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

look forward to it." Having been with the Duc since before his marriage, Louis was pleased to see his master truly happy for the first time in years. "Do you think the lady would like that special hazelnut pastry with honey from your Colsec estate?"

"Yes… yes." Etienne paused. "I should have thought of it myself. Thank you, Louis, she'll love it. Twenty minutes?"

"Twenty minutes, precisely, Your Grace."

Breakfast was heated, lush, and leisurely from the fragrant, sticky pastry to the last sweet whipped-cream-and-hot-chocolate-flavored kiss. The sun had risen high in the sky before the Duc rolled over in bed to ring for Louis again. "You need some clothes," Etienne said in explanation to Daisy's questioning glance. "Louis will see to it. We're going to see Mama."

"I don't want to. I'd rather stay here." Etienne had been particularly tender this morning, waking her with a gentle, lingering kiss, making love to her with a demonstrative sweetness—the raging zealous passion of last night replaced by an almost poignant susceptibility. Her body was aglow, her heart as well, with love of him and she wanted nothing to intrude. She wanted selfishly to keep him within touch, within sight… alone.

"I'm taking you to Mama's to show you off." He looked darker against the white sheets, smiling and sensual and more perfect than any man deserved.

"No," Daisy softly protested. "Later…"

"Yes, and later we'll do that," Etienne replied, lighthearted and intuitive—or perhaps experienced. He recognized that sultry look in a woman's eyes.

"Are you sure about your mother?" Daisy was hesitant. "After the scene at the Opéra . . ."

"Mother is more unconventional than I. Trust me."

"About your divorce too?"

"About everything. She never did like the Montignys anyway so the divorce will come as no shock. The trustees of my father's estate, not my mother, arranged my marriage." He spoke in a lazy deprecating way, sated and content and immune for the moment from rancor.

"You had no say?" Dubious query colored her tone, although Daisy understood a widow under French law inherited only a small portion of her husband's estate.

"Since I was under twenty-one I wasn't legally in control of my inheritance yet, the war with Prussia loomed on the horizon jeopardizing much of our eastern land, and I planned on serving in a cavalry unit against the violent wishes of the trustees. All these factors influenced the cautious natures of my father's conservators. If I was killed in the war some third cousin twice removed who was drinking himself to death in the Indies would inherit. Naturally the trustees were appalled. I wasn't unaware of my obligation either after being raised with the legacy of the de Vec title." Stretching like a great jungle cat, he went on in a moderate uninflected tone. "You know as well as I do, as a woman my mother had little control over the de Vec inheritance. We both understood the Montigny alliance they proposed would be useful."

"Useful?" Somehow she disliked thinking Etienne could be so callous.

He shrugged, looking at her for a moment from under his dark brows. "They threatened my mother's income if I didn't marry and provide an heir before I left. Before you say it," he added, putting his palm up, "there wasn't time for a protracted fight in court even if I hadn't agreed with the need for an heir. The de Vec bloodlines go back to Charles Martel," he said, aware of what kinship to the first kings of France meant. "I felt a certain sense of duty. All my friends were contracting similar marriages—as had their parents before them. We are not on the north-ern plains… with the freedom you take for granted." His final words were poignant somehow for a wealthy man of influence and power.

Daisy considered then how great their personal freedoms were within the Absarokee culture: marriage was by mutual consent; divorce equally so; women shared in property with the same prerogatives as their husbands; and courtship was a time of laughter and loving. Wealth was not the first priority, nor the tenth, and the thought of allowing a third party to autocratically select your spouse was repressive. "I'm sorry," she softly said, reaching up from her lazy sprawl to touch the dark silky arc of his brow. "I wish I had been there twenty years ago to carry you away with me to my lodge."

He smiled a small grateful smile. "I'm available now… to be carried away."

"Almost…"

"Eventually," he corrected with a grin.

Louis was sent to Adelaide's with a list of clothing needed and an hour later the Duc and Daisy were seated in a flower-filled conservatory, the scent of hibiscus heavy in the air. Etienne's mother was saying how pleased she was to meet Daisy at last, while the Duc lounged comfortably, his arm around Daisy. Daisy was most struck at first meeting the Dowager Duchesse by the striking physical differences between mother and son. How unlike in looks they were.

The Dowager Duchesse was as light as her son was dark, her hair a golden-honey color, her eyes a curious shade of translucent azure, and his height, Daisy decided, had not been inherited from Maman. She was dainty with gamine features; a contrast to the swarthy aquiline modeling of her son. She must have been very young when Etienne was born because she was still extremely youthful in appearance… dressed becomingly in a sprigged and beribboned muslin flower-print gown.

"You've made Etienne very happy, my dear," Heloise pleasantly said, "and I thank you for it."

"You're entirely welcome," Daisy replied, thinking .how very easy it was to love her son. "I hope only… well… all will be reconciled."

"With the Montignys you mean. Thank God for the new divorce law. Didn't I tell you when it was first enacted to end it?" she said to her son. "He's too civil—he didn't."

"Mama's more impulsive." The Duc's smile was indulgent.

"You didn't know what love was, you mean." His mother's smile was discerning.

"And you do?" The Duchesse had for years amused herself in the