Forbidden by Susan Johnson (good books to read for teens .TXT) 📕

"We could have stayed home for that."

"I know. But you like this, so I came for you." Reaching over, he covered her hand with his. "And this time for Daisy too. Let me know when you've had enough and we can go home."

"When Daisy's settled."

"When Daisy's settled," he said with a small sigh.

Daisy rode her paint mare out past the perimeter of Newport to the beach road that would take her eventually to the shore. She rode slowly, letting the morning sun and gentle breeze soothe her tumultuous thoughts, hoping the quiet open landscape would offer repose to the chaos in her mind. No other women. The phrase was etched vividly in her consciousness. Was it possible? Could Etienne have been truly faithful since she'd left? How much did that disclosure matter, what weight did his admission carry in her own personal assessment of him?

She grappled with the exact measure of her jealousy, the unforgettable message Isabelle had delivered, the actuality of Etienne's words being true. But most of all she struggled with her intense reaction to his presence—last night at Nadine's and again this morning at breakfast. She could intellectualize the liabilities in their relationship with a cool scrutiny, but Etienne was stark temptation to her, a passionate appetite she couldn't control. If Nadine hadn't interrupted them last night, she would have tumbled willingly, impatiently, into his bed. Regardless of the hundreds of guests on the floor below, regardless of her family's presence—shameless in her urgency and need.

On reaching the seashore, she guided her brown and white mount into the shallows, the low water and marsh grasses reminding her of the journeys along the Yellowstone at home. The vast open sky recalled the familiar landscape of home, too, although this sky bordered the horizonless sea and not her beloved prairies. Should she leave Newport, she mused as her pony splashed along in the shallows; should she flee the Duc's too powerful attraction, escape the tantalizing promise he'd made as he left? "I'll be coming after you," he'd said.

She shivered under the hot sun, a chill sliding down her spine. Would she be able to resist? Would she want to?

The Duc spent the morning at the beach with Hector, building sandcastles, digging trenches to be filled with water, sharing a picnic, listening to his grandson's toddler chatter. Barefoot, they both played in the water, carrying bucketsful of ocean to their castle moat. And when Jolie came down later in the morning to join them, watching their activities from an umbrella-shaded chair, they came up occasionally to rest on the blanket she'd spread beside her on the sand. The hot sun was like a diaphanous narcotic as they lay basking in its rays, Hector dozing at times from his energetic play, the Duc drowsy after his brief hours of sleep the night before, his body still fatigued from the strain of the previous day's polo game.

The beach was busy with nannies and children, an infrequent parent present as well. And Etienne found his gaze hypnotically drawn, as he rested beside Hector, to the young babies and toddlers cavorting on the beach. Unnerving possibilities swam up from his subconscious, disastrous musings having to do with his and Daisy's child. Would its hair be the heavy silk of Daisy's or touched with curl like his? Its hair would be dark, there was no question of that. But how would the different color of their eyes be reconciled in their child, and whose nose would it favor, whose mouth? Both Justin and Jolie had his coloring, so he had a strong recollection of dark-haired babies… his and Daisy's baby.

Disciplining his mind to a realistic sanity, he shook away his mental aberrations only to find the same thoughts looping through his consciousness a few moments later as some child's voice was raised in laughter or a baby would cry or a chubby toddler would gambol past, running in the tremulous heart-stopping unsteadiness so typical of that age.

He was too old, he told himself, with two grown children and a grandson of his own, to be fantasizing like some grass-green cub. He had had his children when he was young, a sensible time, and his wish for a child with Daisy was ludicrous. She would hardly speak to him. He mentally dismissed his fantasy with deprecating logic, embarrassed at the extent of his longing. Thinking of having children, babies was madness; he was going to be forty at Christmas.

Would Daisy mind being pregnant? Insensate to reason, his mind pursued the obsession stirring his susceptible emotions. Isabelle had found the entire situation loathsome. Did all women? Or would Daisy find pleasure in bearing a child?

Should he ask her, he wondered, a smile forming on his lips, when he saw her this afternoon?

As it turned out, the Duc arrived at Nadine's picnic almost simultaneously with a storm rolling in from the sea, its heavy thunderheads darkening the sky, blowing in on brisk thirty-mile-an-hour winds, the shoreline bearing the assault of crashing foam-tipped waves. All Nadine's picnic guests were in the process of scrambling into barouches while Belmont servants struggled to secure the raised carriage hoods against the imminent rain.

Catching sight of Trey helping his groom tie a wicker hamper onto the back of a well-sprung landau, the Duc guided his horse through the numerous vehicles, their teams restive in the rising wind, his own mount sidling and sidestepping in response to the nervous teams.

"Where's Daisy?" Etienne had to shout to be heard above the shrieking gusts. He hadn't seen her in the congestion of people and carriages.

Trey came closer, putting his hand to his ear, and when the Duc repeated his question, answered. "She's still at the lighthouse. She stayed behind to paint." His words, strangely muted by the intensity of the blustery squalls, were perceived by the Duc's auditory senses in a rhythm of half-spoken syllables.

"Alone?" he asked.

"With the lighthouse keeper. You brought the rain," Trey went