an argument.
"I would have left."
"You wouldn't have gotten far." His gaze swept her form, lingering on her opulent breasts and firm taut stomach and lower where the dark silk of her hair touched the pastel peach coverlet. "Because I'm extremely focused at the moment."
"I can outrun you." She spoke with a quiet confidence.
"Perhaps," he noncommittally said, not wishing to argue. He doubted she could, but if she could initially, he would have overtaken her eventually. After all, she was naked with nowhere to run except within the twenty-five square miles of his fenced estate. Which thought further provoked his libido.
"I always won—even against my brothers when we were young."
"Do you think I should lock the door then?" he asked with a grin, reaching for the buttons on his trousers.
A woman's high-pitched giggle—extremely close—suddenly interrupted their privacy along with a splash of oars and the gruffer voice of a man shouting, "No, pull the rope to starboard, to your left, left, oh hell!" And with noisy impact, some kind of craft crashed into the boathouse.
"Oh hell!" Etienne's exclamation echoed that of the unseen man. He debated for a moment whether they could ignore the situation entirely, but the giggling female voice rose in another shriek of laughter, deciding the issue for him. "Goddammit, no, not you. Lord you're touchy. Relax, don't move," he said briskly, redoing his trouser buttons. "I'll be right back."
A full fifteen minutes passed before he returned, for he had to help the young man unsnarl the sail of his small dinghy, find another oar to replace the one the rather inebriated young lady had let slip into the river, and then wait patiently while the pretty shopgirl answered nature's call on shore. They were on holiday, the young man told him, and were sailing to Le Havre, but Angelique had had too much wine for lunch when they stopped at Argenteuil and decided she wanted to try her hand at sailing. The Duc was polite. He understood, he said. These things happen, he agreed. Yes, the Seine was especially beautiful on this part of the river. No, really, it was no trouble at all, keep the oar, he had several more, take care when you enter the locks near Bougival, the current tends to take you in too fast. And he stood on the jetty while the young man tacked back out into the main current, just to make sure they wouldn't be disturbed again.
"All is resolved?" Daisy asked when he returned. She had overheard enough of the conversation to understand the situation.
"The woman had too much to drink."
"You look warm." She was lying back on an assortment of pillows looking cool, her voice teasing like a playful kitten.
"Hmpf," he said, hot from the sun and his haste to expedite the intruders' departure, giggling women a special irritation to him. Walking over to a gilded washstand, he poured some water into a large porcelain washbasin, bent his head over it, and splashed water over his face. He came up dripping, cooler and aware suddenly one of the mechanized doors in the sweeping curve of headboard near Daisy's right shoulder was open.
"You've been busy while I was gone," he murmured, his voice coming from deep in his throat. The hinged doors concealing the sportive apparatus on the gold harem bed were hidden in the intricacies of the embossed design, triggered by devices in the fretwork ornament bordering each panel.
Daisy's dark, silky brows framed eyes full of innocence, but then she smiled, altering the innocence with play. "I was admiring the goldsmithing technique."
"How many did you find?"
"Eight."
"Very good," he said in admiration; they were well hidden.
"How many are there?"
"Eight."
"For eight women?"
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. It wasn't a question he was going to answer.
"Would you like to try the silk ties?"
A flaring rush, heated and heady, streaked through Etienne's senses.
Her hips moved in a subtle small rise. "Would you?" And she arched her back slowly, feeling the fire in her blood race downward.
"I didn't know," he murmured, his smile, slow and lingering, "whether you'd like… being tied."
Daisy's dark eyes opened in a deliberate measured speculation. "I was thinking, actually," she said very low, "of you being tied."
He couldn't suppress the surging increase in his arousal and it showed in the swelling rise beneath the soft linen of his trousers.
"You like the idea," she murmured.
"I don't know if I like the idea."
Her eyes opened wide in contradiction. "Have you only dealt with complaisant women?"
"I suppose," he said very slowly, considering briefly the scope of her question, "maybe I have." He wasn't immodest enough to point out that complaisance was a mild term for the extreme willingness of his lovers. On the other hand, Daisy's candid sensuality, her open and spontaneous freedom of spirit were fascinating to a man who had never met a woman who demanded equality.
"Until now," she said, as if reading his mind.
"The Circe," he whispered, "of my soul."
"Would you mind then," she murmured, her lashes falling in languid suggestion, "taking those"—her finger pointed at his trousers—"off and I'll try to live up to a reputation of that magnitude."
He grinned at her confidence. "My pleasure," he said, unbuttoning with swift fingers.
Daisy watched as his buff-linen trousers slid down his hips and legs, marveling at the simultaneous splendor and austerity of his body. He was lean yet powerfully muscled, an athlete's body honed by sport, patined with a dulcet grace. And when he moved toward her, she gazed, fascinated, as the muscles in his thighs, torso, shoulders shifted and rippled beneath the dark bronze of his skin.
He knelt on the bed when he reached it and stretched past her and around her for the trigger mechanism on the compartment door nearest him. Opening it with deftness, he leaned farther to touch the release on a second door with a familiarity Daisy found annoying. She had no ownership on his past, she understood in a rationa
l way, yet she found herself resentful and jealous of any hint of previous women. And despite what he'd chosen to deny, this bed, if not here, somewhere else, had been shared by some of his lovers. He was too well acquainted with its subtleties.
"Did you look at everything?" he casually asked, when all the decorative doors were open in the high, fluted half-circle of the molded headboard and footboard. "The Sultan apparently liked amusement."
Within the numerous small compartments were perfumes and oils, playtoys for sexual pleasure, silk cords in rainbow shades attached to metal rings, small containers of scented scarlet rouge. A delicate razor in engraved gold. Feathers with carved ivory grips, curved to accommodate the hand.
"I didn't recognize some things. What are these for?" Daisy asked, leaning over to extract two little cloissoine' pots of rouge.
"Harem houris accent their nipples and genitals with a rouge… a tradition apparently of Eastern seduction."
"How do you know?"
He shrugged as he lay lounging against the pillows. "I thought everyone knew."
"Like multiplication tables."
Daisy's sarcasm raised his brow fractionally. "Like adult games," he softly corrected.
"And this?" She took out the diminutive gold razor. "For disposing of nonplayful houris?"
He grinned. "You wouldn't have lasted a day in a harem." But his fingers were gentle when he stroked the dark hair of her pubic area. "For shaving that," he said, "so the rouge will show. The Eastern male finds red inflaming."
Forbidden Page 14
