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

After she fell asleep, he held her in his arms and watched the barge lights on the river. A strange melancholy overcame him in the aftermath of such unalloyed bliss, as though his previous life had passed by without notice like the barges at night. With unaccountable speed, too, in an idle waste of precious days, weeks, and years—too often devoted to those pursuits of every generation before him… pleasure.

His love for Daisy gave him pause to realize how much he'd missed. Time passed quickly, inexorably—his fortieth birthday was only months away. His father had died at forty-two. How transient and fleeting was life, he suddenly thought, another chugging barge sliding past his windows. Daisy's sleeping presence warmed him, body and soul, her breath a soft rhythm across his chest, her love essential to his happiness.

He didn't want to be told he was selfish for wanting—after twenty years of duty—some happiness for himself. An intimacy with a woman he loved.

His dynastic marriage seemed shabby and tarnished in comparison. As did his wife's superficial requirements for a husband. He was simply a convenience for her—someone to contribute to her lavish way of life, a consort with an appropriately prominent title and position.

It was suddenly no longer enough to fill the void of his life with amusements.

Not enough.

Life was too short.

And happiness too elusive.

He had found at last the vital woman who touched his soul and spirit, and he would keep her.

Against every Montigny and magistrate and social dictum in the world.

The Duc was startled to see his valet when he opened his eyes. He wondered how long Louis had been standing there, silent and respectful.

"Visitors, Monsieur le Duc, in the antechamber."

His voice was so hushed Etienne debated for a moment whether he had misunderstood. Louis knew better than he how to deal with visitors. "Why are they in the antechamber?" he asked then because obviously if they'd gotten past his butler Burns and Louis both, an explanation was required.

"They insisted on seeing you, Monsieur le Duc."

"They?"

"The Archbishop, sir, and the Dowager Comtesse Montigny.'"

His consternation must have showed because Louis went on in a swift, hushed recital of the events preceding their present occupancy of the antechamber, only two rooms removed from the Duc's bedroom. Louis's expression and tone even more than his staccato explosion of words conveyed the extent of the struggle to keep them contained in their present position. "They were determined to enter your bedroom, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Should I have them carried out?"

Etienne appreciated Louis's loyalty and for a moment he relished the notion of having the hypocritical prig of an Archbishop ejected from his home. Isabelle's mother, however, could not be handled so cavalierly. Glancing down at Daisy, still asleep in his arms, he said in a murmur, "Give them tea and tell them I'll be out presently," then added in gratitude, "And thank you, Louis, for keeping them at bay."

His valet's distress was still evident. "I wish, Your Grace, I could have checked them at the door, but Burns said the Archbishop quite literally pushed him out of the way. An Archbishop, sir. One considers the possible repercussions of opposing an Archbishop."

"There was nothing you could do, of course."

"Burns and two footmen are guarding the door to the antechamber. It's locked, Sire."

Etienne couldn't help but smile at the picture of his two guests locked into his waiting room. He hoped they didn't try to open the door.

He was dressed five minutes later, Daisy still sleeping peacefully in his bed. They'd been up until very late and had not his internal clock reminded him of his normal waking time for his ride in the park, he too might not have wakened. How long would Louis have silently stood here? he wondered.

By the time he had quickly thrown on his clothes, Louis had a steaming cup of coffee, pitch-black and heavily sweetened, waiting for him, and he stood at the window for a few brief moments to drink it. The river traffic was heavy this morning, the sun lush-golden, the new leaves the chartreuse-green of springtime. He was in love and loved; the day was shining new; his world was full of hope and expectation.

"Show me in, Louis. After that coffee, I can even face the ass of an Archbishop, and… my pious mother-in-law."

Etienne brushed aside Burns's apologies when he arrived at the locked door, thanked him and the two footmen for guarding his privacy, and, after the key was quietly turned in the well-oiled lock, he was announced.

"We woke you," his mother-in-law said, casting a disapproving glance over his casual dress of shirtsleeves, trousers, and Moroccan slippers. Her words were a declarative statement, not an apology.

"Yes, actually you did. Can I help you with something?" The Duc's voice was mild. Neither the Archbishop of Paris nor Isabelle's mother intimidated him. He wasn't pious, nor particularly religious; the Church in France had overstepped its spiritual arena as far as he was concerned, both in government and society, and its strictures concerned him little.

Before he'd moved beyond the threshold, the Archbishop said in stern, forbidding tones, as if he were addressing a subservient cleric or reciting a prepared text, "The Church does not condone divorce."

His courage had been bolstered since last night, apparently by his sister's dour-faced support, Etienne facetiously thought, remembering the Archbishop's pale complexion of the previous night. "I'm aware of the Church's position," Etienne mildly replied, walking over to a chair near the two Montignys who were glaring like the wrath of God from his Empire sofa. "The laws of France, however, establish the necessary procedures. I hope you didn't rise this early in the morning to debate secular versus clerical law with me. I'm not in the—"

"There has never been a divorce in the Montigny family," Isabelle's mother interrupted, her slight form primly erect, her voice reminiscent of her daughter's; they both had the same cool precision of speech.