Immediately aware of the profound impact of Daisy's smile and too long a product of his class and gender, the Duc immediately began rationalizing his sensations. She was of flawless beauty. Naturally he was attracted. He was already aware of his attraction, had, in fact, maneuvered himself into her company tonight for that exact reason. Additionally, she was an uncommon woman—a rare combination of beauty and intelligence. Naturally she'd induce more than his normal response to a lovely female. Maybe the exotic qualities of Red Indian and far-flung wilderness beneath her sophistication bewitched him. Maybe he expected to be eaten alive once he took her to bed and his body was responding in anticipation. Maybe he was simply feeling his age—he would be forty on his next birthday—and her glorious youth was turning his head.
Then, with an expertise honed to perfection by years of practice, he brushed aside the inexplicables and immediately took advantage of his advantage.
She was smiling, genuinely, her small warm hand clasped in his, her heady scent filling his senses. How very convenient, the hunter in him reflected. "Would you care to dance?" he said, his smile amiable, his manner nonthreatening, gracious. "I think I've done sufficient justice to Armand's meal not to offend and I hear Adelaide's musicians tuning up."
Ignoring the reasons she shouldn't—the ones having to do with his scandalous reputation; the ones warning her away from the most popular ladies' man in Paris; the ones labeling him incorrigibly unfaithful; those feelings that had always until now found her unsympathetic to men so handsome they could live off their looks alone; the practical considerations that had kept her immune from dazzling smiles and cultivated charm—she only felt the warmth and strength of his hand enveloping hers.
"I usually don't dance," he quietly said.
She understood what he was revealing. His quiet sincerity humbled her. "I'd like to dance," she declared, nodding slightly. The diamonds in her ears sparkled with her movement and he wanted at that moment, with feelings too unfathomable to even begin to decipher—he wanted to give her his grandmother's diamonds and say, "Here… you'll glorify them." Her dark hair and coloring would be a perfect foil for their brilliance, like stars set against a lush midnight sky.
Adelaide and Valentin exchanged glances when the Duc excused himself and Daisy from the table.
"Before dessert?" one plump young matron remarked, her glance assessing the frothy strawberry meringue being carried in by a footman.
"We'll have dessert later," the Duc politely replied, Daisy's hand in his as they stood to leave.
"It might be gone by then," the lady persisted, genuinely concerned anyone would miss the pastry chef's fantasia.
The Duc only smiled, unable to utter the indelicate response ready on his tongue.
Daisy said, "Do you mind, Adelaide, if we abandon the strawberry meringue?"
"Of course not. We'll join you shortly," she said, waving them away with a smile.
They were a magnificent couple, Adelaide noted as Daisy and the Duc left the room, both tall and dark-haired with skin very close in hue. Maybe Etienne wasn't sun-bronzed; maybe he did have origins in the Asian plains as he'd mentioned during dinner. That explanation would account for his unusual eyes with their suggestion of Eastern antecedents. She should ask Caroline, who'd entertained Etienne two summers ago when they'd been yachting off the Sardinian coast. She'd know whether his complexion was due to the sun or whether he was naturally dark.
"Any request?" Etienne asked, looking down at Daisy as they stood just inside the small parquet-floored room serving tonight as ballroom for Adelaide's dinner party.
"Nothing strenuous," she said, smiling up at him. "I think all the food has put me to sleep."
Although the tempting line offered myriad suggestive replies, he cautioned himself to prudence. He was in no hurry.
At his recommendation, the musicians played a gentle waltz and when Etienne drew Daisy into his arms they both felt an unusual sensation. Unusual for the Duc, who had spent most of his adult life seeking various forms of excess, but equally unusual for Daisy, who had as an adult always experienced an elusive sense of seeking. They both felt—comfort.
Her face was lifted to his as they glided across the floor with a familiar, restful ease.
"You must ride," the Duc said, Daisy's steps matching his effortlessly, her slender body elegant, at ease in his arms. He grinned as he added teasingly, "although it's not a requirement. I only mean you're an extremely graceful dancer."
"I spent a great deal of my first twelve years on horseback. We followed the buffalo." Her smile reflected her pleasure in those memories as well as her current sense of well-being.
"We'll have to ride together." He found himself constantly having to redefine as other interpretive possibilities struck both their senses. "I mean, we could ride in the Bois. Do you rise early?"
She smiled.
He grinned. "Forgive me. I'm not being intentionally suggestive. For once in my life," he added with a rueful quirk of his mouth.
"Thank you," Daisy simply said, curiously aware of the full import of his brief addendum. "And for once in my life I'm not weighing the next ten possibilities in chronological sequence."
"Is this a religious experience?" Etienne asked with a lush smile recalling secular pleasures.
Her answering smile reminded him of the sunny skies of his childhood. "If it were, the churches would be jammed."
"How can you so readily read my mind, Mademoiselle Black?" His voice had turned husky.
"Perhaps because our minds are in perfect accord, Monsieur le Duc." She was looking directly into his jungle-green eyes, and opulent was the only word to describe the dark beauty of her gaze.
"Will this perfect harmony take on a more corporeal reality, Mademoiselle Black?" He came to a stop, disconcerting the musicians who missed two beats before continuing to play, but he didn't relinquish his hold on Daisy's waist. In fact, placing his other hand low on her back, he gently tugged her closer.
Daisy's gown of beaded silver tulle matched the glimmer of her diamonds. Set against the tall powerful Duc, black as the devil in his severely cut evening clothes, she appeared ethereal as moonbeams. "Alas, Monsieur," she softly said, the smallest touch of regret in her voice, her palms resting on the black satin of his lapels, "your reputation precedes you. How can I become another casualty of your seductive charm?"
"A rather harsh word for pleasure, Mademoiselle." His voice was very low.
"It's not the pleasure I question, Etienne," she said, using his Christian name for the first time, "but rather its longevity."
"You want commitment?" He'd never been so bluntly asked. Women usually insinuated themselves into the subject by circuitous routes.
"I don't think that's what I want." Her dark eyes held his steadily. "Although certainly it's not yours to freely give."
"What do you want?" If they were being blunt, was he allowed a direct question as well?
"Something," she very quietly said, "I don't think you can give me."
"You don't know me," he said equally softly. "You don't know what I can give."
"I know your style of man. This is a game."
"It can be a game for women too."
"I don't want that."
He was silent for a time as they stood alone in the center of the floor, savoring the rare beauty of their closeness, as though the feeling of witchery were apart from the complexities they were discussing. "This is all very new to me," he said at last.
Daisy smiled. "I think not. In fact," she went on in a voice he suspected she used to clarify points to a client, "this is much too familiar to you. And with that I take issue."
"So your scruples aren't with the act but with me."
She sighed and in that at least he took satisfaction.
"Yes," she said finally.
He was more skilled than she, infinitely more skilled. "Very well," he said with deceitful rue, as though he reluctantly gave up the chase. "I understand. A pity though, I can't alter my
past. But you dance superbly, you're the most beautiful woman in Paris, and with that I'll be content."
Why, Daisy thought, did she feel as though she'd lost?
* * *
A note arrived the next morning on Daisy's breakfast tray along with a small nosegay of violets.
Georges would be pleased to explain to you why we can't possibly be related. If you wish… the museum is open for you at one. I'll send my driver.
The heavy crested paper was signed with a wide slashing E and somehow she was pleased she might see him although his note was unclear. Was the appointment for her alone?
Apparently, yes, she realized when the carriage came for her. The Duc was absent. As he should have been, she reflected, seating herself in the center of the padded velvet bench, smoothing the skirt of her gown in an uncharacteristically punctilious gesture. Daisy wasn't one for taking notice of wrinkles; she rarely concerned herself with fashion. Only her family would have considered it odd she left seven discarded dresses behind in her room. If asked, Daisy would have muttered something about the warm day and the inappropriate materials in the dresses she'd tried on and rejected. Of course she hadn't expected the Duc.
Last night she'd very properly refused his advances. This morning he'd very properly extended the invitation to her since he knew of her interest, but had also very properly avoided any further contact.
Everything was very proper.
There was satisfaction in knowing she'd refused him.
There was satisfaction, was there not!
She turned to the cityscape beyond the carriage windows when the requisite answer failed to immediately surface, unwilling to admit her emotions weren't precisely falling in line with propriety.
Georges Martel, the second son of a second son, was a fainter version of the magnetic Duc, the dust of academia having softened the harsh masculinity so obvious in his cousin. But his manners were as superb when he greeted Daisy and his voice as attractive as he launched into a description of his original research begun ten years before.
"Etienne and I crossed Russia in the early eighties, following the migration routes across the Aleutians into North America. We were away two years."
"The Duc on a scientific expedition?" the skepticism in Daisy's voice was obvious.
Georges looked at the young woman seated across from him, her summer frock like a colorful splash of scented femininity in his book-lined study, and wondered why Etienne had requested this tour for her. Did he feel that, as a Red Indian, she'd be interested in his research? Somehow, he thought, Etienne's reason was probably less simple. His cousin's voice had been oddly constrained when he spoke of the woman. Unusual. As was this request for a tour. So he answered the lady's skepticism with some detail.
"Etienne financed the expedition," he began. "Without him my research wouldn't have been authenticated. And he was the one who always urged me on when problems arose. If not for him, I'd have turned back the first time our guides bolted."
"Bolted?" Daisy understood whitemen traveling through strange lands. She continually had to reassess her image of the idle, leisured Duc.
"Our Tashkent guides were horse thieves first. Luckily they had no interest in any of the scientific materials. Etienne found us new guides and horses."
"And you went on… for two years? Your family didn't mind?"
"I'm not married and my parents support my choice. As for my brothers…" He smiled. "They're too busy racing horses to notice when I'm gone."
"And the Duc's family?"
Georges hesitated, debating whether the lady was being coy. Etienne didn't actually have a family. He thought that fact was common knowledge. He and Isabelle had never gotten along. And while the Duc loved his children, once they were away at school, his daily life no longer revolved around their schedules.
"Justin and Jolie were at school," Georges briefly said, reluctant to disclose details of Etienne's private life. "Would you like to see the artifacts we brought back?"
For the next hour, Daisy was absorbed in the rich history of the Asian tribes, fascinated by the slow march of man across the continents. Familiar deities emerged from cultures long preceding hers, deities transmuted by time into benevolent gods protecting the Absarokee nation. Georges described the provenance of each of the sculptured pieces, estimated their dates, detailed the artists' techniques, and brought the ancient cultures alive. Within her own traditions, Daisy discovered astonishing similarities apparently surviving intact through thousands of years. Moved and delighted, she was deeply interested in the papers Georges had published.
Later, seated with Georges over tea in his study, poring over charts and photographs of their journey, she wished Etienne were with them to add his account to his cousin's. He had been the expedition cartographer, Georges told her, another facet of the Duc exposed to further alter her image. Picturing him crossing the landmass of Russia and the Arctic in extremity and danger as Georges traced their journey on the map spread between them, she realized Etienne was considerably more complex than the facile courtier she'd envisioned.
"Come back whenever you wish," Georges invited when she rose to leave. "Any friend of Etienne's is always welcome." After spending time with Daisy, Georges better understood his cousin's response. She was interesting, interested, and very beautiful.
As Daisy walked through the imposing double doors of the Hôtel Soubise and crossed the medieval cobbled courtyard to the carriage waiting for her, she wondered where the Duc was playing polo this afternoon. In the next instant, she questioned why she was impractical enough to be curious. She'd made her position clear last night. Even if the Duc weren't married, even if he weren't notorious for the brevity of his affairs, they had absolutely nothing in common.
At her approach, the crested carriage-door swung open, and from the shadowed interior a familiar deep voice drawled, "He must have liked you. The tour usually takes twenty minutes."
Inexplicably, the spring sun seemed to shine with added radiance.
His strong hand came out to help her in. Seating her opposite him on the green velvet seat, he tapped twice on the forward paneling.
"Do you need a sherry after the dryness of Georges's lecture?" he asked as the carriage moved off across the courtyard.
"Georges's lecture wasn't dry, as you very well know. Why didn't you join us?"
"I was being sensible."
She understood immediately his quiet brief declaration, uttered entirely without inflection yet Byzantine in substance. "You didn't play polo today." She wanted the words to authenticate their feelings.
"I had other things on my mind," he tersely said, not forthcoming with the desired words, not inclined to bare the quixotic nature of his impulses. "Would you like a drink?"
"Do you want to talk?"
"No." His answer was softly abrupt.
"Where would you like to have a drink?" she quietly asked, her own inclinations as utterly deviant from ordinary behavior as the Duc's.
Lounging in the seat opposite her, casually dressed in a lightweight tweed jacket, and riding pants, his boots slightly dusty, he only looked at her from under his dark brows. His black hair was disheveled as though he'd restlessly run his hands through it, its silky darkness lying in curls against his tanned neck and the creamy silk of his shirt collar. And she was reminded again how very beautiful he was.
"I don't know about Adelaide's," she began when he didn't answer.
"I have a small house on the Seine."
"I don't want to go there," she brusquely said.
"I've never taken a woman there," he said, almost equally brusquely.
Did that include his wife, she found herself jealously thinking, marveling at the same time at the degree of possessiveness she was already feeling. How could he affect her so? Like a prize she wanted, or a beautiful object close enough to reach out and take if she wished.
"Not Isabelle either," he tersely said. "Satisfied?" He was making concessions to her—openly.
"
I don't want to be demanding."
"But you just are," he said with a small smile.
"I'm sorry."
He shrugged as if to say it didn't matter or perhaps it mattered but he didn't care—right now—this moment.
Would he care tomorrow? Would the whole world change, Daisy wondered, or more aptly, how much would her world change? For the first time in her life she was relinquishing control of her emotions. Her father would be happy. He'd always thought her too grave and pragmatic. Intense feelings of family washed over her momentarily.
"We are different," she said, as if some explanation was required for this tremendous step she was about to take.
"Why would you want to be the same?"
He could have been more courteous. He normally practiced an amiable cordiality without effort. Contrary emotions, however, were buffeting long-established principles of living for him as well. He'd never taken a woman to his house near Colsec because it was his refuge from the excesses of his life. Colsec was his private haven, with only a cook and one manservant. No one knew of it—not his family nor his friends. He was intruding into his sanctuary today. Out of necessity, he told himself. He couldn't bring Daisy home, although the Hôtel de Vec was large enough that he'd entertained ladies frequently in his apartments without offending anyone in his family. Somehow he knew Daisy wouldn't approve of meeting at his family home. His bachelor apartment near the Place de la Concorde would be even more awkward. He found he couldn't treat her like all the other women.
So his private retreat would be sacrificed today for the singular Mademoiselle from America. The thought pinched for a moment like a tight boot.
"I don't know if I like you when you're sullen," Daisy said, his whole lounging posture, creased brows, and silence the picture of discontent.
"I don't know if I like you at all," he murmured, his eyes traveling with impolite regard down the flowered organza of her spring gown, returning with deliberate scrutiny to her lavish bosom before moving upward to her face. "Although don't be alarmed," he ambiguously added.
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