Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  While the basic disparity in Etienne's and her life always remained constant, she'd simply ignored the staggering differences—in the tumultuous passion of their relationship. Conveniently overlooking the fact that he accepted the self-indulgence of his life without question, she'd allowed his personal charm to dazzle her and obscure her judgment and beliefs.

  Away from the hot-blooded immediacy of his passion, she could see more clearly how she'd been overcome and bewitched like the endless legion of females before her; the Duc de Vec was too perfect, she realized, too skilled, too darkly handsome with a personal warmth unparalleled in its intimacy. Like an addiction, she craved him without reason or conscience, but like an addiction, too, the drugging effect would diminish ultimately. And while she missed him like breath itself, she recognized the dilemma inherent in their loving each other.

  She cried that night, though, alone in her bed, no practical assessment sufficient defense against her longing. Tearful and miserable, she lay awake unable to sleep, wishing she could feel the comfort of Etienne's presence, wishing the only man she'd ever loved didn't live half a world away. Wishing perhaps he loved her more or she loved him less. Weeping with heartbreaking desolation, because even if he did love her enough to overcome the wretched distance separating them, he was unfortunately already married to a woman who meant to keep him.

  * * *

  In less than a week, the Duc was back in Le Havre, seeing Jolie and her family off to America. The stateroom overflowed with colorful flowers from their friends and from Etienne, while toys for Hector spilled over from his adjoining room.

  "Do you think you bought enough playthings for Hector?" Jolie facetiously inquired, her gaze on her father and son seated on the floor, absorbed in their play.

  "You never have enough toys," the Duc impenitently replied, looking up from the mechanical circus wagon he was winding for Hector. His smile was benign. "I think we need some more clowns," he pointed out to his grandson with jest in his tone, "to fill this wagon."

  "More clowns. Want," Hector cheerfully agreed, seated in the midst of a menagerie of circus animals.

  Etienne grinned up at his daughter. "You see?"

  "You're incorrigible," his daughter laughingly chastised.

  "Probably."

  Then her expression abruptly altered as she observed her son and father seated side by side in tender loving companionship and her lip began to tremble. "Oh, Papa, I'm going to miss you."

  Etienne rose swiftly to his feet and gathered her into his arms. "It's not for so long, darling. I'll be over to see that green-grass country soon."

  "Promise?" Jolie lifted her face to his and he thought again as he had a thousand times before how lucky he was to have his children. Although older now and a mother herself, she was still his little girl with her dark curls framing her face, her cheeks rosy like a child's, her large eyes fresh with a green-eyed innocence he hoped she'd never lose.

  "Promise," he murmured, no more able to refuse her now than any time before.

  "On your word, Papa," she insisted.

  "On my word, darling. Promise."

  Her face lit with joy, warming his heart with a magic happiness he always thought of as his "twin sunshine." "Dry your eyes now," he said, offering her his handkerchief. "Henri will be back with your sparkling water and he'll wonder what I said to you to make you cry."

  "He knows I'm going to miss you awfully, Papa. He was the one who suggested we fit up an apartment for you right away, so you'll be sure to come and visit."

  "You're happy with Henri?" the Duc quietly asked, his simple question encompassing a collective query.

  "Yes, ever and ever so much. He loves me, Papa, more than his polo, he says. And you know what an enormity that is." Her smile was suggestive and womanly suddenly. "Like you love Daisy?"

  "Yes, much more than polo," he softly agreed.

  "And Bourges will set you free." Her voice held the optimism of her good spirits.

  "I'm sure he will." This wasn't the time to mention the change of venue had been blocked and Isabelle's magistrate interview postponed for the third time.

  Henri interrupted then, walking into the stateroom with a bucket of ice and Jolie's favorite brand of sparkling water, at which point the conversation shifted to more pleasant anecdotes on the business of polo ponies. And when the Duc had finally to leave, for sailing was imminent, he bent down to give Hector a last hug.

  "Want come with me, Granpapa?" Hector asked as Etienne released his hold, his toddler eyes, green like his mother's, wide with inquiry. His little face was questioning and serious. "Want come, Granpapa?" he coaxed.

  The Duc fought back his tears, wondering how he was going to survive the coming months without his daily visit with Hector, knowing he was going to miss the companionship of his grandson, his joyful laughter, his curiosity, his hugs and wet kisses. "I can't leave right now, Hector, but I'll come to see you soon."

  "Come now. Granpapa come now, Mama. Tell him." He looked to his mother for confirmation of his wishes.

  Lifting her son from the floor, Jolie held him in her arms and carefully explained, "Granpapa can't now, sweetheart. But he will soon."

  The little boy's face collapsed in sorrow as he realized Etienne was leaving. "No! Granpa, come with! Don't go, Granpa!" Reaching out for Etienne, his little voice was sharp with alarm, his tears agonizing for Etienne to see. Hugging him quickly, Etienne promised to visit very soon, and with a poignant smile for his daughter and Henri, the Duc fled the stateroom.

  Several moments passed in the quiet of the corridor before he composed himself sufficiently to walk away from the wailing terror of Hector's cries. Pausing some distance away at the base of the stairway leading down from the first-class section, he leaned back against the polished wood paneling and inhaled deeply.

  In the last week he'd lost every person he cared about in the world and a wrenching loneliness assailed him. Shutting his eyes briefly, he gathered the disorder of his emotions into a manageable perception, shaky perhaps and raw with pain, but obedient to reason.

  This wasn't a permanent loss, he reminded himself, only a temporary one. He'd visit Hector and Jolie and Henri before too long. Justin would be back from Egypt in only a month. But contemplation of Daisy's leaving didn't yield so easily to facile reason. Unless she chose to return to France, he wouldn't see her again until—Bourges's face appeared in his mind's eye, somber, touched with disbelief—their change of venue had been denied.

  It was impossible, Felicien had said, for the petition to have been refused when the Duc fulfilled all the requirements for residency—impossible. They would appeal. He'd immediately draw up the necessary papers.

  "Find out how much Isabelle paid the magistrate," Etienne had curtly said, "and then offer the bastard ten times that amount. Enough for him to retire—which he'll have to," the Duc had added, "because he'll never be allowed to serve again… as long as Charles or any of the Monarchists stay in power.

  Which series of corrupt long-standing political alliances, the Duc understood, might not succumb to nonmonarchist money.

  Making the possibility of seeing Daisy infinitely more remote.

  He'd written her several times already, after having realized a telegraph message of affection wouldn't be private. He was tempted to ask her to meet him somewhere, anywhere in America convenient to her, but he wasn't entirely sure she'd agree. Overcome with an unfamiliar trepidation for the first time in his life, he was uncertain of a woman's feelings. Daisy had claimed to love him, but she'd also chosen to leave him.

  Not a bolstering thought.

  Heeding the warning whistle for visitors to disembark, he pushed away from the wall and mechanically followed the flow of traffic ashore. Ten minutes later found him seated in a bistro with a harbor view, a cognac in hand. The bottle on the table was already half empty when the ship slipped from sight below the purple-tinged horizon. But when the small party of Parisians entered the busy establishment shortly after, caught si
ght of him, and made for his table, he was sufficiently restored to smile at their cry of recognition.

  Formonde and Vanier were escorting two young women he didn't immediately identify until their faces came into view beneath their large-brimmed hats. Vanier's sister and sister-in-law, he noted, recalling Theo, the elder Vanier brother had been called to Quebec to oversee some family business.

  "Are Jolie and Henri off now?" Formonde inquired in cheerful accents, the activities of mutual acquaintances within the society of Parisian aristocracy common knowledge.

  "On their way," Etienne politely replied, not entirely sure he was in the mood for company.

  Having signaled for a waiter, Vanier gave his order for champagne while the ladies seated themselves in a flutter of silk ruffles, wafting perfume, and trilling laughter. While greetings were exchanged, Theo's wife winked at Etienne.

  The overture startled him at first, as though he'd been so long removed from the amorous chase, he'd forgotten the rules. He pondered briefly how to deal with the smiling young lady since forestalling female winks was entirely new in his experience. His decision to ignore it wasn't successful however, for Marie Vanier wasn't currently in the mood to be ignored. She, in fact, flirted shamelessly and provocatively, undeterred by the Duc's monosyllabic replies. When it became impossible to feign ignorance of the lady's interest—she'd taken to pressing her thigh against his, the Duc de Vec decided it was time to leave. With a bland smile and a blander excuse, he rose from his chair.

  "Damn feeble excuse, de Vec," Formonde cheerfully noted. "Your damn business manager can wait on you tomorrow. Stay on," he cordially invited at the same time he signaled for more champagne.

  "Do stay, Etienne. We can all go back together," the younger female Vanier suggested with a charming smile.

  "Please, Etienne?" Marie, the Duchesse Vanier purred, reaching out to stroke his hand in an intimate gliding progress that leisurely slid down the entire length of his slender fingers.

  "Perhaps some other time," he politely replied, drawing away a step so he was out of her reach.

  "Then why don't we go back now too?" Marie said to her brother-in-law. "We can share our compartment with the Duc."

  "No need, I've one of my own."

  "Well, we'll share yours then. It's settled. Come, André. Come, Formonde and Thérèse. Bring the champagne."

  And so the Duc de Vec found himself in the unusual position of refusing a beautiful woman's advances, for what turned out to be an excruciatingly long three-and-an-half-hour train ride back to Paris. He retreated delicately with a polite smile when she pressed close or turned off her suggestive double entendres with a sportive witticism. When she advanced, he withdrew or sidestepped or feigned deafness—a wearing game in close quarters in the company of three other people.

  Halfway to Paris, he arbitrarily ceased drinking, recognizing the need for all his faculties, and when the conductor announced the outlying suburbs of Paris, he began counting down the minutes.

  When at last they arrived at the Gare St. Lazare his adieux were terse and a shade hasty for absolute courtesy. And he literally jumped from the train while it was still coasting to a stop.

  Like a boy let out of school, he sprinted down the concourse, the smile on his face one of blessed release.

  Was this an epiphany? he joyfully reflected, dodging those individuals moving down the concourse with less haste. Had he passed through a personal revelation of principle? His grin widened. He didn't suppose a priest would understand.

  Hazard met Daisy at the depot in Chicago. Since he had business in the city, he explained, and she was on her way home, he decided to arrange his schedule to accommodate hers. While not entirely truthful about his intentions, he had attended to 'some mining transactions, although his principal purpose in coming East had been his concern for Daisy.

  "How can you manage to look so fresh and cool?" her father asked as they walked toward his carriage. "It's damn hot here." Chicago was wilting under ninety-degree temperatures, the humidity damp as a steam lodge.

  "It's mental, Father." She smiled up at him. "I'm thinking of cool mountains."

  "I envy you your imagery. My mountains are three days away on a fast train."

  "Do you have much more business here?"

  "Not much," he replied, for he'd heard the small catch in her voice before she'd steadied her emotions, and the evidence of tears had been immediately apparent as she'd stepped off the train. "Are you in a hurry to reach home?"

  Daisy nodded, her face partially concealed beneath the brim of her straw hat.

  "I'm available to leave anytime," he immediately offered. "You decide." Glancing at his daughter dressed romantically in pink-flowered gauze, the streamers on her wide-brimmed hat, and at her waist, grass green trailing silk, Hazard wondered whether the Duc de Vec selected her dress, its style so unlike Daisy's usual taste. Was Etienne Martel also the cause of her tears? Resentful, he knew the answer to both his questions.

  In a general way, Hazard had heard of Daisy's liaison with the Duc, for he had friends in Paris, and, of course, Adelaide had written to Empress. While he had no objection to Daisy falling in love with whomever she pleased, he did object to the fact she was obviously unhappy. And if the Duc de Vec had harmed his daughter in any way. Hazard had every intention of seeing he paid for that injury.

  "Could we leave soon?"

  Hazard touched her hand, stopped in midstride, and when she looked back at the tall figure of her father standing very still in the streaming crowd of passengers moving toward their destinations, he quirked a dark brow and said, "Should we leave now?"

  How did he know, Daisy wondered, tears welling into her eyes and closing her throat, that she wanted to be back in the mountains so badly even a few hours more in Chicago would have been unbearable?

  Without a word, Hazard opened his arms to his stricken daughter. She went to him in a rush, her hat slipping off in the sweep of his embrace, dangling by the silky green ribbons halfway down her back. She felt unassailably safe again, engulfed in her father's arms as though he could make her world right again, as though his protection could shut out the hurt and pain.

  "Take me home," she whispered against the solid strength of her father's chest.

  She could have been asking him to ride into a village of his enemies and he would have for love of his child. He'd journeyed East to meet her because in the drift of rumor from Paris, he'd known she'd need consolation. But beneath the gentle comfort of his succor raged a furious rankling anger at the man who'd so casually devastated his daughter's content. And he vowed on the spirit gods of his medicine the cougar, the Duc de Vec would answer someday for this hurt to his child.

  "I'll find a train West," he said, stroking her hair, her tears wetting his shirtfront. "We'll be out of Chicago directly," he pledged, jettisoning his plans for the afternoon and evening. "I want to shoot him," he murmured, "when I see you cry. He doesn't deserve you."

  "It's not his fault," Daisy whispered into the crisp starched cotton of his shirt.

  "It's his fault if you're crying," Hazard said with the logic of a father.

  "I decided myself to leave."

  But he didn't try to stop you, Hazard reflected, another black mark against de Vec registered on his payback list. He knew from experience that sin of omission. "You don't seem happy with your decision," he softly prompted, wanting to understand her reasons.

  "It's never easy to leave…"

  "Someone you love."

  Daisy nodded, hiccupping and sniffling and looking so thoroughly unhappy, Hazard gazed for a contemplative moment at the teeming crowds passing around them like river current around a rock and debated his options. Most were violent and lethal, all of which he discarded because Daisy was very dear to him and her happiness was indispensable to his peace of mind.

  "Do you want him?" he simply said at last, an unornamented father's question supported by an unconditional love.

  She nodded again.

 
"Then you'll have him." So bluntly did Absarokee chieftains arbitrate—so competently did Hazard-the-Black-Cougar meet his obligations. Raised as a warrior in a warrior society that maintained its suzerainty over the best hunting grounds on the Northern plains against mightier and more numerous enemies, Hazard Black had honed to perfection his skills in raiding and warfare. Like planning the success of a war party, he didn't envision any problems abducting the Duc de Vec and bringing him to the mountains.

  Daisy's face lifted to his, her eyes fierce with emotion. "No," she declared, with the same blunt authority as her father. "It's not possible for me to have him… for a thousand reasons—all rational, logical reasons. I know that and Etienne knows it too… or he will after a time. His wife won't divorce him. Won't, Father, and she has the entire judiciary behind her. Etienne doesn't believe he won't be able to bludgeon the divorce through… but he can't. He's ignoring the, reality of a judiciary rife with nepotism. He doesn't fully understand all the obstacles Isabelle can put in his way—all the delaying procedures legally allowable." She took a deep breath, relief and resolution evident in her expression. In the plainest of words she'd outlined her dilemma. "So I came home because there was no point in staying, and I intend to remain in Montana and I don't want you interfering." Her dark eyes were identical to his and they held his now in entreaty. "Papa, promise me you won't."

  For the first time in his life, she'd called him something more, intimate than father, her childlike appeal so unlike her normal self-possession. He'd never seen her so wounded.

  "Papa?" Daisy's voice was so quiet, the small sound was immediately carried away by the noise of the crowds.