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"Tomorrow or next week… I don't know what I'm going to do about it," he said a moment later in a low hushed growl, his green eyes heated and intense. He smiled an uncompromising smile of certainty. "Right
now
… I know."

"You can't… I won't let you…" Daisy's voice was sharp, her palms pressed hard against his chest, her exertions evident in the tendons of her wrists, the flush of her cheeks.

One dark brow rose. "Can't? Won't?" The Duc's words were the merest breath of sound. And his smile this time was cool. "In a different mood, Mademoiselle… one"—his eyes shut for a moment while he took a deep calming breath—"one less disjointed than my present state of mind… perhaps your words might register in some gentlemanly area of politesse…"

"However…" Daisy's single word was full of contempt.

"However." The Duc's response in contrast was mild, although his hands still holding her face were not. They

were bruising hard, imprisoning her… the antithesis of his soft voice.

"Damn you!" She struggled anew against his weight and grip… against her own overwhelming feelings. How could she despise his arrogance, his force majeur, his entire way of life—and want him still? "You can't have everything you want!" she protested in a rush of heated words. "Seignorial rights are passe!"

They weren't precisely, he thought, recalling the numerous incidents on his outlying estates when peasant fathers came to him with their young daughters as offerings. But he didn't suppose this was a pertinent time to discuss the discrepancies between Daisy Black's and his experience apropos seignorial rights.

"Does it help if I love you beyond distraction… Dammit!" He was angry too but in a different way than Daisy. In a sadder way, perhaps, because she was free and he was not.

"You don't know what love is," Daisy said, reaching up to push his hands from her face, vehement and resentful.

Maybe he didn't, but whatever he was feeling now was susceptible to the harsh truth of her caustic remark. His hands fell away in a swift release and looking down at her for a silent moment, he cursed her allure and his damnable need. "Forgive me," he said, clipped and cool, and lifting the weight of his body from hers, moved to the seat opposite her.

They were both breathing hard, their hearts racing like the speeding carriage, the only sound in the shuttered interior the rasping exhalation of their breath.

"I'm not one of your tarts." She spoke as women do in anger, defining the differences in pedigrees.

Her hair was disheveled, heavy black tresses streaming down her shoulders, a curving fall of midnight silk over one temple; her dress too, pushed in crushed folds of teal blue fabric up over her thighs, offered a tempting vision of golden flesh and the Duc considered for a moment pointing out the subtle nuances sometimes distinguishing a lady from a tart. But he said instead with a gruff uncordialness, "More's the pity," and, crossing his legs, slouched, sullen and black of mood, farther into the corner of his seat.

"Take me back." Her voice held that same haughty blend of coolness and noblesse oblige he'd remarked on when meeting her half brother.

In cultivating haughtiness however, the Duc had a thousand-year advantage—at least in terms of structured society—and he lifted his brows that infinitesimal fraction developed over fifty generations and said, "No."

He managed to give the impression of comfortably lounging in the swaying carriage and, across the filtered light of the shade-drawn interior, their eyes met in a confrontation as old as time… will against will with the deciding factor—sheer physical strength. "My father could kill you… or my brothers." Daisy spoke with a remarkable softness.

"Your brother said that to me once."

"Over Empress." With her hands braced on the seat to hold herself balanced, the shrug of her shoulder was diminished in drama. "There'll be someone else after me, Etienne. You know it and I know it, so I'd appreciate a little less emotion and a bit more sense. Tell Guillaume to turn around and take me back to Adelaide's." Daisy attempted to tug the blue silk of her skirt down over her legs without losing her balance in the swaying carriage. "And you might tell Guillaume to slow down," she added, like a governess would reprimand a pupil. "He's going to run someone over."

The Duc didn't answer. He only leaned slightly forward and reaching over, undid the covering up of her legs. "No need to get prudish, Daisy. Your legs are—" he paused for a moment, his green eyes drifting up her thighs, "very beautiful…" He caught himself before mentioning "and for my eyes only" because she didn't believe in seignorial rights and he realized even himself how anachronistic his feelings were.

"Etienne…" Her dark eyes were narrowed. "I'm not like the others." But she didn't refasten what he'd undone, secure in herself, knowing whether she sat opposite him clothed or unclothed her point was made. "You're overplaying your hand."

"I'm not playing."

"This is eighteen ninety-one, Etienne. I'm independent, wealthy, educated, and supported by a very powerful family. Don't be foolish."

He hadn't moved in his lounging posture and it piqued her briefly—both his insouciance and his ability somehow to be immune to the rough motion of the speeding carriage. "Your wife might be waiting for you," she added with testy sarcasm, wanting to remind him with a female bitchiness of his obligations… and elicit some reaction from his damnable composure.

He smiled then, not exactly the reaction she expected, and said with a smile in his voice as well, "She left for Deauville this morning."

"I hate you." She hated his smugness, his male freedom, his unconcern.

"No, you don't."

She hated his arrogance most, his knowing women could never hate him. And he'd talked to his wife this morning… for all his easy denial of their closeness—hell, knowing him, he probably slept with her last night after
their
reception.

"She left a note with my valet. I was out, you see, like some damn wet-behind-the-ears adolescent in love driving by Adelaide's. Does that answer all your unasked questions?"

How did he know, she wondered, gazing at his lounging strength, that she'd jealously thought him in bed with his wife. His riding clothes were fawn-colored, the suede of his jacket soft as velvet, his long powerful legs covered in sleek gabardine, his booted feet so close in the narrow aisle between them, she could have reached out and touched the gleaming leather. And his stark handsomeness, his brooding, moody eyes drew her like some haunting promise of paradise. "I don't have any questions," she lied, "save one." Struggling to ignore the heated feelings warming her body, she reminded herself he was a very sensual man… but not with her alone—with any female. "When are you taking me back to Adelaide's?"

He shrugged. A small placid movement, barely perceptible in the stillness of his pose. "We'll see," he said, using the royal pronoun,
not
meaning it would be a cooperative decision.

"
We'll see
?" Brushing her skirts down in a sharp decisive smoothing of silk and petticoats, she leaned forward, her fine chin firmed pugnaciously. "Do you have a death wish?"

"Not since I met you."

His response was so calm, so soft, so damnably unruffled, Daisy immediately altered the tenor of her arguments. She was not currently in a position of strength—in Etienne's carriage with his driver taking them to Colsec. "Look," she said, attorney-like and reasonable, "let's negotiate some common ground here."

"Such as?"

His voice held a hint of amusement, annoying and provoking, but Daisy had experience in mediated settlements and ignored the provocation. "Such as agreeing on some period of time amenable to us both."

The Duc laughed then, but smiled his winning smile in appeasement. "Period of time?" he said. "Really?" Gazing at her for a thoughtful moment, he decided he must have her forever or die in the attempt—an irrational and totally out-of-character decision for the man known throughout the civilized world as a passionate but impermanent lover. "I don't negotiate," he quietly said, "but if I did, I'd say something like the second millennium beyond forever."

"Be serious, Etienne. I'm not in the mood to be amused."

"And I really don't negotiate, darling. I'm not joking."

"Is this an abduction?"

"I don't think so, but it could be. I'm flexible."

"I'm not going to fall into your arms like… all the rest."

"You are, darling, so far removed from… all the rest… it's beyond comprehension… believe me." His words were so quiet they barely reached her across the small distance separating them. And straightening in an abrupt, restless movement, he reached out to unlatch the window curtain nearest him. The fine leather shade rolled up with a sharp springing snap, the silk tassel vibrating in a flash of black brilliance.

"Etienne…"

He didn't answer. Maybe he didn't hear her, for her voice was very low, or maybe he was actually engrossed in the view out the window.

"I don't know what to do…"

He must have heard her because he turned his head very slowly toward her, as if reluctant to leave the vision of Garches coming into sight. He sighed softly. "Then that makes two of us," he said.

"I want more than your undivided attention for a few hours, or were you deeply committed, perhaps a few days… or what?"—Her dark eyes were solemn—"a few weeks? You see, I've heard everything."

"I won't apologize for my life, and even if I were so inclined, it wouldn't change anything. I'd like to be able to give you guarantees. With anyone else, I'd lie and give those promises. You can see how addled I've become because I can't, and worse yet, am honest about it. I can say this though, if it helps—you are a breath of freshness and beauty in my life, you're a joy I hadn't known existed. I am for the first time in my life unconditionally happy when I'm with you. I want this feeling to last forever, I want you forever. But the world's made me cynical or perhaps I've made myself cynical… In any event, I can only say… I'd be pleased to do whatever I have to do to keep you."

He sounded like a young boy asking his first dance partner for her hand in a waltz, so full of deference and politeness was his tone, and Daisy was nonplussed for a moment at his stark and abject sincerity. An instant later she found herself scrutinizing his face. Was he only more adept than she at the mendacities of se-duction, more familiar with the right tone for the right occasion and woman? Was he simply living up to his reputation for finesse?

"I'm not normally callow or naive."

He smiled at her words because she was the most intelligent woman he knew.

"Yet I find myself wanting to believe whatever you say."

Any number of smooth and charming responses came immediately to his mind for he recognized a degree of capitulation, however understated, but he said instead a simple, "Good," because she was too important to his existence to stoop to facile charm. And he was too uncertain of his composure to risk a seductive reply.

"Good? Nothing more from Paris's most fluent ladies' man?" Her gaze was critically assessing, touched slightly too with pique. His simple response struck her as too assured. "Don't I at least deserve—"

"Daisy, please." Soft remonstrance touched his voice with unmistakable need.

Her anger drained away and Daisy's eyes met his in a staggering moment of revelation. "This isn't a game for you this time, is it?" she whispered, filled with an inexplicable joy and fear. Already he meant too much to her. How much of her heart did she dare lose to a man of his repute, a man whose name alone was a byword for profligacy?

"No."

"I'm afraid then."

"I can change that." His eyes were sorceror-green seduction.

"It's too easy for you. I know you can, but I'm more practical, Etienne. I want a future beyond your bedroom."

He didn't know what to say. He did too. But he'd only very recently recognized that fact and his thoughts hadn't fallen into any practical rationale capable of dealing with his marriage. "I'll talk to Charles."

"About what, Etienne? Good God, as if he doesn't know more than I'd like already."

"About a divorce."

Her shock showed, but an instant later reality interposed. "Do I look that green?"

Equally shocked himself, he took a moment to absorb the full impact of his words. And a moment more to realize he meant them. And a further moment to understand he owed Isabelle the courtesy of being spoken to first. "No, darling, no one would mistake you for a green child." Smiling now, he felt strangely elated at a decision he should have made years ago.

"Are you sober, Etienne?" Suddenly she questioned whether liquor might account for his startling behavior. She barely knew him, outside their passionate two days together. His family was as old as France itself, Isabelle's too; their marriage of long standing. The Duc de Vec was the least likely aristocrat to disregard a thousand-year heredity.

"Not precisely."

"I knew it." There, a reasonable explanation for his madness.

"I'm too giddy in love to be precise."

"You're mad."

"Probably."

"Thank you," Daisy tartly said, surprised herself at the discontent his word evoked.