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

The whispers, the hissing titillated cadence of spellbound excitement broke out instantly. Wide-eyed, fascinated, with lorgnettes raised, kid-gloved hands to mouth, and a goodly number of surreptitious male smiles, the well-dressed throng took in the delectable scene: Did you hear that? Did you hear him? I can't believe it with the Archbishop at her side. De Vec wouldn't care if God himself stood beside her. De Vec's little amorata is beautiful isn't she? And young, her skin's like satin. She is exotically dark. Look at Isabelle's eyes—that's fire. Will Charles call him out? The Archbishop's sputtering, first time I've seen him at a loss for words…

"Valentin."

The Duc's tone was extremely soft, but the single word was a directive. Taking his arm from Daisy's shoulder, he bent his head in solicitous intimacy, as if they stood alone, rather than in the eye of the storm. "I'll be out in a moment," he murmured. "Go with Valentin."

Without waiting for an answer, knowing Valentin would see the ladies outside, he turned back to his wife and her entourage. With exquisite control, he softly said, "Don't take me on in public, Isabelle. Just a friendly warning. Charles, shut your mouth. You look like a hungry frog." His half-lidded glance idly swept the assembled magistrates. "I hope we all understand each other. It would save me the trouble of calling each of you out." The ensuing silence indicated every challenged man was fully aware of the Duc's skill with a dueling pistol. He'd killed two men over a lesser insult one morning in his youth—cool, composed, and not entirely sober. Directly afterward he'd returned to the lady's bed he'd left a brief hour before. With maturity he'd become less impulsive—blooding was enough now in a duel… but one never knew with de Vec's temper.

His chill green eyes scanned the men briefly—waiting.

After a small silence, he inclined his head in the merest suggestion of a bow. "Good evening then," he murmured and walked away.

The whispers exploded in a small hissing resonance as the Duc exited the brilliantly lit Opera House, the excited comment literally vibrating through the air. Did you hear him… so hard and cold—like steel. A duel, he'd challenged them all. He could kill every one of them. You know de Vec, he can shoot out a pigeon's eye at a hundred yards. Look, the Archbishop's going to faint. Not Isabelle, though. If she were a man she'd shoot him herself. Did you see the American? How could you miss her. I can see why de Vec is willing to kill for her…

She was very small, Daisy found herself inexplicably thinking while she stood on the pavement outside waiting for their carriage to be brought up, her fixation on Isabelle's size incomprehensible when she should be concerned instead with the whispers and gossip and Etienne's reason for staying behind. But in her mind's eye forever etched was the image of Isabelle's blonde perfection and diminutive form. As if their rivalry were a metaphorical process of physical selection and she was fortunate to be taller. As if Isabelle's smaller size accounted for her malevolence, she reflected in the next flashing association. As if the yellow-eyes-god had compensated for the Duchesse de Vec's size by giving her Etienne as a husband—the next disastrous correlation suggested. No! Daisy silently protested, disavowing the morbidity of her thoughts, the rushing panic of her apprehension. She did not want to consider Isabelle's possession of Etienne or the legality of his wife's position—or worse—the jeopardy of her own. Stop! she chastised in the next pulsebeat, refusing to allow her emotions to continue in such gloomy contemplation.

Aïda's final dungeon scene of doomed lovers flashed into her mind. She shivered at the terrifying image, as if one of the spirits of evil had touched her.

"Are you cold, darling?" the Duc inquired, coming up behind her suddenly, pulling her close so she felt his warmth. He spoke calmly as though the riveting attention and Isabelle, all the judges and the Archbishop didn't exist. "You are cold," he added, touching her fingers.

"Yes, no… a little, maybe… the last scene… bothered me for a moment."

"I'm truly sorry about Isabelle."

"No… I mean from Aïda."

His eyes met hers and he saw her fear. "Would you mind walking… it isn't far… would you be too cold?" His voice was gentle, filled with apology. Their carriage had come up, a liveried servant holding the door open, while Valentin and Adelaide politely waited a small distance away.

Daisy nodded, feeling a need for solitude, as if the Paris night could dispel the memory of Isabelle and her powerful cohorts.

"Go on without us," he said to Adelaide and Valentin.

And they understood.

"You needn't divorce her," Daisy said, her hand in the Duc's as they walked along the lamplit boulevard, the warm evening air like velvet, her thoughts less unsettled now with Isabelle distanced. Marriage in the white man's culture wasn't a necessity in her world. "I don't care if the divorce isn't possible. The Absarokee ways are different. If you love me, that's enough. To be with you is… enough." Her embroidered evening mantle flared in soft undulating waves as she walked. "I don't want your title; I don't need your wealth or your estates. I have all that."

As a chieftain's daughter in her own world, she was as powerful and influential as any de Vec. She had wealth too, although she could live as simply in a lodge on the prairie. And as far as land… she, together with her clan and family, owned vast acres, a territorial legacy Etienne couldn't match.

"I'm divorcing her," the Duc answered, "for myself. I don't want endless repetitions of what happened tonight. I want you for my wife in my world too." His diamond studs glimmered with the same intensity as his eyes in the flickering shadows of the gas lamps. And I want you to have my child, he thought, walking down the Paris boulevards with a woman he'd