"I'm not alarmed." Her voice was clear and sure. "I'm old enough to know what I'm doing."
"How old is that?" Not that it mattered. He was curious only.
"Thirty."
His brows rose in swift surprise. She looked much younger. With the pale green ribbons in her hair and the delicate flowered gown, she looked sixteen. "Why is it you're never married?"
"I've never been in love."
He smiled thinly. "A romantic woman. Need I remind you," he said, glancing out the window briefly at the passing scenery, "it's not a prerequisite for marriage."
"And you should know," she replied with quiet emphasis.
His eyes held hers for one cool moment. "And I should know," he softly breathed.
On that cheerful note they rolled to a stop at the end of a small private lane before a pretty thatched-roof cottage less precious than Marie Antoinette's playtoys at Versailles, but nearly of a size.
It was wretched, Etienne thought, helping Daisy down, to want a woman this badly.
If he was less miserable, Daisy thought, she wouldn't be feeling this overwhelming need to comfort him.
They were an odd and mismatched pair on the brink of a seduction.
It was moot at the moment who was the seducer and who the seducee.
It was additionally moot whether one enormous gigantic mistake was about to occur.
And to add to the general disarray of circumstances, apparently both his servants were gone—it must be market day, he never could remember. The house was stoutly locked.
A riot of flowers surrounded the cottage in gardens, on trellises, in pots and window boxes. While Etienne stood cursing on the front stoop, unable to open the door, Daisy plucked a double white rose from the trellis near the door and slipped it into his lapel buttonhole.
"Cheer up. Everything will be fine. I don't intend to eat you alive."
Looking down at Daisy standing beside him, her small hand still resting on his lapel, her smile open and warm, her dark eyes winsome with gaiety, he suddenly grinned. "I was hoping you would."
"In that case, then, I might make an exception. I'm glad the servants are gone."
He paused for a moment considering. "I suppose you're right." His grin widened. Although he'd never thought of servants as intruding. One never noticed. Somehow the idea of a secluded hermitage with Daisy was appealing.
"When do you think they'll be back"—she moved a step closer—"from the market?" Her voice had changed.
With the trellis behind her, the pale roses framing her dark beauty, she seemed suddenly as though she belonged at Colsec. "Tonight."
"That late." She smiled suggestively, a siren in flowered organza and pale green hair ribbons.
"Have I told you I adore you?" he said, gently, placing his hands on her bare arms.
"How reassuring," she replied, smiling up at him. "I was afraid you made love with a scowl."
Her directness was delightful. "Are you propositioning me?"
"Did we drive all the way out here to really have a drink?" she mildly inquired.
Which reminded him tardily of the coachman.
"You're welcome to wait in the village, Guillaume," he shouted to the driver. "Come back at dusk." Since Guillaume had been raised in Colsec, he didn't require a more detailed invitation.
A moment later, the Duc and Daisy were utterly alone, standing before Etienne's locked cottage.
"Well?" Daisy said with an age-old female inflection requiring some masculine action.
"Stand back," the Duc immediately said. Picking up a garden spade leaning against the brick wall, he broke the window adjacent to the door, reached in and unlatched the lock. Pushing the door open, he smiled warmly at Daisy. "Welcome, Mademoiselle Black, to my humble home."
* * *
The cottage was a jewel box of a home, several million francs removed from humble, filled with Etienne's favorite paintings and furniture and a great many Indian artifacts collected during his expedition with Georges. The tile floors were covered with thick woven rugs in the deep tones of natural dyes, patterned in severe geometric styles. The furniture was leather and pillow-strewn with a primitive simplicity that reminded Daisy intensely of her own Absarokee heritage. Masks, totems, and sculptures brought vividly to mind the painted shields, parfleches, and special decorated lodges of her culture.
She stood arrested in the entrance to the small timber-ceilinged parlor taking in the staggering sense of déjà vu. Even the flowers in vases and those visible through the large mullioned windows in the extravagant garden behind the house were natural to her prairie home.
"Do you like it?" The Duc's voice was deep and soft and very near.
Without turning she knew he was no more than a foot behind her.
"The flowers—where did they come from?" She moved then so she faced him.
"We had a botanist with the expedition. Everything was documented and carefully saved. My gardeners have been working ten years to transform those few seeds into this display."
"I feel like I'm home."
"I thought you might. It was my rationale for bringing you here."
"This was deliberate? You wouldn't have had to go to so much trouble." Her voice had taken on that edge they'd both been struggling with.
"No," he said evenly, "it wasn't deliberate. Had I been deliberate," he went on, his tone carefully modulated, "I wouldn't have brought you here." He took a cautious breath, unfamiliar with revealing his inner feelings, and added, "My friends don't even know of this house. My servants know me by one of my minor titles. I'm private here. So, no… my intention wasn't deliberate bringing you to Colsec. It was a completely senseless decision without a taint of the Duc de Vec you find so offensive."
"I'm sorry," Daisy quietly said, "For my obvious bad manners."
"I could apologize as well, I suppose… but why don't I show you my small domain instead? I don't know," he said with a moodiness he'd been fighting all afternoon, "if I want to apologize."
"What do you find so resentful?"
"The unprecedented upheavals in my life," he simply said. "I had over the years fashioned an orderly life of reasonable content." He looked around the small parlor that until today had been an exclusive male reserve. "I find your presence," he quietly added, "threatening to that reasonable content."
She was surprised at his choice of words. "Reasonable content hardly approximates your public persona. You're a man of excess."
"A term," he dryly said, "as superficial as the concept."
"If I offer you excess too," Daisy declared, trying to be as open as possible in this minefield of possibilities, "will that threaten you?"
The Duc smile. "We're talking about different things."
"You admit you're no monk."
He shrugged and held out his hand instead of answering. "Come. I don't like the direction of this conversation. The past doesn't interest me." He smiled down at her like an indulgent father. "Unless of course, you're interested in telling me of your childhood." He wanted to know the young girl who'd become the unusual woman he wanted with such novel and mixed emotions. As though he might be able to solve the puzzle of her allure and his uncommon desire if she began at the very beginning.
He asked her small details as they toured his cottage and when they came into his bedroom under the eaves painted white like a milkmaid's dairy, sparsely furnished with only a large bed and one chair, she moved toward the bed.
He checked her movement, pulling her through the open glass doors to the small balcony built over the river, seating her in a chaise—much worn and collapsible—like one an officer might take on a campaign.
"Sit by me," Daisy said, when he released her hand and moved away.
"Later," he answered, as though he had some timetable she didn't know, and Daisy felt a small heat race through her body. He dropped onto a small hassock of woven willow near her. "Tell me about your mother," he said, not sure himself why he was adverse to haste in this afternoon rendezvous. "Did
she find happiness in her marriage?"
Daisy nodded, wondering if perhaps her mother's content with Seven Arrows had forever spoiled Daisy for society marriages. Her father Hazard's marriage as well was a love match. Both her parents had found lasting happiness with companions that made the Martin Soderbergs of the world pale in comparison.
"My mother died," Daisy quietly began, "because she and Seven Arrows were never apart. When he hunted, she always went with him, although a woman on a hunt was unusual. When a grizzly attacked Seven Arrows, she tried to save him. He was armed only with a knife, and her rifle jammed with five rounds still in the chamber." Daisy's voice dropped to a whisper as the vivid memories returned. "They were both badly mauled."
"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have asked." He touched her hand lightly. "Are you all right?"
She nodded. "So many years have passed, the memories are much less painful, but…" She sighed. "I miss the days of my childhood. That entire way of life has vanished. Disappeared as though it never existed." She lifted her eyes so they regarded him. "Father's right, of course, to have salvaged what he could for his people."
"And you've become an advocate for them."
"It was expected of me."
"A novel idea," Etienne said with a small rueful smile. "Nothing was expected of me. It was enough to be born de Vec."
"Do you regret that?" Her question was tentative since his mood was so elusive and pensive.
"I don't regret my children." They were the only positive in his life that he was certain of. "And my grandchild."
Their pictures were on the bedroom walls. She'd noticed immediately, aware the cottage was indeed his private sanctuary. One didn't bring one's potential lovers to sparsely furnished, stark bedrooms with photos of one's family the only decor. It warmed her enormously to know she'd been invited to such a private retreat. "Tell me about them."
He answered with a rare warmth in his tone, briefly detailing their dispositions, their residences within the blocklong Hôtel de Vec, their current interests. Justin had recently left St. Cyr and was restless. Like you, Daisy thought. Jolie had made a very grand love match and was happy. Unlike you, Daisy reflected, the deep hushed tones of his voice serene somehow like the warm spring day and the lazy flowing river below and his daughter's happiness. When he described his grandson Hector, his laughter was a revealing glimpse beyond the powerful figure of the man. His adoration was plain to see.
They talked then in easy conversation about children and nieces and nephews, exchanging pleasantries about the joys of youth. And much later, when he made no move to touch her nor gave indication of the amorous gallant, she said, "Do you mind if I take off my shoes?"
He almost said no, because he was weighing the risks of desire against the inevitable disillusion and he was much too happy or content or whatever word best described the sensations of pleasure he was feeling.
The river moved slowly below them. An occasional dragonfly swooped upward from the pale green water, through the dappled shadows of the willows. The sun was tempered by the shading trees and Daisy Black, the most tantalizing woman he'd ever seen, was three feet away, lounging cool and elegant before him. He could have her; she'd made it quite clear.
What he was debating was how long he wanted to savor this pleasant absolute against the possible unknown.
If one's emotions weren't involved—and until today he'd never realized they were a factor in making love—the facile pursuit of pleasure was predictable. He knew how he would feel be-fore, during, and after. Only the variations and subtleties changed. Now suddenly he didn't know. But he'd never been a coward so he said, smiling, "Please do."
As she untied the green silk ribbons on her small-heeled shoes, then slipped her white silk stockings from her legs, he watched, feeling perilously close to losing control. But years of pleasing women had tempered his urges, had taught him the rituals of self-restraint, and he called all his expertise into play. He would not embarrass himself—he grinned a small faint smile�and attack her, although the impulse was powerful.
"Your smile is intriguing. May I share the feeling?" Daisy softly said, not wanting to wait much longer to see if the Duc's reputation was genuine.
"Actually," he replied, his green eyes amused, "I was debating the merits of attacking you."
"A man of your finesse?"
"You see my dilemma." His grin widened. "I have a reputation to consider."
"It was that exact reputation I was considering exploring."
"Is this a research exercise?" He lifted one brow in ironic inquiry.
"Heavens no," Daisy said, untying one of the ribbons in her hair. "I thought I'd teach you what I know as well."
He looked momentarily surprised and she laughed like a child might in discovering a new treat.
"Didn't you know the Absarokee are an egalitarian society?" Her smile was teasing.
"I may have forgotten," the Duc carefully said, digesting her smile, her languorous tone, the deliberate statement of her past history.
Sliding the ribbon free, she dropped it with a graceful gesture next to her discarded shoes and stockings. Her dark-lashed eyes lifted to his. "Are you intimidated?"
"I don't think so," he quietly said, shrugging off his jacket with comfortable ease. "Should I be?" he added, smiling at her as he reached down to pull off his riding boots. He didn't suppose it would be polite to mention he held the record at Madame Beloy's bordello where the exhibitions tended toward the unusual in virtuosity and endurance.
Daisy began unbuttoning her dress as casually as he was discarding his clothes, his creme silk shirt having followed his jacket to the balcony floor. When he stepped out of his twill riding pants, Daisy remarked, "Those are different."
She was referring to his underclothing made of white cotton and briefer than the usual male style. He'd had them designed for comfort—particularly for playing polo.
"How would you know?" he retorted, his curt reply not based on any sound reasoning, but a response instead to her insolent self-possession.
"Because I've lived on this earth for thirty years and had my eyes open for a good deal of that time."
"Sarcastic women annoy me," he murmured, his gaze faintly glowering.
"As do arrogant men, me. Am I not allowed an innocuous remark?"
"Concerning your repertoire of men's underclothes, no. I've always considered it impolite to discuss previous lovers."
"My, we're touchy. Did I say anything about lovers?" Her smile was the kind he very much wanted to wipe away with an equally innocuous remark. "Surely," she added, "you don't want a woman who agrees with you completely."
"We don't agree on much, actually," he quietly replied, wondering perhaps if he'd made a mistake today. He was leaning against the carved balcony railing, very much at his ease, clad only in his crisp white briefs, his bronzed body in stark contrast to the brilliant white cotton, his muscles clearly defined from his powerful pectorals down the length of his lean form to the hard contours of his thighs and calves used so habitually in playing polo. Being nude before a woman—a woman he hardly knew�was apparently not uncomfortable.
Daisy smiled. Her father Hazard would have recognized the smile. It was her mother's. "Actually," she mimicked very softly, "on one or two things," and her smile heated the depths of her beautiful dark eyes, "I think we might agree."
He grinned suddenly, reminded succinctly that pleasure wasn't a cerebral exercise. "What would you say," he murmured, his smile in place, his strong hand extended to pull her up from the chaise, "if we didn't make it to the bed?"
Her answering smile was the most provocative evocation of sensuality he'd seen in a lifetime of investigating provocative sensuality. "I'd say," she replied, her voice scented with promise, "next time we could try the bed."
His hand closed over hers. "Fair enough," he said.
He finished undressing her as she stood before him, removing her clothing smoothly, without haste or awkwardness. Obviously he understood the in
tricacies of hooks and lacing and eyelets. When he discovered eventually she was wearing no drawers, he murmured with a mocking smile, "Now that's different."
. Her smile was beguiling and lush. "I won't ask how you know," she whispered back, teasing frolic in her voice.
He ignored her mockery, mildly intrigued. "Is it your Absarokee background?"
"I could say yes, because we don't wear underclothing on the plains, but that's not relevant here in Paris. The truth is," she said very, very softly, "I was hoping you'd come to fetch me at one today and I thought I might entertain you on the carriage ride to your cousin Georges's museum."
His smile sharply creased his tanned face, lit up his eyes. "I'm sorry now I was being so sensible."
"It just goes to show you the folly in prudence." Reaching up, she brushed his chin lightly with a kiss.
"You prefer imprudence then," he murmured, running his hands over her shoulders.
"Yes," she said, taking a small breath to steady her nerves, trembling slightly at his touch. His large hands were practiced; he knew exactly how to slide his warm palms and splayed fingers along the verge of her collarbone, brushing the swelling slope of her breasts only teasingly, then travel upward until his fingers slipped into the silk of her hair.
"And venturesomeness," he quietly pursued.
"Yes." Daisy softly breathed, feeling him pull the first pin from her coiled upswept hair.
"Something wild would interest you." His voice was cool, as though he were not saying "wild."
And she responded to the restrained paradox as much as the word. "Yes," she said very low, knowing a man with eyes like a jungle cat could be wild.
Her hair fell loose over her shoulders as he slid the pins free, heavy black silk he lifted forward, wrapped his hands around and tugged until she was pressed to his tall strong body, until she could feel his arousal pulsing fiercely against her stomach.
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