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

necessity to create, he called for his sous-chefs and went to work.

The other three chefs were allowed to suggest some choice dishes for the lady's pleasure and Etienne watched with indulgent good humor as they tempted Daisy with the arts of their expertise. She decided on a simple macaroni à la napolitaine, partly because the young Italian chef was so proud of his native dish, and had not the other chefs been left despondent by her decision, the macaroni and baba would have been enough. She agreed instead to taste the maître d'hôtel's lobster a l'américaine in honor of her heritage as well as tomato and shrimp bisque suggested by the vice-chef.

"Some Montreuil peaches too," the Duc added at the last, supplementing the menu with his choice for an après-opera snack on a summer night. "And a Chateau Latour and a Chateau d'Yquem."

They were served à la russe6 at a small bronze and chalcedony table set beside the balcony door in Etienne's bedroom suite. Both had changed from their evening clothes into comfortable robes, a forest-green foulard silk of Etienne's oversized on Daisy's slender frame. Barefoot and relaxed, they sipped only champagne while waiting for the first dish to be brought up.

"Life is good," Etienne softly murmured, lifting his glass to Daisy.

"When you're this close," Daisy quietly replied, raising her stemmed goblet, her smiling face delicately bathed in candlelight from the single branch set on the table.

"It is better then, isn't it… ?" Etienne's eyes held hers over the rim of his glass, the sparkling champagne as effervescent as his spirits.

"We should just lock the door."

"And ignore the world."

"For a week at least," Daisy whispered.

The Duc smiled. "My dear practical minx. I was thinking more romantically in terms of forever."

Daisy smiled back. "Is it enough to say forever?"

"Of course," he lightly said, in the mood right then to actually believe his facile words.

"You're good for me." At ease, happy, content—even the events at the Opéra erased from her mind, Daisy understood at last the sea-deep, mountain-high splendor of love.

"And I intend to be even better for you… once the servants are dismissed."

Daisy grinned. "I may eat very slowly and make you wait."

"Fine," he said without concern.

"Fine? How blas� you are, de Vec." She held out her glass to be refilled.

He was extremely hard to bait—perhaps impossible. Alone most of his life, he'd developed the habits of a hermit. The scarlet brocade of his robe shimmered as he moved from his lounging pose to pick up the bottle. Reaching over to pour the pale liquid into her glass, he smiled at her. "Darling, another hour or so hardly matters," he murmured, leaning back in his chair.

She made a small moue, an intrinsically feminine response. "I deplore your damnable reserve."

"Should I pant after you?" His eyes were amused.

"Well, maybe sometime you might." A small testiness colored her tone, like a young country maid new to city ways.

It was a supreme act of affection when he benevolently replied, "If you wish, I certainly will."

"When?" She was testing her power.

"Sometime…" he said with a faint smile, "… when you least expect it."

His smile was so wolfish Daisy immediately took alarm. "Not in public," she quickly said.

"Oh, are there reservations now on this particular act of unrestrained regard?" An audacious man, he had no reservations at all.

"Perhaps," she slowly said, trying to decipher the lingering smile on his face.

"Are churches public?" he softly inquired, his face suddenly a mask of propriety, "—say one of the more out-of-the-way apse chapels?"

Her eyes widened in a delicate flutter of dark lacy lashes. "Definitely yes."

"What about the maze at Saint Cloud? Actually quite a lot of panting pursuit has gone on there over the centuries." His lazy drawl suggested a personal acquaintance with the garden.

"Etienne!" A hushed exclamation of remonstrance.

"You prefer more privacy then." Lounging in his chair, the scarlet silk of his robe heightening the ebony black of his hair and the swarthy hue of his skin, his eyes in the candlelight, shadowed with the Asiatic cast of some long-ago Tartar antecedent, he had the look of an Eastern potentate… a black prince of midnight at ease in his unconventional world.

"Apparently more than you," Daisy sardonically replied.

"That's probably true," he agreed with a wry smile. He didn't actually require privacy at all depending on the degree of his moodiness or sobriety.

At a courteous quiet knock, his gaze lifted to the door. "Ah, and here's your bisque." Which put an end to their discussion of the finite degrees of public display.

The food arrived in leisurely succession, beginning with the shrimp bisque, progressing through the macaroni à anapolitaine to the lobster, baba, and peaches. Daisy ate, and Duc primarily drank, although he tasted the macaroni when Daisy insisted. It was superb, he agreed, the prefect melding of Parmesan cheese, ham, and tomato sauce. He refrained from mentioning in all his visits to Italy he'd studiously avoided macaroni.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" he teased, picking one of the golden blush peaches from the bowl before him, taking delight inDaisy's appetite; the women he knew were generally more concerned with not eating.

At the moment, trying to decide how to best approach the succulent lobster shaped like a crown, topped with braised tomatoes and glazed with lobster butter, she only nodded and smiled. Her decision made, she pulled at a sauce-drenched piece of lobster and after putting it in her mouth, shut her eyes for a moment in pleasurable relish.

The Duc felt an answering rush of pleasure course through his senses. She was, he thought, a woman of captivatingly varied parts: more natural than a country lass; as sophisticated as a queen; immodestly capable of holding her own in a man's profession; as beautiful as the most treasured sunrise from his childhood—and seductive… as orchids drenched with jungle rain seduced the eye and lured one's sensibilities.

Like an epicurean voyeur he watched her demolish the lobster, capriciously selecting a piece here and a bite there; she'd eaten each dish with the same wanton discretion—choosing only