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

I'm giving myself two more weeks, he added at the end, his bold slashing words indicative of his frustration, and with or without progress on this divorce, I'll come to you in Montana. I'm alone and missing you with a sulky gloom predicated by Isabelle's stubborn intractability. How nice it would be if her religious fervor was based on principles more carnal than divine.

I kiss you good-night and send a message of love by your night spirits. Etienne

That same evening in Hazard's study, Daisy, along with her father and brother, was reviewing the afternoon proceedings in court when she suddenly stopped talking in midsentence.

"Are you ill?" Hazard asked, a thin beading of perspiration visible on Daisy's upper lip, her breathing suddenly shallow.

"A little dizzy," she whispered.

"Get your mother," Hazard tersely said to Trey, moving around his desk toward Daisy.

Trey swiftly swung up out of his chair, his silver gaze taking in his sister's stricken look. "I'll get the doctor too."

"No!" Daisy said in a rush of breath.

"Just your mother." Hazard's dark eyes met his son's.

"Oh, dear."

And both men lunged for Daisy as she toppled from her chair. Catching her under her arms, they steadied her for a moment.

"I have her," Hazard said, adjusting his grip so he could lift his daughter into his arms. "Fetch your mother. Bring her upstairs."

"I never faint," Daisy whispered, as Hazard carried her from the room. "Only genteel ladies faint," she added, attempting a smile.

"Maybe some of that de Vec aristocracy rubbed off on you," Hazard teased. "Although it's more likely you've been working too hard." They'd all spent late nights preparing for court, each day's cross-examination requiring new strategies, new assessments. The litigation, currently a priority, nevertheless had to be managed in addition to normal operating procedures at the mines. Everyone had been putting in long days.

After Daisy was settled in bed, and sometime later the servants dismissed, after Blaze had gone downstairs to see to some herbal tea should Daisy need it later, Hazard went in to see his daughter. Standing at the door for a moment before speaking, he digested Blaze's information and momentarily debated his approach with Daisy. "Are you getting too old for a good-night kiss?" he asked, his voice quiet in the silent room.

Daisy shook her head, feeling tremulous and uncertain and not very old at all. The smile she gave her father across the large chamber held a small hint of joy beneath its gravity. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long. Blaze insisted on feeding me something after I was put to bed and she said a roomful of people would upset my appetite."

"Did you eat then?" Hazard approached the tester bed hung with natural linen embroidered in the beaded designs of their people.

"Some apple tart and cream. The beef and vegetables didn't appeal to me."

"Apples and cream are healthy."

Hazard stood beside the bed, a worldly man, but hesitant in the presence of his daughter who guarded her personal feelings so closely. Bending, he kissed her gently on the forehead, brushing her hair lightly with his fingertips before he straightened once again.

"Blaze told you?"

He nodded. "Are you pleased?"

Daisy nodded, too, then as her lips began to quiver, she held open her arms and whispered, "Papa."

He went to her, gathering his daughter into his arms as he had so long ago when she'd come to him, frightened and alone after the death of her mother, and sitting on the side of the bed, he held her in his lap, his arms tight around her. "Everyone's happy for you," he softly said, stroking her back in soothing comfort, his voice tender and low.

"I want Etienne here." She looked at her father, their identical eyes meeting in understanding.

"Then he must be here," Hazard said. His words were simply put, his intentions as plain. He would see that the Duc de Vec left Paris.

"I shouldn't ask for that, it's not grownup or mature, I should act more responsibly, he has—"

"He has responsibilities to you too," Hazard interjected, "and while I'm the last person to subscribe to bourgeois principles," he added with a smile, "when your happiness if involved… he has responsibilities."

"He wants the baby, Papa. Truly."

"Then you'd better tell him. And he'll be here without a party going out for him."

"He wouldn't come to Montana like that." Daisy knew her father was talking about a raiding party, a warrior's method of taking what he wanted whether it was horses or women or hostages.

"Then we'll send a telegram." Hazard smiled, kissing his daughter on the bridge of her fine straight nose. "You see how adaptable I've become?" He might be adaptable, he thought, but he was a father first, and if the Duc de Vec didn't respond suitably, he'd go out himself and bring him back.

"I often feel guilty, Papa, for asking him to give up so much. His family's been part of the fabric of France for a thousand years."

"My uncle Ramsay's family traced their English title back to the Roman conquest of Britain, but he left that heritage behind and found happiness and a new life with our clan."

Daisy had been very young when Ramsay died in the smallpox epidemic that took nearly half of the Absarokees, but her father spoke so often of his adopted English uncle who'd taught him English that she felt she remembered him too. "Do you think he ever regretted leaving?"

"There's a certain commitment, Ramsay used to say, to one's personal happiness. I think he's right. I know he's right." And Hazard recalled his own struggle to reconcile his love for Blaze with his duty to his tribe. "There's a balance… we all seek, between personal happiness and some responsibility to the world we live in and if we're lucky, we find that parity."

"I told Etienne I'd live part of the year in Paris."

Hazard smiled. "He was hoping you would."

"He's going to look into buying stock in some of the Western railroads."

"I see a glowing future.