Forbidden by Susan Johnson

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.