Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  Bending down, she kissed him, the spilling water from the cascade running warm over the side of her breast, the sensation partly soothing, partly stimulating, oddly unsubstantial.

  His lips were cool; she was warmer than he, a heartbreaking passion arousing her, prompted by her imminent farewell.

  If she could, she would have stayed; if she could, she would have taken him with her. If she could, she would have set them both in another world, a secluded private realm where she would have willingly been his houri.

  He rose on his elbows to follow her mouth upward when she moved away, his hand slipping behind her head to pull her back. "Stay," he whispered, drawing her body effortlessly atop him. They lay for long moments, his body cushioning hers, their mouths lightly touching, their breath mingling, the soft rise and fall of their chests tranquilizing as the rippling water and rising steam.

  Small intimate paintings by Gérome adorned the walls, adding dimension to Daisy's strange mood of subordinate lassitude—the array of erotic portrayals of harem life, of slave markets and Arab interiors, like precious jewels on the cool green tile. The brilliant depictions, minutely detailed, indulged the artist's sense of exotic locale and his male sensibilities: Women lazily re-clined or bathed with servant girls; they stood passively before buyers or indulged in harem games; they beautified themselves for their master—ornamenting themselves with jewelry and paint and fragrant scents.

  "Not mine," Etienne softly said, following the direction of Daisy's gaze. "My father's additions."

  He had nothing here, Daisy thought, even the picture of him and his mother no doubt had been left by his father. And that was why there was no trace of women. Etienne didn't take them here. "Where's your bachelor apartment?" she asked then, not in condemnatory inquisition but in her currently diffident mood, almost meekly.

  Immediately cognizant of her altered disposition, he didn't try to evade as he might have, but answered, "The Place de la Concorde."

  "How nice."

  His surprise at her answer must have shown.

  "I'm enormously jealous."

  He smiled, framing her face with the large palms of his hands, pleased he'd never brought any of his lovers here. "We perhaps have a corner on that market, and if our culture allowed, like an Arab man would, I'd buy you for my own."

  "Without my permission?" She spoke in a curiously provocative way.

  "Without anyone's permission, against armies of avenging angels or wrathful mullahs."

  "And you'd keep me with your other harem women?"

  "No," he softly replied, "I wouldn't. They'd poison you, for I'd have no more use for them."

  "I must be losing my mind, for an elusive urge within me doesn't balk at such submission."

  He smiled, his hands moving gently down her back. "It's the warm steam and this balmy hidden grotto and Gérôme's elegant illustrations that refine and glorify a distant culture. Bernini's design, compliments of Venice, owes much to the East too. You should try the slide then."

  "Then?"

  "If you're compliant."

  "Why would I have to be compliant?"

  He shrugged, wondering how much editing would be required for a woman like Daisy who considered herself not only independent, not only equal, but at times superior to men. "The slide was a source of entertainment for the harem women," he said in simple explanation.

  "That sounds innocuous enough."

  "And a source of entertainment," he carefully went on, "for the sultan or khan or mogul as well."

  Her eyes were very close to his. "I see," she said and then unexpectedly laughed out loud. "Do you feel sufficiently despotic to take on the role of potentate?"

  His grin was instant. "As imperious, darling, as Genghis Khan."

  "On one condition."

  "Anything."

  Daisy's faint smile reflected the coquettish twinkle in her eyes. "You can only look, but can't touch." It was a Daisy Black mutation of submission—in her inimitable fashion, making her own rules.

  "Agreed," the Duc de Vec lied, like a true despot, oblivious to rules.

  Positioning himself for a clear and revealing view at the base of the slide, Etienne settled comfortably on the marble lounge designed at a convenient distance for just such a purpose. And when Daisy came slipping around the spiraling curve of polished marble, her laughter merry, her luscious bottom sailing through the air only scant feet over his fascinated gaze, the Duc considered for a moment the real advantages of ownership.

  Her swooping plunge into the heated pool pelted him with water. She surfaced seconds later with vivacious laughter, shaking the water from her eyes, her long sleek hair flinging droplets in an arching fan-shaped trajectory. "Do you like the view?" she called to him, dreading water with a teasing smile on her face. He could have reached out and stroked her delectable bottom as she'd sailed over his head, had he wished. And she knew it.

  "The view is prizewinning," he said with a rakish grin. Lounging at ease like a young prince of the blood, his nude body casually disposed as if on view, his wet hair lying in dark sleek ribbons on his shoulders, his eyes facetiously appraising, the Duc de Vec exhibited a demonstrable libertine disposition and connoisseurship.

  Daisy's smile faded abruptly. "Are there often contests?" Her voice held that heated edge.

  "I've been told," he said, "the origins of such slides involved a competition of sorts." Taking mild exception to her taunting, he considered a form of payback equitable.

  "You've been told?" Each word was suddenly sharp with insinuation.

  "Well… yes…" There. He was able to smile as complacently as Daisy had mockingly moments ago.

  "You'll be competent to judge then, I presume," she oversweetly declared, wishing to discipline Etienne's overused libido.

  "I think so," he quietly replied.

  Seated at the top of the slide a short time later, displayed like a bibelot for his pleasure, Daisy raised her arms above her head and posed for a moment as if flaunting that which he couldn't have.

  "Are you ready?" she purred.

  He was this time, surprising her as she plummeted into the deep water, catching her and smiling into her startled face amidst spraying plumes of water.

  "You can't touch me," she protested, trying to squirm out of his arms. "I made the rules."

  Slipping one hand between her legs, he pulled her close. "I don't believe in rules."

  "Liar."

  "Flirt."

  "Libertine."

  "Coquette." And he slipped two fingers inside her as a sultan might appropriate his casual possession.

  "Let me go." Her voice had taken on a ragged edge.

  "I thought you were compliant," he murmured.

  "No," she whispered as his fingers sank deeper. But she lay very still suddenly, savoring the exquisite sensations.

  "In this small grotto, at this moment I own you," he whispered, recognizing her acquiescence.

  "No one owns me." But her eyes were half shut, Etienne's massaging fingers skilled and adept.

  "I can make you stay."

  He could, right at that moment, he could.

  And he did, carrying her to the marble lounge, positioning her atop his blatant arousal, holding her with a casual strength on the very crest of his erection until she whimpered for the feel of him. He accommodated her then, sliding her slick heated sweetness down his pulsing hard length with firm hands around her waist as though she were not only a slave to her passion but a slave to him. And inexcusably he held her there impaled for an hour and then longer, making love to her tenderly and selfishly, with thin-skinned resentment of his susceptibility and with impassioned sentimentality—against protest and clinging embrace until she'd climaxed so often, she was prostrate with exhaustion. As if his covetousness could be satisfied in lust.

  She fainted finally—the ultimate submission—and while he should have been satisfied at last, he felt only fear.

  While he could with the skill of his experience subdue her sexually
, he had no sovereignty over her life. None. And she was leaving him.

  He carried her as if she were infinitely fragile through the connecting dressing room to his bedchamber and laying her on the sun-warmed bed, wrapped her in a velvet coverlet. Alarmed at her continuing stillness, he kissed her gently on her cheek, silently chastising himself for his brutish behavior. Daisy was more defenseless than the Ismes of the world, unfamiliar with sexual excess, more ardently passionate, too, giving of herself intemperately.

  He should have controlled his perverse discontent.

  Had he truly hurt her? Lightly holding her wrist, he felt for a pulse. Her eyes fluttered open at his touch and she smiled winsomely. "You definitely hold the record now."

  "Lord, I'm sorry," he whispered, regret poignant in his eyes. "There's no justification." He tenderly stroked the delicate curve of her cheek.

  "I'm fine. Just tired."

  "Are you sure? Should I call a doctor? I will… we should… we definitely should… I'll have Louis phone for—"

  Daisy stopped his restless apologetic rush of words with a finger to his lips. "I'm fine. Really."

  He took a breath.

  "Would you have Louis order some food instead? I'm famished."

  His grin was replete with relief. "Whatever you want. I'm penitent as hell. Do you want to hit me?" Contrite and conscience-stricken, he wished to make amends. "I'll buy you what—diamonds?… those black pearls we saw at Cartier?"

  "Food, darling," Daisy said with a tender smile. "That's all."

  "Food it is. Are you sure?" Hesitant and conciliatory, he would have given her anything.

  "I'm sure."

  "Louis!" Etienne shouted. "Get the hell in here!"

  Some time later, after Daisy had restored herself with food, they lay on the Duc's bed, watching the setting sun color the sky an in-tense pumpkin-orange, exchanging kisses and endearments. Touching on the subject of Daisy's leaving with a cautious objectivity, Etienne said, "What if you have my child? What then?"

  "I won't."

  "How can you be so sure? These things happen."

  "Not with me they don't."

  Leaning on one elbow, he looked down at her, flushed and sated in his bed. She was the epitome of femaleness, lush and opulent and fertile. "Does that mean something?"

  She looked directly at him, her dark eyes grave. "It means I'm taking something to assure it doesn't happen."

  "You don't want my child." The thought hurt him more than he imagined because lately it was constantly in his mind.

  "Under the circumstances, I don't want your child."

  "And if the circumstances change?"

  "They won't."

  He shrugged and sighed, a small rueful acknowledgement. She was right… at least now and for the immediate future. Isabelle was relentless in her refusal, in her threats and thwarting. "If they did," he said, very softly, as sensitive as she about the legalities in a country which had only allowed divorce seven years ago, but too deeply in love to care, only wanting her to .share his sentiments.

  "If they did," Daisy said, her voice hushed and low, thinking that more than delaying legalities would have to be overcome, "I would love to have your child."

  "Our child."

  "Our child," she whispered.

  * * *

  They heard the frantic pounding on the service door bordering the quai just as the sun was rising.

  "What time is it?" Daisy groggily inquired.

  Twisting around to see the clock, the Duc moved away from Daisy's warm body. "Five," he said. "Go back to sleep." He spoke calmly in order not to cause alarm, but the violence of the reverberation rising from the ground floor at an hour in which normal manners dictated quiet instantly roused him. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he shook his head to clear the drowsiness from his brain and with a fortifying inhalation of breath, quickly rose to his feet.

  Picking up his robe, he strode out of the room, shrugging into the green China silk as he moved down the hall. Ever since Isabelle's calculating visit yesterday, he'd experienced an uneasy sense of wariness—as though the gauntlet had been thrown down in a fight to the death. Warning himself against alarmist melodrama, he'd dismissed the more lurid analogies of a bloody battlefield, but fully aware of the depths of his wife's malevolence, he'd guardedly been on alert. A sixth sense, a premonition of calamity irrepressibly struck him as the frantic drumming on the door abruptly ceased.

  He was on the second landing of the stairway when Louis came racing through the passageway leading to the kitchens. To see Louis at a run was extraordinary. His pulse rate jumped.

  Louis stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Etienne, his face ashen. "Your black racer's dead!"

  Isabelle, Etienne immediately thought; he knew; he could feel it in his gut. May she burn in hell, he viciously avowed. "Are you sure?" He had to ask although Louis's mournful face was answer enough.

  Louis's grave nod conceded the bitter truth.

  Arrested on the polished marble landing, Etienne felt a moment of unbearable pain at the loss of his favorite horse. Poor dumb animal—helpless against the machinations of man—an innocent victim. Dead because he had the misfortune to be favored.

  "Who found him?" Etienne asked, his voice cheerless.

  In somber funereal tones, Louis said, "The Irish groom, Your Grace. He rode over straightway."

  "Bring him to me in my study." A crushing sorrow overwhelmed his mind as he walked down the remaining stairs and turned down the corridor to his study. The black had been raised from a colt, a beauty from the day of his birth. He'd trained him himself, taking particular delight in Morocco's playful disposition, an unusual quality in a thoroughbred of his size and breeding. And they'd forged a bond, an affinity based on a mutual love of speed—and kindness.

  Morocco had won all the two-year-old races last year and was finishing first without apparent effort in the early meets this season. They'd planned to run him in the English Ascot Gold Cup three weeks from now against the Duke of Beaufort's great horse Ragimunde. Damn Isabelle, he dismally raged. Damn her evil soul.

  What a callous waste of a beautiful horse.

  For vengeance.

  He wanted to cry.

  The gloom of his study suited his mood. Standing framed by the threshold, he stood arrested for a moment in the enveloping shadow, wondering if there was indeed a retributive God and he was being punished for all his misdemeanors. Walking to the windows, he lifted aside the heavy drapes to let the morning sun dispel the darkness. He was still standing at the bank of windows behind his desk, his hand on the windowframe, when Louis entered with the groom.

  Turning around slowly, Etienne felt for a moment as though he couldn't bear to hear the details and a small silence fell after the two men approached. The room was utterly still, hushed, grief a palpable presence in the high-ceilinged book-lined chamber, the three men so diverse in occupation joined in a common sorrow. With an unreasoning reluctance, only knowing what he was about to hear would devastate him, the Duc finally said, "Please sit down and tell me what you know."

  As he sat across from them, slumped low in his leather chair, he listened to the groom's recital of Morocco's death. The thoroughbred had been fed sugar and carrots—a favorite treat—allowing the assailants to approach him. Since the paddock wasn't guarded, their entry had been easily arranged. An artery in the black's foreleg had been cut, a small and precise incision—nothing clumsy, a neat, clean half-inch cut—and the horse had bled to death. The details of his dying were gruesome.

  The huge black had tried to rise several times after the loss of blood had brought him down, a testament to his tremendous heart and courage. The stall's walls were splashed with blood, the straw bedding saturated, Morocco's death gaze, the groom tearfully related, directed toward the door. As if beseeching help. "I should have slept with him," the young Irishman finished, his bereavement evident in the redness of his eyes. "I should never have left him alone. If I'd been there, Morocco would s
till be alive."

  "Or you might be dead, since we don't know who did this. And none of us anticipated this. Don't blame yourself. It's not anyone's fault." Or at least neither of theirs, he thought, with heartfelt regret. Could he have blocked Isabelle's attack? Was it possible to protect everything he valued? An impossibility, he as quickly decided. But some priorities certainly had to be established, he instinctively realized. He couldn't afford a disaster more grievous than losing a horse.

  When he eventually returned to the bedroom, after the necessary decisions had been made for the black's burial�he would be brought home to the Chantilly estate where he'd been raised�Etienne devised a credible story about a seriously ill horse in his racing stable to satisfy Daisy's curiosity. And summarily canceled his polo for the remaining days of Daisy's stay. He simply wished to be with her for their short time remaining, he told her, his fear of Isabelle's twisted sense of revenge unvoiced. But after the particularly grisly manner of Morocco's death, he had no intention of leaving her alone.

  If he'd previously had doubts about Daisy leaving Paris, he no longer did. And if he'd had any reservations of his own sense of loss once Daisy sailed, they were now canceled by an ardent relief in knowing she'd be beyond Isabelle's reach in Montana.

  They stayed in that day, perhaps both aware of the fleeting hours left to them, enjoying the simple pleasure of each other's company. And protected, Etienne reflected, from the uncertainties of Isabelle's intent.

  That afternoon while Daisy napped on the garden chaise, Louis surreptiously slipped a note to the Duc. Since the Duchesse's footman had delivered it, Louis knew better than to announce its arrival in Daisy's hearing.

  The pale pink sheet of paper contained two brief sentences:

  You didn't mention your black, Isabelle had written in her favorite lavender ink, when you gave the fifty-meter warning.

  I hope you miss him.

  Etienne crumpled the paper in his fist and handed it to Louis. "Burn it," he said, crisp and low, "and see that my pistols are loaded and placed in the top drawer of my bureau."