Forbidden by Susan Johnson (best feel good books txt) 📗

gambling and mountain climbing. Luckily, he was successful at both, so the family wealth wasn't diminished nor was his presence often felt at home. Regrettably, his luck ran out one day on the rockface of Dag Namur at sixteen thousand feet, and Etienne became the next Duc de Vec at the young age of twelve.

His mother found the role of widow as uninteresting as she'd found marriage and motherhood. Fascinated primarily by society's pleasures, after having done her wifely duty of providing an heir for her husband, she'd entertained herself discreetly with a variety of lovers while her husband was away. At his death, the freedom and independence she'd always craved became a reality and a way of life. From his mother, no doubt, he'd inherited his propensity for sexual adventuring. They'd become friends in his adolescence, when he'd begun to better understand the nature of her interests; she was his confidante now and favorite lunch companion.

"And forgive us for waking you," he added with a smile, aware of Adelaide's struggle to suppress a yawn.

"I will if you tell me what weighty issue brings you to breakfast," Adelaide declared, more curious than tired. Since Valentin never woke her before eleven, this was obviously of some import.

"Etienne would like to be included in our dinner party tonight," her husband casually replied, stirring another spoonful of sugar into his coffee. "I said you'd be delighted."

"You won't be bored?" Adelaide said to the Duc. "We're only having a few people in to dine."

"If Mademoiselle Black is seated beside me I won't be bored," the Duc quietly said.

One couldn't accuse him of subterfuge. He was being exceedingly plain as was the reason now for her early morning call to breakfast. "She's not your type, Etienne." Adelaide gazed at him as a mother might a child asking for some curiosity.

"Let me be the judge of that, Adelaide." The Duc's voice was soft, his expression unreadable.

Her brows rose and she shrugged slightly, a Parisian withdrawal. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she said, her tone cheerful as she considered the interesting possibilities in the Duc's endeavor. "Daisy's even more opinionated than Empress, and stubbornly independent. It must be the air in Montana. She won't be tractable."

"So I discovered when I met her last night," the Duc said with a faint smile. "Despite that, I find her fascinating." Maybe the fascination had to do with the piquant challenge of a woman walking away from him. He couldn't remember that having happened before.

Familiar with the Duc's expression, Valentin gave warning of his own. "Daisy's our guest, Etienne. I won't have her hurt."

The Duc was comfortably lounging in a chair by the window as if he shared breakfast with the Prince and Princess de Chantel often. "Rest easy, Valentin," he reassured his friend, with whom he did breakfast frequently—normally at his home. "I don't intend to force the lady." His voice had the easy confidence of a man more often the recipient of seductive advances than supplicant.

Adelaide laughed, a bright trilling sound, light as the sun streaming through the windows. "You men are…" She smiled knowingly over the rim of her teacup, her gaze surveying both men looking very boyish in their shirt sleeves and riding pants. "… very naive about Daisy."

Daisy almost turned around and left the drawing room that evening when she saw the Duc de Vec sprawled in one of the embroidered chairs flanking the fireplace, cradling a small tumbler of liquor between his large hands.

But his eyes caught hers when she entered the room as if he'd been watching for her arrival and she begrudged giving him the satisfaction of knowing his presence affected her.

Although he didn't approach her in the half hour before dinner was announced, she caught his gaze on her several times… and he'd smiled then, his promise-of-pleasure smile that managed somehow to be amiable and sweet in addition to its obvious sensual allure.

Tiny flutters of heat stirred her senses when he smiled. While pretending not to notice, she consciously tamped down her strange flutters, not sure if they were anger or anticipation, not wishing to acknowledge she was experiencing any sensations related to the darkly handsome man seated with the animated group of men discussing polo.

He appeared not to participate in the conversation except when asked a direct question, she noted, then chastised herself a moment later for monitoring his activities so closely. The impossibility of any relationship with the infamous Duc de Vec had been thoroughly dealt with last night before she fell asleep, she reminded herself, turning back to the women seated near Adelaide. Forcefully turning her full attention on the merits of pink diamonds as the newest fashion statement in accessories, she concentrated on the discussion of jewelers and styles. She was relieved to hear dinner announced just as the Duchesse Montaine asked her opinion on combining yellow and pink diamonds in a parure.

Her relief was short-lived, however, since the Duc de Vec presented himself as her dinner partner, bowing slightly, offering his arm to escort her into the dining room. He seemed, perhaps because of her surprise, to loom extremely large above her, his closeness penetrating, vividly distracting to her sense of aloof-ness. She wanted to say: Why are you doing this? But too many people were near and expressing those sentiments would suggest he was doing something perhaps he wasn't, and would also indicate the extent of her flustered agitation. So she bit back the words when the Duc pleasantly said, "Good evening, Mademoiselle Black. Are you as hungry as I?"

Rising from her chair, she gave him a sharp look, wondering whether he intended the double entendre or she was simply misinterpreting his meaning.

Her response brought a faint smile to the Duc's mouth, for his comment had been perfectly innocuous. How pleasant her agitation, he mused. "I missed lunch," he went on in an amiable tone as though he calmed sexually awakened young ladies every day of the week, which in truth, wasn't too wide