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"I'm sorry," Daisy replied in a tone that didn't sound sorry at all, but vexed instead, for she wanted desperately to flee her chaotic thoughts and the adoring women. "There's nothing I can do for the pain. I don't have anything. Now if you'll excuse me."

The Duc's sound hand rose swiftly, stopping Daisy. With an appearance of indolence, his hand lay intimate and splayed across her ribcage, palm out. But he was restraining her with such force, to check her movement, the beaded butterflies on her bodice were leaving marks on his hand. "We should finish our conversation before you go."

His voice was low, a hint of threat in his green eyes.

Would he dare make a scene? He would, she decided a heartbeat later as their eyes held in a look of frank disclosure. "If you wish," she tersely said, as frustrated as he, although their views differed on who had done what to whom.

"I do."

The three young matrons, recognizing authority in a man's voice, looked swiftly from Daisy to the Duc, then back again, before dropping their scrutiny to his hand.

"I'm trying to talk Daisy into selling me one of the Braddock-Black polo ponies," the Duc said with a smile, his hand unmoving on Daisy's ribs.

The three women seemed to simultaneously arrest their breathing for a moment. "Shouldn't you talk to Hazard?" Lily said at last because she was the bravest of the trio or perhaps the most curious.

"Why didn't I think of that?" The Duc's smile was charming.

A short, awkward pause ensued, the air dense with tension between the Duc and the woman he was detaining. Lily opened her mouth to speak, changed her mind after another glance at the Duc's set jaw, and gently shut it. The music from the ballroom suddenly became conspicuous in the heavy silence.

"We should go… I mean, I think I owe this dance… that is we're keeping our dance partners waiting… so please excuse us," Clara finally stammered.

The Duc bowed without removing his hand from Daisy's ribcage.

The ladies each took shocked note of that demonstration of power and rather wide-eyed took their leave.

"We're going to be the general topic of ballroom conversation in under thirty seconds. I hope you're satisfied," Daisy heatedly said.

Satisfied wasn't exactly the pertinent word to describe the Duc's deep-seated frustration. Unsatisfied was more appropriate. Ruffled, resentful, and gauging the distance to his bedroom upstairs was closer to the mark.

"Will Beau be upset?" He snapped, letting his hand fall away, but watching Daisy closely, like a hunter his quarry.

"Don't be obsessed, Etienne," Daisy snapped back. "Or condemnatory. Not with your record."

"Obsessed? How many more are there?" Barely leashed violence grated in his words. He was not currently in a reasonable frame of mind.

"You're being disagreeable." Standing stiffly beside him, she tried to keep from trembling in anger.

"In what way?"

Daisy clenched her fists against the indolent arrogance of his mild query. "In thinking you can question my—social life."

He sighed very softly, almost theatrically, like an indulgent father or guardian might in reviewing an erring child. "An interesting turn of phrase, darling," he murmured, recalling with heated resentment the liberated sexual mores of Absarokee culture. "It's been a long time," he added, the subtle altering of subject obvious in his hushed voice, the direction of his thoughts crystal clear. "Your dress is new."

She could deal with his anger better. She could be outraged and offended, not disastrously reminded of the summer gowns Etienne had purchased for her at Worth and Doucet. Or of the moments when those gowns had been discarded on the bedroom or balcony or pavilion floor. "It's only been two months… not so long." She replied, trying to modulate the emotion from her voice and distant herself from the memories.

"Nine weeks."

"Nine weeks, then."

"Tell me why, Daisy?" he softly said, his eyes holding hers in query. "Was it the divorce?"

She shook her head, understanding what he was asking although his questions were laconic and abridged. "I tried to explain in my letter," Daisy said, trying to master her feelings into a semblance of calm she was far from feeling. "I don't care about the divorce, though I know you do. My culture countenances another manner of divorce. But we live two entirely different lives in terms of interests, commitments, and goals. Forgive me," she added with a rueful grimace, "for sounding doctrinaire, but we don't even live on the same continent."

He listened to all the reasonable words, attentive and polite. "You didn't love me enough, you mean." His harsh declaration matched the flare of resentment in his eyes.

"It's not a question of degree, Etienne," Daisy quietly replied, "but of possibilities. How could we have managed? My work is my life."

"With some women, their husbands are their lives."

"Like Isabelle," she sardonically said.

He almost outwardly winced for she'd struck a raw nerve. How many times in the early years of his marriage, before he'd adopted the casual male approach to fidelity of his class, had he wondered what he'd done wrong or what he'd lacked for Isabelle to show such indifference. "No," he said in a voice suddenly devoid of emotion. "Like Adelaide and Empress… and others I know."

"I'm sorry… if I can't meet their romantic standards. I've worked too long…" She sighed, thinking how little he knew of the tremendous obstacles she'd had to surmount as an Indian woman in a male, white world. And how much more she hoped to accomplish. Although maybe she was more romantic than she admitted. Maybe she was so totally romantic she wanted the man she loved an integral part of her world. Maybe she wanted the entire mythical fantasy of common interests, common goals, and total commitment. An alien concept to a dilettante like Etienne who considered women merely a pleasurable adjunct to his life. "I didn't want to say no," she added at the last, her voice low, her dark eyes anguished, a tiny shiver of regret spinning down her spine.

He stood perfectly still, darkly handsome in full evening rig, surveying her for a moment as though deciphering the exactitude of her words. His jaw set for a transient second and a muscle high over his cheekbone twitched. "But you did," he brusquely said, "and you'll pardon my obtuseness but I find your work a tenuous excuse."

"I didn't really expect you to understand. You're too familiar with ornamental, adoring women." Her anger showed then because beneath the issue of her vision for her people, incomprehensible to a man of his background, was the persistent issue of his faithlessness. He turned women's heads, fascinated them, was continually tempted by female admirers. Like moments ago when she'd seen three women vie like contestants for his attention. She understood his blatantly enticing sensuality as well as anyone for she'd succumbed like so many before her, but recognition didn't exonerate him of the flamboyant record of his past or offer the fidelity she required. Unlike Isabelle, she wouldn't be able to overlook stark faithlessness in her marriage.

A silence lay between them for a moment as they both struggled with the peculiar friction of their feelings. The Duc glanced down the corridor toward the noise of the ballroom, followed by a survey of the length of hallway stretching toward the back of the residence, his gaze reconnoitering rather than contemplative. Without speaking he took her hand and began walking toward the ballroom.

Following without protest, Daisy presumed Etienne was being reasonable and returning to the dance. Maybe they could put aside their singular resentments and even waltz together, she thought, like ordinary friends. But as they approached the large entrance hall from which separate wings of the villa radiated, Etienne veered away from the ballroom, turning instead toward the monumental spiral stairway that had been taken piece by piece from the Chateau d'Arnay-le-Duc.

"No!" Daisy sharply cried as she realized his intentions. "Etienne!"

Two footmen turned to look.

"I'll show you the view from upstairs." The Duc's tone was sardonic, his stride unaltered, his grip crushing her fingers, the fog outside so dense the windows in the entrance hall were damp with moisture.

"My family's here!" She had to lift her skirt with her free hand to keep from stumbling on the first step. Surely he'd consider the deterrent of her relatives once she reminded him.

"Mine is too."

Good God, she remembered… his daughter and son-in-law. He didn't care! And for the first time she fully understood the scope of Etienne's audacity. Equally conscious of the extent of male affront in her family, disastrous visions of violence filled her mind. Glacing quickly over her shoulder she nervously scanned the entrance to the ballroom. Someone had to deal with this situation rationally. "We have to talk, Etienne."

He turned briefly to look back at her and smiled. "That barrister reason. I'd love to talk. Afterward."

At the moment, as he pulled her along behind him, compelling lust far outweighed any other arguments, sensible or otherwise.

He could feel the drumming of his pulse in the racing heat of his blood, in the sudden sensation of clothing on his skin, in the adrenalin coursing through his nerve endings. Curiously, his damaged fingers no longer hurt.

Slowing his stride when they reached the second-floor hallway, he drew Daisy alongside. "They don't hurt anymore," he said, his smile a slow luxurious curving of his mouth.

Unnerved at his reckless behavior, his words sounded equally strange, and the look she gave him indicated further explanation was required.

"My fingers," he said, lifting his injured hand slightly to show her. "You're good medicine."

"
You're
out of your mind tonight, Etienne," Daisy exclaimed, slightly breathless from her swift ascent to the second floor, "and too cavalier even for the play society of Newport. Someone is bound to wonder what happened to us." She thought him very skilled and courageous, though, for surviving her father's onslaught on the polo field. "But I'm glad they don't hurt."

Her voice for the first time reminded him intimately of their days together in Paris. "Lord, I've missed you," he said, hushed and low, glancing down at her with a sudden intensity.

"Don't say that," Daisy protested. Even more than his words, she'd instinctively responded to the essential need in his voice and she was terrified that weeks of cautionary judgment might be undone so easily.

"It's God's truth."

"In your own way, you mean," she replied, bolstering her informed opinions with prickly temper, "between the Nadines." She'd never forget Isabelle's visit to Etienne's apartment. She'd experienced that same sinking feeling tonight seeing Etienne and Nadine on the dance floor.

"I don't want to argue." He continued without pause down the carpeted hall, intent on his destination.

"You never do."

"How many times have I apologized for my past?" he wearily said, counting the fifth door from the statue of Minerva in the alcove, which was the only way he could keep track of his room in this strange house. His was the eighth.

"Nadine looked rather current," Daisy said with asperity, motivated by jealous memory. "She looked
so current
on the dance floor tonight melting into your body, I was wondering if her husband was going to call you out."

"Well she isn't."

With the heat of his body too close for comfort,, the fine wool of his jacket drifting against the bare skin of her arm—jarring her senses despite the delicate friction—Daisy paradoxically felt relief and anger at his brief disclaimer. "I wonder if Nadine knows that," she said, disparagingly.

"Tell me about Beau Rutherford," the Duc said, "as long as we're making accusations."

"There's nothing to tell."

"I wonder if he knows that," he said, mimicking her response to him. Then, swallowing his contemplated sarcasm, abruptly said instead in barely a whisper, "My life hasn't been the same since you left me."

"Should I say I'm sorry?" Daisy defensively responded, fighting against tumultuous feeling.

Glancing at her again as they traversed the upper hallway, he hesitated briefly before responding. She looked smaller than he remembered. Maybe it was the twenty-foot ceilings. "I don't know," he said, as if gauging the degree of politeness required. There was a measure of anger beneath his need for her he hadn't been able to completely extinguish.

"Are you blaming me?" She'd recognized the small sullen-ness.

"Maybe," he said, unsure himself whether part of his impelling need tonight was prompted by vengeance. Did he want to punish her for causing him so much misery, for leaving him? He couldn't honestly say, not quite suite he was benevolent enough to genuinely wish her happiness without him.

Seven… and eight.

"Welcome," he said, reaching out to open the door to his room. "I hope you're not put off by fifteenth-century Flanders. Actually the Circassian walnut woodwork is rather nice."

"Etienne, please don't," Daisy said, tugging against the pressure of his grip.

"You don't like Flemish decor?"

"Damn you, be serious." His grin was as unnerving as the warmth of his hand enfolding hers.

"Trust me, I am serious. Come." And he pulled her into the room, leaving her standing just inside the threshold while he shut the door. Wall sconces lent a soft golden glow to the masculine bedchamber, picked up the gilt ornament on the enormous baroque columns of walnut twisting upward to the plaster molded ceiling, highlighted the frenzied serpentine carving of the massive tester bed.