Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  "You'll have to race with us at the summer hunt next year," Trey said. "Horses are brought in from as far as the West Coast to race against our homebred ponies. The heavy betting always makes the outcome more interesting."

  "Timms is signaling me dinner is ready. You lead the way, Trey," Blaze said. "And if you like racing, Etienne, you'll find plenty of competition at the summer hunt."

  "I don't suppose Daisy told you the Absarokee are inveterate gamblers," Empress said, giving a teasing look to her husband, as they preceded Daisy and the Duc into the dining room.

  "A little wager makes the run more exciting and gives a pleasant edge to victory," Trey replied. "The betting book at the Jockey Club's no different. When I was in Paris last, they were taking odds on whether the Duc de Richelieu's wife would run off with her groom or wait until old Richelieu died and then marry the young fellow. How did it turn out by the way?" Trey asked, seating Empress.

  "She didn't wait."

  "How romantic," Empress said, looking across the table with a smile. She wore a modest dinner dress with a shallow scooped neckline in spring-green to match her eyes, with a single strand of pearls lying glistening around her neck.

  "But a poor gamble," the Duc said, noting how Trey's darkness complemented his wife's golden beauty, and how his eyes followed her when she spoke. "She should have had more patience," he said ironically, "because Richelieu died only two months after she ran off."

  "You men are too practical." Empress's remark was facetious.

  "Right," the Duc dryly declared. If he were a practical man, he would have walked away from the sensuous Miss Black as soon as his need for her had begun threatening his comfortable existence. A practical man wouldn't find himself on the frontier in Helena, Montana, the new owner of a two-story log home of vast proportions, sitting beside a woman pregnant with his child, whom he may or may not be able to marry before that child was born.

  "Well, some men are practical," Daisy said, her smile sweet, the heated depths of her eyes as tantalizing as the first time he'd met her at Adelaide's.

  "And then again, some men are lucky," the Duc quietly murmured, wondering how long this dinner would last and how long after that, one would be required to be polite.

  "If everyone's too well-mannered to ask, I will," Blaze said into the small silence that had fallen as the two lovers forgot for a moment others were present. "Why did Isabelle change her mind about the divorce?"

  It took the Duc a moment to answer, his mind dwelling on Daisy lying on his new bed. "She turned out to be somewhat of a gambler herself," he answered. "Like Richelieu's wife. Only with Isabelle it was priests instead of grooms."

  "Priests?" Hazard's voice was amused.

  Having met the Duchesse de Vec, Trey was momentarily confounded by the disclosure. "You're sure?" he quietly expostulated, setting down his fish fork. Cool, almost cold, the perfectly dressed, exquisitely coiffed Duchesse seemed the least likely woman to indulge in such lurid excess.

  "Positive." The Duc's smile was warm, pleasant, triumphant.

  "Why was she so incautious… with the contentious divorce?" Trey inquired, Valerie's excessive lifestyle prominent in his thoughts. Even Valerie knew circumspect behavior was required under certain conditions, and unlike the Duchesse de Vec who gave the impression she found sentiment and emotion vulgar, Valerie was profligate in her lovelife.

  "Isabelle was at home where she felt secure. The servants were never allowed to enter her room without an express invitation."

  "Who discovered… the situation?" Daisy inquired, her curiosity couched in tactful language.

  "I did," Etienne answered.

  Everyone was too polite to ask for the details.

  But Hazard, having lived long in a contentious world, asked the pertinent question. "Were there witnesses?"

  "One very good one. Which was what convinced Isabelle, I think, to reconsider her position. The divorce should be concluded in four to six months, Bourges tells me. I told him four would be more acceptable."

  "A winter wedding then," Blaze cheerfully said. "Ermine and white velvet would be nice."

  "With white orchids," Empress added. "And a Viennese orchestra."

  "And all the children strewing rose petals."

  "Dressed in Gainsborough fashion."

  "You might like to get in a word, Daisy," Hazard teased, "before they have your honeymoon planned as well."

  "Do you care?" Daisy asked the Duc, knowing her own feelings on the subject, but not sure of his.

  "No," he quietly said. The style of wedding was incidental to his happiness. "Can we go soon?" he whispered.

  She nodded. "We give you permission to freely orchestrate the wedding of your choice," Daisy said, smiling at Blaze and Empress. "As long as I don't have to make lists or wear a dress styled for an ingenue."

  "No Gainsborough white gauze for Daisy," Empress said, making an imaginary note in her palm.

  "And not an enormous crowd. I detest crushes. Now if you'll excuse us, we're leaving," Daisy added, pushing her chair back and putting her hand out for Etienne.

  "You've hardly eaten," Blaze said.

  "I'm sure Etienne's staff can make them something to eat later," Hazard interposed.

  "Could you spare Daisy for a few days from court?" Etienne inquired. His question was a polite query only; he had no intention of returning her for at least a week. He'd been courteous through three courses, three courses longer than his desire could comfortably manage.

  "Of course," Hazard said. "Daisy hasn't been working such long hours lately. She was just filling in for a day. Let us know if you need anything up in the valley."

  "I'm having a telegraph line and phone put in this week, so soon we won't be isolated." Standing with Daisy's hand in his, he felt an overwhelming need to hold her for a thousand years. The past weeks had been unremittingly lonely.

  Daisy squeezed his hand as if understanding his feelings. "We'll keep in touch," she said.

  Everyone understood… visitors weren't welcome.

  * * *

  The night air was cold, October well into fall at the mountain altitude, the stars vivid in the blackness of the sky. Etienne drove the single-horse carriage with an effortless skill, the reins looped lightly around his gloved hands as they traveled through the city streets. At the outskirts of town, he transferred the reins into one hand, touching Daisy's fingers with his.

  "Are you warm enough?"

  She nodded, settled beneath a fur lap-robe, his heated body pressed closely to hers, an unfathomable contentment inundating her soul.

  "Are you tired?"

  "A little." She found herself existing more often now in a state of benign lassitude, with the baby absorbing some of her energy.

  "I'll put you to sleep in twenty more minutes. Louis has the cook preparing some warm almond milk for you."

  "If you're going to take such good care of me, having your children could get to be a habit." The smile she gave him was unmotherly and seductive, her awareness of his thigh and arm and shoulder like a resplendent memory and promise.

  "In that case," the Duc said, his voice charged with husky emotion, "taking care of you offers an added dimension of fascinating… advantage." The back of his gloved fingertips brushed the curve of her cheek. "You look radiant. Are you as pleased as I?" He grinned into the starlite night, adding in a teasing voice, "No one can be as pleased as I, but are you half as pleased?"

  "I look in the mirror a hundred times a day waiting to see… that first indication, wanting to have visual evidence of our child." Reaching up, she kissed the coolness of his cheek. "I'm ecstatic. And thank you for coming so soon. I told Father I should be more mature and patient, but I wanted you here with me… right now. I couldn't wait."

  "When your telegram came and I read it, the normal operation of my brain stopped for a moment in this shuddering suspension of belief, followed a second later by a fanfare of trumpets and colors flying. Bourges said I quite literally stopped breathing fo
r a moment. You couldn't have kept me away."

  "How long can you stay?" She said it quickly, like a child would ask for bad news about bedtime.

  "I hope to stay as long as you need me."

  His words frightened her mildly, for they didn't speak of permanence. Although she understood in the rational portion of her mind he couldn't offer her what she wished. "You found a house. I'm glad." She could say that at least without being clinging and difficult. He had said they would marry, too, when his divorce was final. When that happened, he would be hers in the commitment of his world. She should be content with that. She shouldn't want everything. She must accept there would be times in the coming months they would be separated. She worried, though, in a small recess of her mind—about those separations, her jealousy a stabbing reality. What would he be doing and with whom… should they be regularly apart?

  "I'll build something better… later."

  "I'm finding my nesting instincts are becoming more active. A biological manifestation apparently, because I've never cared particularly where I lived. I've always had my own apartments in my parents' homes and been content." She didn't say she had this overpowering impulse to include him in her nest. An irrational kind of jealous bondage so that he was hers alone.

  "Do some shopping tomorrow then. I only bought the bare minimum today. Nest to your heart's content. I'll help you."

  "I'm going to buy baby things."

  His arms went around her shoulders and he hugged her close. "We'll buy out the stores."

  "Oh, Etienne…" Daisy whispered, tears spilling over onto her cheeks, her heart so full of love she found the boundless sky too small to hold her happiness.

  He stopped the buggy when he realized she was crying, pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently, his lips cool, their pressure delicate. "Don't cry," he whispered. "We don't have to buy out the stores." His teasing huskiness drifted over the softness of her mouth.

  Daisy hiccupped a wet smile, then spoke from her heart because the words wouldn't stay repressed any longer, because she couldn't be acceptant or practical as she should be, as she'd been most of her life. "I love you too much," she said in a tremulous voice, "and I'm happy beyond any dimension I'd ever envisioned, but I'm jealous and petty, too, and I want you beside me every minute, every day. I want you to stay with me after we buy baby clothes; I want you to stay with me until our baby isn't a baby, until our baby has brothers and sisters, and I'm afraid of my own possessiveness. I'll drive you away with this intense need for ownership. I'm sorry. I wish I was more…"

  "Submissive?" Etienne offered, amusement lacing the richness of his voice.

  Daisy's lashes lifted abruptly. "I don't like that word."

  The Duc was pleased to see his darling Daisy had reverted to form. "I think the baby makes you feel this way… along with your nesting instinct. I'm not going anywhere… don't worry."

  "You have to though. Bourges can't telegraph everything, nor can your business manager or—"

  "Let me worry about that. You feel free to be as possessive as you wish. I'll fight back if you become annoying," he added with an indulgent smile.

  "You won't mind? You won't find it intolerable?" She sighed softly. "I'm afraid I'm only going to get worse…"

  "And fatter," he added with a grin.

  "You won't want to look at me," she said with a pout.

  "Or I may want to look at you more." He gently lifted her chin with one crooked finger. "I have my own obsessive inclination of ownership. That's my child you're carrying and I want to see it growing in you."

  "You're sure?" Her question was tentative, a need for assurance.

  "I've been counting the days and hours since I received your telegram till I could see you again. When I went to Isabelle's I was prepared to beg her for a divorce, on my knees if necessary. I'm sure," he said in a quiet, hushed voice. "I've never been so sure of anything in my life."

  Daisy's smile was blissful. "You'll allow me to be demanding then?"

  "I'll allow you anything, darling. My benevolence knows no bounds."

  "That must be why women love you." She said it in open artlessness, as if she were not a sophisticated woman who had lured him more provocatively than most females.

  A benevolence of a specific sort, the Duc recognized, was the reason women found him attractive, but he knew Daisy was speaking in a more comprehensive, unsubstantial way, so he said, "As long as you love me, I'm content."

  They were in Clear River Valley short minutes later, the two-story log home nestled at the base of the treeline, aglow with light, welcoming with every window golden warm against the dark shadowed pines.

  And when Louis greeted them at the door, Daisy experienced a delicious feeling of coming home. Louis had been such an integral part of their existence at Etienne's home on the Seine, it seemed for a moment, she were back in Paris. But the gun rack in the foyer reminded her succinctly she was not in cosmospolitan Paris, as did the moosehead mounted at the top of the stairway.

  "Tomorrow you have free rein, darling," Etienne said, noting the direction of her gaze as they ascended the wide staircase, carpeted in a tartan plaid typical of male hunting lodges. "There was only time today to clean. Apparently the Viscount's household was a bachelor one."

  "You don't mind?"

  "It's your home, too."

  "Then the moosehead goes."

  "Have the moosehead taken down, Louis," the Duc said to his valet who was preceding them up the stairs.

  "Immediately, Your Grace."

  "Morning's fine, Etienne."

  "In the morning, then, Louis," Etienne said. "Unless some of the help is available tonight."

  Louis understood without turning around, the Duc wished immediate action. "Very good, sir," he replied, opening the door into the master bedroom and standing aside. "Your punch is ready, sir, on the table near the fire, and Miss Daisy's milk will be brought up directly."

  "Thank you, Louis. Tell Cook breakfast will be late."

  "Certainly, sir, and if I might say so, sir, it's very pleasant to have Miss Daisy in your household again."

  "You may tell her yourself, Louis. Ceremony is out of place in this setting." The Duc's smile was warm.

  Louis turned to Daisy with a small bow, his smile welcoming. "It's a pleasure to have you back, Miss Daisy. We've missed you."

  He spoke in the royal we, as Etienne often did, more conscious of protocol than even his master. Daisy smiled at the trim, middle-aged man who had taken care of Etienne since he was first in need of a valet. "I'm pleased to be back with you, Louis. And tomorrow you must help me put this house to rights."

  "Certainly, Miss Daisy. Now that the house has a mistress, the decor requires substantial renovation. We look forward to your directions."

  Etienne was standing patiently at Daisy's side but his gaze restlessly surveyed the room, his separation from Daisy too long for much more polite conversation. His glance returned to Louis, a bland, pointed look to which Louis immediately responded.

  "Good night, sir. Will you require anything else?"

  "No." The Duc's response was exceptionally quiet.

  "Good night, Miss."

  "Good night, Louis."

  And when the door closed softly behind Louis a moment later, Etienne pulled Daisy into his arms and kissed her, fiercely, intensely, with pent-up passion. He'd had to sit beside her and talk to her, only touching in the ways prescribed by politeness while they dined and visited with her family. Now at last he had her alone, after weeks of separation, and a wild need raced through his senses.

  She felt softer than he remembered, her body filled out with new, rounded contours, her breasts fuller against his chest. And her mouth beneath his, her lips, wet and warm, offered a sweetness he craved.

  Tightening her arms around Etienne's neck, Daisy rose on tiptoe, the pressure of her lips demanding more, wanting more, her body stretched against his hard frame, offering her passion.

  His tongue penetrated her mouth in
slow, languid arousal, the evidence of his need rigid against her belly.

  Lifting his mouth slightly, he brushed a lingering kiss over her lips. She reached higher, wanting his mouth back, wanting the sensation, the pressure, the taste and feel of him. The Duc eluded her. "I promised to put you to sleep…" he said, remembering.

  "I'm not tired…" Daisy breathed, her blood heated and pulsing, the feel of his erection, hard and long, burning into her body. Her tongue traced the curve of his lower lip she could reach. "Kiss me…"

  "I shouldn't…" Etienne murmured! obliging her demand, his mouth caressing hers lightly, "you should sleep." He nibbled gently on her bottom lip and she shifted slightly to better feel the tingling heat between her thighs. "You're sleeping for two now…" he whispered, his hands lazily stroking the silken curve of her waist, his mouth lowering to hers once again, its pressure subtle, inquiring, teasing.

  "Umm," Daisy sighed a few moments later, as the Duc's mouth released hers. Her hand drifted over the soft wool of his lapels, past the buttoned front of his jacket, slipped downward to the strained fabric over the swelling bulge in his trousers. "You don't seem tired either…" She stroked lightly and squeezed.

  "Umm." The Duc's response rumbled deep in his throat, a luxurious smile lifted his mouth, sleep the farthest thing from his mind.

  "Am I keeping you awake?" Daisy murmured, coy and teasing, her sensuous massage adding vivid dimension to the Duc's arousal.

  "Acutely." Gazing down at her, his green eyes were heavy-lidded, intemperant, extravagant with desire. "I have a feeling I may be up much of the night," he whispered. "If you don't mind."

  There was a faint wildness in the rough-soft timbre of his voice, and a familiar flare of fevered, intoxicating excitement raced through Daisy's senses. Her nipples peaked hard at the insinuation in his words, her breasts ached to be touched, sensitive suddenly to the fabric of her chemise, to the muscled strength of the Duc's body. A fluttering palpitation in the heated dampness between her legs kept time with the agitated beat of her heart and it took effort to force the air from her lungs. "I don't mind…" Her seductive dark lashes lifted to his another scant inch allowing him to see her flame-hot desire.