No longer lounging, Etienne sat bolt upright, his eyes vivid with anger, his fingers clenched white on his chair arms. "If you touch them, Montigny," the Duc said in a low heated murmur taut with challenge, "I'll have your heart on a platter."
"Are you threatening me?" The Archbishop's face had taken on the same whitish cast as the night before.
"I am." The green of the Duc's eyes glittered like emerald fire.
"You… can't threaten me," the Archbishop stammered, the nudge from his sister's gloved finger firming his shrinking courage. "The law requires custody… until children are twenty-one."
"The law better damn well stay away from my children, Montigny, or I'll dine on your black heart. That's a promise and a threat and a lethal pledge. Is that perfectly clear? Beatrice, you're going to push your brother into an early grave," Etienne remarked, observing his mother-in-law's hand about to move again. "Kindly consider how poorly he shoots. Now," he curtly went on,
"No one touches my children. Not either of you. Not Isabelle, who relinquished her interest in them at birth. And least of all a court that can be bought and sold for the price of a good polo pony." The Duc stood abruptly, the interview over. "Burns will show you out. Don't," he murmured in a deceptively calm tone, "come back."
* * *
The pulse in his temple was beating violently as he strode through the enfilade of rooms between the antechamber and his bedroom. He could feel the flush of anger in his face and in his brain. Did they really think he gave a damn what the Church's position was on anything or care what the Montigny attitude was on divorce? Idiots! he fumed. The clergy had their place he supposed, but it wasn't in his home giving him ultimatums. How dare that worm threaten his children; how dare he think he had any right to impose his theological dogma on Justin's and Jolie's lives! He'd kill him without a qualm, the Duc raged, although the damnable coward would probably hide behind his cassock or his formidable sister if challenged to a duel.
Louis was hot on the Duc's heels, running slightly to keep up with his master's rapid stride. When Etienne reached the door to his bedroom, he waited a moment before going in to allow Louis the opportunity to catch up. As Louis arrived, panting and out of breath, the Duc said, his voice still tense and irritated, "More coffee please, and breakfast in say… twenty minutes. I think I'll kill him and rid the world of a useless cleric," he added, as supplement to his menu. With his hand on the doorlatch, he turned a suddenly cheerful smile on his valet. "Wouldn't that be a good idea, Louis?"
"Yes, sir, Monsieur le Duc. Should I see that your pistols are cleaned?" Having accompanied the Duc to several duels—still a popular method of settling male disputes in France—Louis was ready to be of service again. "The children must be protected," he said as if they were his.
Etienne grinned. "Killing the pompous ass would at least save France any more ecclesiastical bastards… but his face was so waxen, Louis, I may not need my pistols. He may succumb to apoplexy. Damn coward's probably still looking over his shoulder. Coffee, then, and breakfast. It's a beautiful day, isn't it, Louis?" Etienne said, his mood abruptly altered at the thought of Daisy warm and voluptuous in his bed.
"Yes, Monsieur le Duc," his valet agreed, interpreting the Duc's comment properly. "She's very lovely."
"Miss Black will soon be your new mistress." His smile was that of a young enthusiastic boy.
"Very good, sir. I look forward to it." Having been with the Duc since before his marriage, Louis was pleased to see his master truly happy for the first time in years. "Do you think the lady would like that special hazelnut pastry with honey from your Colsec estate?"
"Yes… yes." Etienne paused. "I should have thought of it myself. Thank you, Louis, she'll love it. Twenty minutes?"
"Twenty minutes, precisely, Your Grace."
Breakfast was heated, lush, and leisurely from the fragrant, sticky pastry to the last sweet whipped-cream-and-hot-chocolate-flavored kiss. The sun had risen high in the sky before the Duc rolled over in bed to ring for Louis again. "You need some clothes," Etienne said in explanation to Daisy's questioning glance. "Louis will see to it. We're going to see Mama."
"I don't want to. I'd rather stay here." Etienne had been particularly tender this morning, waking her with a gentle, lingering kiss, making love to her with a demonstrative sweetness—the raging zealous passion of last night replaced by an almost poignant susceptibility. Her body was aglow, her heart as well, with love of him and she wanted nothing to intrude. She wanted selfishly to keep him within touch, within sight… alone.
"I'm taking you to Mama's to show you off." He looked darker against the white sheets, smiling and sensual and more perfect than any man deserved.
"No," Daisy softly protested. "Later…"
"Yes, and later we'll do that," Etienne replied, lighthearted and intuitive—or perhaps experienced. He recognized that sultry look in a woman's eyes.
"Are you sure about your mother?" Daisy was hesitant. "After the scene at the Opéra . . ."
"Mother is more unconventional than I. Trust me."
"About your divorce too?"
"About everything. She never did like the Montignys anyway so the divorce will come as no shock. The trustees of my father's estate, not my mother, arranged my marriage." He spoke in a lazy deprecating way, sated and content and immune for the moment from rancor.
"You had no say?" Dubious query colored her tone, although Daisy understood a widow under French law inherited only a small portion of her husband's estate.
"Since I was under twenty-one I wasn't legally in control of my inheritance yet, the war with Prussia loomed on the horizon jeopardizing much of our eastern land, and I planned on serving in a cavalry unit against the violent wishes of the trustees. All these factors influenced the cautious natures of my father's conservators. If I was killed in the war some third cousin twice removed who was drinking himself to death in the Indies would inherit. Naturally the trustees were appalled. I wasn't unaware of my obligation either after being raised with the legacy of the de Vec title." Stretching like a great jungle cat, he went on in a moderate uninflected tone. "You know as well as I do, as a woman my mother had little control over the de Vec inheritance. We both understood the Montigny alliance they proposed would be useful."
"Useful?" Somehow she disliked thinking Etienne could be so callous.
He shrugged, looking at her for a moment from under his dark brows. "They threatened my mother's income if I didn't marry and provide an heir before I left. Before you say it," he added, putting his palm up, "there wasn't time for a protracted fight in court even if I hadn't agreed with the need for an heir. The de Vec bloodlines go back to Charles Martel," he said, aware of what kinship to the first kings of France meant. "I felt a certain sense of duty. All my friends were contracting similar marriages—as had their parents before them. We are not on the north-ern plains… with the freedom you take for granted." His final words were poignant somehow for a wealthy man of influence and power.
Daisy considered then how great their personal freedoms were within the Absarokee culture: marriage was by mutual consent; divorce equally so; women shared in property with the same prerogatives as their husbands; and courtship was a time of laughter and loving. Wealth was not the first priority, nor the tenth, and the thought of allowing a third party to autocratically select your spouse was repressive. "I'm sorry," she softly said, reaching up from her lazy sprawl to touch the dark silky arc of his brow. "I wish I had been there twenty years ago to carry you away with me to my lodge."
He smiled a small grateful smile. "I'm available now… to be carried away."
"Almost…"
"Eventually," he corrected with a grin.
Louis was sent to Adelaide's with a list of clothing needed and an hour later the Duc and Daisy were seated in a flower-filled conservatory, the scent of hibiscus heavy in the air. Etienne's mother was saying how pleased she was to meet Daisy at last, while the Duc lounged comfortably, his arm around Daisy. Daisy was most
struck at first meeting the Dowager Duchesse by the striking physical differences between mother and son. How unlike in looks they were.
The Dowager Duchesse was as light as her son was dark, her hair a golden-honey color, her eyes a curious shade of translucent azure, and his height, Daisy decided, had not been inherited from Maman. She was dainty with gamine features; a contrast to the swarthy aquiline modeling of her son. She must have been very young when Etienne was born because she was still extremely youthful in appearance… dressed becomingly in a sprigged and beribboned muslin flower-print gown.
"You've made Etienne very happy, my dear," Heloise pleasantly said, "and I thank you for it."
"You're entirely welcome," Daisy replied, thinking .how very easy it was to love her son. "I hope only… well… all will be reconciled."
"With the Montignys you mean. Thank God for the new divorce law. Didn't I tell you when it was first enacted to end it?" she said to her son. "He's too civil—he didn't."
"Mama's more impulsive." The Duc's smile was indulgent.
"You didn't know what love was, you mean." His mother's smile was discerning.
"And you do?" The Duchesse had for years amused herself in the same fashion as her son.
"I don't tell you everything. Consider yourself fortunate," she added in a quiet reflective tone. "Everyone's love is not so easily fulfilled."
"Secrets, Mama?" Etienne's query was at once teasing and sympathetic.
"Long before your time, my dear," his mother said, recovering her former spirits with a well-grounded discipline. "Now tell me what the Archbishop and that poker-faced mother-in-law of yours had to say this morning."
The Duc moved his head in an almost indistinguishable movement—cautioning his mother. "It was nothing… an empty gesture," he briefly replied. "I was hoping you might like to go to the races with us sometime. My black's been running well lately."
"The Archbishop and your mother-in-law?" Daisy inquired. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"There was nothing to tell." It was a masculine answer of avoidance.
His mother recognized the restraint in his voice and knowing the Montigny gracelessness after twenty years, understood the extent of her son's warning. "I'd love to see your black race, darling," she interposed into the small silence that had fallen.
The Duc's smile was swift. "Good. On Friday then. Would you like to dine with us tonight? Daisy has promised to join me for dinner."
"I'm committed to the Prince Cherevel this evening. I'm sorry. Would you care to join his party? Although I warn you, it's diplomatic with several of the embassies invited."
"And you're hostess for Philippe, charged with charming all the colonial attache's." Etienne's smile was affectionate. "Mama is Philippe's best ambassador," he said to Daisy. "Capable of convincing the most hotheaded foreign minister indignant with his treatment by the colonial office that at least Parisian women understand the dilemmas facing his country."
"They're all strongly committed men with legitimate grievances. My sympathy is genuine, darling, you know that."
"Mama has turned down more proposals of marriage to colonial ministers than one can count."
"How can I keep an eye on you if I leave Paris?" she replied with a teasing smile. "Etienne needs a great deal of care," she added, amusement rich in her voice.
"She first noticed me when I was sixteen," the Duc facetiously retorted, not immeasurably devastated apparently by his mother's lack of concern in his childhood.
"You had Rennie, dear, who was the best darling in the world. You know you preferred her to me anyway."
"She was special."
"Of course. She'd been my Rennie first. I was simply generous enough to share her with you."
"Yes," he simply said, knowing in an odd convoluted way, his mother's generosity had been sincerely maternal. Rennie had loved him unconditionally and he her, and not a day went by he didn't think of his childhood nanny—although she'd been dead now almost twenty years.
"I don't suppose your traditions include nannies," Heloise said to Daisy.
And the remainder of their visit centered on a curious conversation about children and child-rearing, a subject generally outside the perimeters of Etienne's social conversation. His mother noticed his unusual interest, was aware as well that Etienne never brought his lovers over for tea. With all her heart, she wished him happiness; Isabelle had taken too many years away from her son. He deserved more.
"Don't scowl at me," the Duc said as they settled into the soft carriage seats. "I don't want to argue."
"You don't have to protect me from the tumult."
"There's no point in rehashing irrelevancies. It's over. They're gone; they won't be back."
"I'd simply like to know what everyone else seems to know. I'm not a child or a simpering ingénue," Daisy quietly said.
"You don't want to know, believe me. The Montignys are stupid," he tersely added, a trenchant bite to his tone.
"About what?"
He hesitated for a small space of time. "About my children," he softly said,"… among other things."
"Can't I help?" He was clearly upset regardless of his gentle tone. "I've dealt with enough controversy in my life to have a well-developed ability to cope. Law school hardens one to discourtesy." She grinned. "I'm very tough."
His smile, genuine and suddenly relaxed, altered the stormy green of his eyes to a warmer shade. "I love you, darling, for your intelligence and understanding"—His brows rose in jest—"along with one or two other things, but coping mechanisms, no matter how well-developed, won't find a rational basis for dealing with the Montignys. They're profoundly insensitive to anything short of lethal threats, which I dispensed with an appropriate degree of sincerity. Now, can we please discuss something more pleasant… like the ravishing color of your lips or a honeymoon itinerary or the name of our firstborn?"
While teasing, he clearly didn't wish to discuss the Montignys and because she loved him, she said, "You win, Monsieur de Vec… this time." She smiled. "But only because humoring you has its advantages."
He laughed out loud at her smiling insinuation. Leaning back into the upholstered seat, he gazed across at her in a speculative way, his green eyes amused. "Are you expecting some favor in return for your humoring me? A performing kind of quid pro quo?" he added, his voice a lazy drawl.
"The thought crossed my mind. Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure." Her dark eyes held a sleepy, seductive allure.
Glancing at the carriage clock, the Duc made some mental calculations mat didn't work out, and thinking that with any other woman a stop at the jewelers would solve his problem, he said, "I don't suppose this is a good time to ask whether you'd mind if I play a game this afternoon."
Dressed in a ribbon silk in shades of olive, her hair loosely tied at her neck with pearl-embroidered gold braid, Daisy had the look of an odalisque in the shaded interior of his carriage, her pose as relaxed as his. "We're not talking about the same kind of game… are we?" Her voice was sleepy like her eyes, husky, redolent; her smile almost made him change his mind.
If she disapproved, he thought, he'd ignore his schedule; there would be other matches. But his teammates would sulk because they were currently in first place for the club championship. "It's not of great import, chou-chou. Valentin can find a substitute."
"You play second position, don't you?"
"Usually," the leading scorer in a decade modestly said.
"And you'd be harder to replace than a third or back."
"Theoretically… but an afternoon in bed with you prevails in fascination," he replied with an easy charm.
She weighed his asking against her own idleness, understood his commitment to his team because she had a father and brothers who played polo with the same seriousness. "Go," she said, "I'll take a nap at Adelaide's."
His satisfaction was apparent, like a young boy allowed out to play, she thought with pleasurable contentment, pleased she could make him happy.
"You
're sure now?" His solicitiousness was as charming as his seductive talents and she almost said, no, I changed my mind, because she wanted him suddenly for all his sweetness and beauty. It required a moment more for practical reason to beat down her sensations of wanting. She could after all, make love to him tonight.
So she said politely, "I'm sure. I'm also very tired." In fact the idea of having to participate in a polo match would have been beyond her strength. They'd been up a great deal of the night playing at love.
"You're an angel." Leaning over, he kissed her lightly on the cheek.
"Where do you get your energy?" Thoughts of an afternoon nap insinuated themselves more prominently in her mind.
The Duc didn't say he was familiar with sleepless nights for the inference would be displeasing, so he said instead, "My chef's idea of breakfast coffee can sustain one for days. You didn't drink any." His smile was benign.
Daisy had, in fact, taken one sip, said, "this would bring a corpse to life," and opted for tea. "If you like, we could cancel tonight. You're going to be exhausted."
"No, I'll be fine. I'll come to fetch you at nine."
Adelaide had been watching the courtyard windows since she'd risen that morning, determined to lend comfort and support to Daisy after Isabelle's despicable behavior at the Opéra.
Her pacing set the mood for her household, already alerted by news of the Montignys' early morning visit to the Duc—common knowledge belowstairs hours before the story reached the aristocrats of Paris with their morning coffee.
Which news had only increased Adelaide's agitation.
When the Duc's carriage rolled into the courtyard, Adelaide raced with unladylike haste to the entrance hall, arriving breathless to greet Daisy when she came in.
"Would you like tea?" she asked. "Or a late luncheon?" she added, reminded by the chiming hall clock of the hour. "Are you all right? I'm so sorry, did you sleep? You couldn't have, you must be exhausted."
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