Forbidden

by Susan Johnson

  You're crazy if you think I want to be friends. Who's your new lover?

  He didn't sign it for the clerks in the telegraph office were sure to gossip, but she'd know who the message came from. He paced, cynical and surly and impatient, waiting for her reply—not knowing if she'd reply.

  She received the brutal reproach in the company offices in Helena and went cold at the tone. Composing an immediate reply, she stood shivering in the summer heat while the operator keyed the words.

  There's no one. Believe me. No one but you. Can we be friends?

  He hated that word suddenly—a repugnant spurious word for the intensity of his feelings. Marry me, he dispatched back heatedly. I don't want a friend.

  I can't marry you. She almost didn't write those words. She almost decided to become the Duc de Vec's mistress because he wasn't free to marry her even as he asked. The convoluted struggle between belief and disbelief, between trust and misanthropy brought her momentarily to a standstill while the young telegraph clerk waited for her reply. She didn't at base care about Etienne's divorce, but she cared about the repercussions attendant to its omission. And she cared, too, in a spiritual way, for her own peace of mind. Which simple reflection called in all her interior landscapes—predominant with images of her beloved mountains.

  A decision finally.

  I'm sorry, she finally wrote, the two words insufficient for thirty years' affection to her clan. Tell me you understand.

  Don't understand. Won't understand. Can't understand. You're killing me, he added at the last, a wrenching admission for a man of his pride.

  I'm sorry. Words of duty, practical words, words that dimmed the sun.

  Don't be. I'm not. Etienne had replied, a prideful man, resentful and frustrated after two hours in the telegraph office at the Bourse under the interested scrutiny of the key operator. Affronted at having exposed his private life to the world, he stalked out of the office and strode to the Jockey Club to drink himself into an oblivious state of disregard for all women, friends or otherwise.

  Valentin came looking for him late in the afternoon after the Duc hadn't appeared for their scheduled meeting at Tattersalls to look at a new thoroughbred. "The horse was a beauty," Valentin said, approaching Etienne slumped in a chair near the windows. "You missed out. I bought him."

  "At least you can trust a horse," the Duc cryptically replied, waving over a footman to serve Valentin.

  "In contrast to what or whom?" Valentin asked, aware his friend had consumed nearly the entire bottle of brandy on the table beside him. Etienne rarely overimbibed this early in the day.

  "Women." The Duc's voice was heavy with disgust.

  "A lovers' quarrel?"

  "Remind me never to fall in love again. It's hell on earth."

  "You didn't look too unhappy a couple of months ago."

  "Lust warped my reason."

  "It never did before."

  "Daisy Black's style of lust is more powerful."

  "Do you want to tell me about it?" Obviously, Etienne wasn't in a reasonable frame of mind… although a bottle of Napoleonic brandy generally occasioned loss of reason.

  "Nothing to tell," he muttered. "She wants to be friends. To friends," he resentfully pledged, lifting his glass to Valentin then draining the half-full tumbler.

  "Is friends so bad?" Valentin dropped into an adjacent club chair.

  "It's worse than bad. It's damned unbelievable," the Duc snarled, refilling his glass. "Can't marry me, she says. Let's be friends, she says. Is that incredible or what? Do I look like I want to be only friends with the seductive, hotter-than-hell Daisy Black? What do you want to drink?" he asked with a nod to the footman standing a discreet distance away.

  "The same's fine. When did this happen?"

  "Another bottle then," Etienne directed, pouring the remains of his bottle into the glass the footman had placed on the table next to Valentin.

  The Duc had withdrawn momentarily into a moody silence, his gaze contemplating the bottom of his glass. "When did all this transpire?" Valentin repeated, the Duc's sketchy replies leaving great gaps in his understanding.

  "Seven telegrams ago, as a matter of fact, or was it six? Hell, I forget." The crumpled sheets of paper, agents of his inebriation, were on the table beside him.

  "You're sure Daisy means it. You're not mistaken somehow."

  "No, I'm not mistaken. I can fucking read. Jesus, can you believe this was the woman I was divorcing my damn wife for, the same woman I was spending a fortune to buy off magistrates for, the precisely same woman who drove Isabelle to kill my goddamn record-setting black thoroughbred?"

  "Isabelle killed Morocco?" Valentin sat upright so swiftly the brandy sloshed over the rim of his glass.

  "Sure as the sun rises in the east."

  "How do you know?" His eyes still registered his shock.

  "She wrote to tell me and wished me a great deal of misery in my life. She must be prophetic."

  "Tell me exactly what Daisy said." Valentin still didn't completely believe Etienne. He and Daisy had been too passionately in love. He'd changed the entire pattern of his life for her.

  The Duc sighed, more sober than the amount of liquor consumed would presume. His green eyes were steady and clear. "My divorce isn't going to happen… and that's a major problem of course. I can understand her reluctance in terms of my marital status. But the divorce situation doesn't bother her, she says; what is irreconcilable in her mind is the fact we don't both live in Montana. A staggering concept for me to accept. My love weighed against Montana is insufficient. I told her we would work it out."

  "How?" Valentin knew of Etienne's business interests; they were vast and varied, but all European. And Daisy… "Won't she live here in Paris?"

  "Apparently not," the Duc dryly said.

  "Would you live in Montana?"

  "I never thought I had to." He hadn't, of course.

  "Would you?"

  "No one ever asked me."

  "You're not answering."

  "I don't know. I don't even know if I was ever in love anymore because I'm so damned furious. And don't ask me why I'm furious because I don't know the answer to that either. But I broke two damned heavy pieces of furniture in the billiard room downstairs and scared the hell out of the steward. After standing there looking at the pieces, like a bloody fool, I apologized of course." He shook his head slowly from side to side, slipping down lower in the leather club chair, his brandy glass balanced on his chest. "If this is love," he muttered, "I hate it."

  "Come talk to Adelaide. She understands how women think. Maybe she can help."

  "Thanks, but I don't want to." The Duc's smile was affable. "Daisy was quite clear." His smile diminished, his eyes narrowed the slightest fraction. "I've never asked a woman to marry me before. Isabelle was proposed to by the de Vec solicitor. And when I do finally ask a woman to marry me and then try and move heaven and earth to make the marriage possible…" His voice took on a small edge. "I'm not going to beg anyone to marry me."

  "Pride?"

  "I guess. She wasn't ambiguous, Valentin. She said no."

  * * *

  July turned into August with both Daisy and the Duc consciously filling their clays with activity. Involved in the legalities necessary to open the new Braddock-Black copper mine south of Helena, Daisy was working sixteen hours a day. Dropping into bed each night exhausted, she slept like the dead. Her heavy schedule was deliberate; she couldn't bear dreaming of Etienne night after night.

  Bourges continued pursuing the Duc's divorce case because if nothing else came out his unhappiness over losing Daisy, at least, Etienne thought, he might someday have his freedom. The illusion of his marriage to Isabelle had passed the point of even the most benevolent excuses. Why should they share a name when they shared nothing else?

  He was seeing a great deal of his cousin Georges, too, helping him plan his next expedition to the East. An undertaking of sizable proportions with every item from stockings to food to pen
points having to be itemized and ordered, the organizing palliative to the Duc's more painful thoughts. Georges intended an exploration of the steppes between Turkistan and Mongolia, possibly spending the winter with the Buriats near Lake Baikal. Their language interested him because it contained antecedents of both Syriac and Uighurian.

  As the planning progressed and the trip became more imminent, the Duc seriously contemplated joining the trek he was financing—at least for a month or so. The more he considered the possibility, the more intrigued he became. And when Justin returned from Egypt, announced his intention of participating in Georges's journey East, Etienne definitely reviewed what business commitments could be relegated to others.

  "Come along, Papa," Justin coaxed one day when the three of them were going over the maps. More than anyone, Justin was aware of his father's new moodiness, for their morning rides had resumed on his return and his father was visibly transformed. "The wind from the steppes will clear your mind," he added with a grin.

  "A pleasant prospect… I could go on the first leg perhaps." Unlike his earlier trip years ago, Etienne could no longer contemplate months away from Paris. He hadn't been involved as a major shareholder in the rail lines then nor been active in the Bourse trading. Neither business gave him the luxury of being absent for lengthy intervals.

  "Come as far as Samarkand. From that point you can return before the cold weather sets in."

  "The trains to Samarkand are reliable," Georges added, knowing Etienne needed distractions in his life. Women had always been his entertainment in the past, but since Daisy, he'd not returned to his previous pursuits. He rarely went out and he was noticeably restless. "You could be back in Paris in eight days," his cousin suggested.

  Etienne ran his slender finger over the etched railway line connecting Asia to the capital of France, paused for a moment, then, looking up, smiled. "I need a change of scene—why not."

  They planned to leave in a month.

  The Duc's anger with Daisy had abated over the past weeks, his previous bitterness overlaid with a benign magnanimity. He'd been selfish and unfair to ask Daisy to wait for the lengthy time required for his divorce. She deserved more immediate happiness, not a years-long delay while Isabelle appealed the final appeal with the last magistrate in the highest court of appeal. And she would—that much was patently clear. If he was absent from Daisy's life she'd have the opportunity to find someone else to love.

  His benevolence didn't withstand his most vivid dreams of Daisy though or his gloomiest melancholy, and he sat up and drank on those nights, to blur the graphic intensity of her image or dull the corrosive edges of his sorrow.

  * * *

  The days were manageable for Daisy. She arrived at the office early and stayed till late in the evening, the sheer volume of the work she took on consuming every minute. And if she could have worked all night, too, she would have, for at times her dreams wouldn't so conveniently succumb to conscious repression. She'd see Etienne then in the full beauty of his person, smiling and teasing her, holding her, making her laugh. Those mornings when she woke and realized she was alone in her bed were like a small death.

  The opening of the new mine was a blessing, the complexity of establishing a mining operation from day one absorbing enormous time. Down two levels now and into the top perimeters of the ore vein, they were scheduled to start shipping in six months. Water had been a problem early on, but after a redesigned pumping system was operational, no further crises occurred.

  Daisy had gone upmountain twice during the summer camp, to take part in the games and festivities, but her smiles were less spontaneous, she was noticeably more subdued, and she politely refused to accompany the young couples when they went berrying. On the moonlit nights when the beating drums drew the clans out to dance, Daisy found herself lured by the pulsing rhythm, the throbbing resonance bewitching her senses. She danced those nights, but never twice with the same man—as if she were no longer available for flirtation.

  She continued her restraint back in Helena when Hazard and Blaze entertained; more quiet than usual, she'd listen rather than participate in the discussion, and more often than not, directly after dinner, she'd make her excuses or simply disappear.

  Her refuge and security in all those weeks after leaving Paris centered on her commitment to her tribe. Like her father and her brothers, she'd accepted Hazard's vision of hope for their people. Together with the members of their small clan, she and her family cooperated in the mining ventures, the horse breeding, the education of the children, the struggle to maintain their lands for their people.

  There was satisfaction in knowing each long day of activity contributed to the improvement of life for everyone in their clan. The percentage of their children in school was gratifying; the number of their students going to college and returning to serve as instructors was proof of the harmony of clan spirit. A special effort pridefully supported Absarokee artisans dedicated to preserving the craftsmanship of their nomadic way of life; apprenticeship programs had been established to guarantee none of the age-old arts would perish. Daisy volunteered, as well, at their medical and legal-aid clinics.

  Contributing to a working society living in harmony, a society with common goals and purpose, offered her a measure of contentment.

  But it wasn't complete compensation for what she'd given up.

  And no one understood better than her family.

  One morning at breakfast with Hazard, Blaze said with a faint frown creasing her brow, "Daisy stayed in town again last night. She's working entirely too many hours and you should put a stop to it."

  A small startle reflex passed across Hazard's face. "How would you suggest I do that, darling? Bodily carry her from the office?" He smiled to mitigate his rebuff, set down his paper, and diplomatically added, "She may prefer being alone in her apartment in town."

  "That's a worry as well. She shouldn't have so much time alone to brood." In her concern, Blaze was demolishing a muffin into dust.

  "Darling," Hazard soothingly said, reaching over to put a calming hand on his wife's restless fingers, "she's not going to forget de Vec in a few weeks. Daisy's never even shown an interest in anyone before… or that degree of interest," he added, thinking of Martin. "Damn shame he was married."

  "Well, it may be a shame and she may need time to get over it," Blaze replied, shifting a demonstrable anxiety to a rearrangement of her coffee cup and juice goblet, "but in the interval, I'd suggest we take a hand in helping put his memory to rest."

  Hazard gazed at- his wife skeptically over his coffee cup. "Remember, you're talking about Daisy. She's not easily guided or open to casual suggestion."

  Blaze's small grimace was acknowledgment and her ensuing smile typical of her inherent optimism. "Really dear, give me some credit. I wasn't planning on giving her a lecture. I rather think a trip to Newport might be a nice change of scene. You know Frank's been begging you and Trey to play in their international tourney at the end of the month. We could stop briefly in New York first and buy Daisy some new things—"

  "She doesn't like to shop."

  "Don't be negative, darling," Blaze remonstrated, her mood noticeably lightening as she outlined her plans. "She'll shop for a day, at least, if you make it interesting. Why not bring some of Riding Star's paintings to that gallery mounting an exhibition of Western art? We have to show a little imagination to tempt her out of Montana."

  "A damn good imagination, sweet, to talk her into society right now. Even under the most benign circumstances, she avoids the fashionable world."

  "I intend to bring her to Newport." Blaze's voice was softly emphatic.

  "When I hear that tone of voice, bia. I'd better have the rail-car brought out and fitted up."

  Blaze smiled. "How clever of you, darling. Now, we're a large and intelligent enough family to talk one of our members into 'cooperating' in a family excursion."

  "Are you talking major guilt?" His grin was teasing.

  "Nothing so un
subtle. Friendly persuasion, I think is the proper phrase. I'll have Empress talk to her."

  "And Trey."

  "And you at the last, with some project that will be beneficial for the tribe. I rather like the paintings for the New York gallery but if you have a more creative idea, so much better. Oh, I forgot to mention, Kit will be at Newport. He sailed in from the Indies… something to do with a sugar plantation in Jamaica. He's been in Newport for a day or so, he said when he telegraphed."

  "Say no more. Daisy'll go to see Kit. She adores her uncle and delights in the fact he's four years her junior. Last time he visited they both agreed, kindred spirits at heart, that no earthly reason existed to ever contemplate marriage. Although, unlike Daisy, who's since discovered the potent force in Cupid's erratic aim, I don't think Kit will ever stand still long enough to make a target."

  "We're agreed then. Newport for the polo matches." Hazard smiled at the wife he adored. "I know that look. You've started packing already, haven't you?"

  "Just a few things for the babies."

  "This will be a major undertaking, I can see."

  "Frank will be thrilled you're coming and admit it, darling, you're dying to show those Brits a few Absarokee riding tricks again." The last time the British team had come informally to play polo at Newport, Hazard and Trey had dazzled the cool British officers with their fearless, "riding-with-their-necks-for-sale" speed and matchless combination plays. No one passed with their precision or brilliance, or scored so effortlessly with strikes from under their pony's belly, while both men hit with finesse from either side, off or near.