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

"Yes," Empress said. "Later. We're dining with the Rutherfords first."

David Ney, Marquis de Fallon, waved as he turned his pony's head. "Till then." He saluted with a casual wave, and kicking his pony into a canter, followed the Duc.

"Are you all right?" Blaze asked Daisy, reaching out to touch her hand.

"I'm fine, just fine." Her voice was crisp. "Nadine has a new darling," she added, curtly. "Somehow it doesn't surprise me."

Empress and Blaze exchanged glances.

"Nadine calls everyone darling," Empress said.

"She calls every handsome man darling. Let's be specific."

Daisy's gaze traveled down the line of carriages to the one holding the hostess of the French polo team who was at the moment smiling up into the Duc de Vec's laughing face. Nadine Belmont, second wife to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Belmont, a man old enough to be her grandfather, was arching her back provocatively, showing her famous bosom to best advantage.

"If the Duc hadn't gone to her, she'd still be screaming," Blaze declared. "It's not as though he had a choice."

"You don't have to defend him to me. I know as well as you do, Etienne doesn't let others make his choices for him. If he didn't want to go, he wouldn't have. Now, can we change the subject because I don't care to be viewed with those consoling looks of sympathy. He and Nadine will get along swimmingly. She collects handsome men and Etienne holds the record for female acquisitions in this century. A match made in heaven."

Daisy hadn't known what to expect on seeing Etienne again. She supposed with female vanity she'd expected him to show some feeling, indicate in some romantic way that he cared—he'd always care in some poetic eternal golden dream of unrequited love.

She should have realized her sentimental fantasies were outside the scope of his emotions. Etienne Mattel didn't pine. By personality and inclination he rejected that sensibility. He found another woman was what he did. And she'd seen Isabelle's staggering list to prove it.

"Speaking of matches," Blaze said, segueing into a more palatable topic as requested, "they left blood on the field this afternoon. My word, that was a brutal game."

"No more than those at the summer camp when everyone's betting their best horses on the outcome." Empress had been shocked at her initial introduction as spectator to the Absarokee warriors' notion of play. The riding game of choice on the northern plains was a cross between lacrosse and polo or more aptly between suicide and warfare, with no quarter given or requested. Played in minimum garb of leggings and moccasins, the first time she'd seen Trey ride off the field after a game covered with blood, she'd fainted.

Since then she'd become accustomed to their masculine games where courage, bravery, and an undeniable audacity were prerequisites of competition.

But in lieu of horses, she suspected the prize today was pride.

Hazard and Trey rode up then, dust-covered, sweaty, exhausted, but cheerful. There was satisfaction in a hard-fought game where the teams were evenly matched and the play rough-and-tumble. Hazard's biggest complaint with Eastern polo was its conservative style. Coming from a culture and generation where warfare had been a way of life in his youth, he missed the bold intrepidity of attack. "We'll take them in the play-offs," Hazard said, his smile white in the gathering dusk.

"No broken bones?" Blaze inquired with an answering smile.

"A few bruises, that's all. Nothing to keep me from dancing with you tonight," Hazard gallantly replied. He knew how much Blaze enjoyed Eastern society where she had a vast network of friends from her past.

"Nadine's birthday party promises to outshine Alva Vanderbilt's, I'm told on good authority. An orchestra from Vienna no less."

"Do you want an orchestra from Vienna?" Hazard pleasantly inquired, generous to a fault.

"No, but remind me to tell you what I do want, later."

Her glance-was significant and her husband smiled teasingly. "My word on it, bia."

What Blaze had in mind was not precisely what Hazard envisioned; she was, in fact, deadly serious about what she wanted this time. And later, after a slow trip back through congested traffic to Frank Rutherford's mansion on Bellevue Avenue, when she and Hazard were in their bedroom suite relaxing before dinner, she said, "I want to ask you a favor, darling."

"Not again," he said with a grin from his lounging position on the ornate baroque bed where they'd recently made love.

She turned from the closet where she stood before a vast array of evening gowns, debating which to wear this evening and grinned back at him. "You're eternally boyish… but I'm not complaining."

"You keep me young, bia." Hazard was in fact, at fifty, as trim and fit as ever. Muscled and lean, he lay sprawled on the burgundy silk coverlet, his black hair in silky disarray on the lace-trimmed pillow, his arms thrown over his head, his dark eyes dwelling appreciatively on his wife. "Name your favor."

"I'd like you to try and be pleasant to the Duc de Vec."

Her words brought him sitting upright on the bed, a scowl prominent over his snapping eyes. "Ask me something else, bia. I can't do it." Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he rose in a swift, restless movement and strode over to the window overlooking the ocean and Cliff Walk. He stood nude before the curtained window, looking through the lace panels, the waves crashing against the rocky shore, analogous to the savage impulses filling his mind. "He doesn't deserve our courtesy," he said low and tense.

"You didn't see Daisy's face when he rode up to our carriage after the match."

He whipped around. "He talked to Daisy. How dare he—"

"You should have seen her face, Jon. She's still desperately in love with him."

"No, she isn't. She told me she wasn't any longer. She told me it's over."

"Well, she lied then."

His black eyes stared at her as if he could decipher the discrepancy between Daisy's words and his wife's. When he spoke, his voice was curt, dry