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"Could we leave soon?"

Hazard touched her hand, stopped in midstride, and when she looked back at the tall figure of her father standing very still in the streaming crowd of passengers moving toward their destinations, he quirked a dark brow and said, "Should we leave now?"

How did he know, Daisy wondered, tears welling into her eyes and closing her throat, that she wanted to be back in the mountains so badly even a few hours more in Chicago would have been unbearable?

Without a word, Hazard opened his arms to his stricken daughter. She went to him in a rush, her hat slipping off in the sweep of his embrace, dangling by the silky green ribbons halfway down her back. She felt unassailably safe again, engulfed in her father's arms as though he could make her world right again, as though his protection could shut out the hurt and pain.

"Take me home," she whispered against the solid strength of her father's chest.

She could have been asking him to ride into a village of his enemies and he would have for love of his child. He'd journeyed East to meet her because in the drift of rumor from Paris, he'd known she'd need consolation. But beneath the gentle comfort of his succor raged a furious rankling anger at the man who'd so casually devastated his daughter's content. And he vowed on the spirit gods of his medicine the cougar, the Duc de Vec would answer someday for this hurt to his child.

"I'll find a train West," he said, stroking her hair, her tears wetting his shirtfront. "We'll be out of Chicago directly," he pledged, jettisoning his plans for the afternoon and evening. "I want to shoot him," he murmured, "when I see you cry. He doesn't deserve you."

"It's not his fault," Daisy whispered into the crisp starched cotton of his shirt.

"It's his fault if you're crying," Hazard said with the logic of a father.

"I decided myself to leave."

But he didn't try to stop you
, Hazard reflected, another black mark against de Vec registered on his payback list. He knew from experience that sin of omission. "You don't seem happy with your decision," he softly prompted, wanting to understand her reasons.

"It's never easy to leave…"

"Someone you love."

Daisy nodded, hiccupping and sniffling and looking so thoroughly unhappy, Hazard gazed for a contemplative moment at the teeming crowds passing around them like river current around a rock and debated his options. Most were violent and lethal, all of which he discarded because Daisy was very dear to him and her happiness was indispensable to his peace of mind.

"Do you want him?" he simply said at last, an unornamented father's question supported by an unconditional love.

She nodded again.

"Then you'll have him." So bluntly did Absarokee chieftains arbitrate—so competently did Hazard-the-Black-Cougar meet his obligations. Raised as a warrior in a warrior society that maintained its suzerainty over the best hunting grounds on the Northern plains against mightier and more numerous enemies, Hazard Black had honed to perfection his skills in raiding and warfare. Like planning the success of a war party, he didn't envision any problems abducting the Duc de Vec and bringing him to the mountains.

Daisy's face lifted to his, her eyes fierce with emotion. "No," she declared, with the same blunt authority as her father. "It's not possible for me to have him… for a thousand reasons—all rational, logical reasons. I know that and Etienne knows it too… or he will after a time. His wife won't divorce him.
Won't
, Father, and she has the entire judiciary behind her. Etienne doesn't believe he won't be able to bludgeon the divorce through… but he can't. He's ignoring the, reality of a judiciary rife with nepotism. He doesn't fully understand all the obstacles Isabelle can put in his way—all the delaying procedures
legally
allowable." She took a deep breath, relief and resolution evident in her expression. In the plainest of words she'd outlined her dilemma. "So I came home because there was no point in staying, and I intend to remain in Montana and I
don't
want you interfering." Her dark eyes were identical to his and they held his now in entreaty. "Papa, promise me you won't."

For the first time in his life, she'd called him something more, intimate than father, her childlike appeal so unlike her normal self-possession. He'd never seen her so wounded.

"Papa?" Daisy's voice was so quiet, the small sound was immediately carried away by the noise of the crowds.

She was his only daughter, he'd always wanted a special happiness for her; he'd hoped to guard her from the violence he and his sons had dealt with so often over the years to protect their land; he wished her a life of contentment. He smiled then at his dreams, for Daisy was too much his daughter to neatly conform to some idyllic safe world—an enchanted world unreal and fanciful. But he didn't wish her to be
this
cruelly unhappy. "Must I promise?" he asked in slow deliberation because he wanted above all to give her back her happiness.

"Yes," she said very low, knowing her father's impulse for action.

"I promise then," Hazard reluctantly said. "But he's a stupid man."

Twenty minutes later they were ensconced in a private compartment on a train to St. Louis, Daisy's baggage hastily transferred, their shoes off and bourbon-spiked cool lemonades in their hands. While not the most direct route home, the particular feature of immediate departure commended it. The station was receding from view, Chicago's densely built inner city rising like a monument to progress on either side. With the rhythm of the wheels a soothing melody of deliverance, the windows raised high against the oppressive heat, Hazard smiled across the small paneled chamber at his daughter and raised his glass.

"To the future," Hazard proposed. "And your happiness." "To the future," Daisy agreed, her smile grateful. "To the mountains of home. And to the best father in the world."

In the course of their journey to Montana, Daisy disclosed in an edited version, how her relationship with the Duc de Vec had evolved, what her feelings were concerning their future, and her reasons for leaving Paris. She detailed the complications of French divorce law as well as Isabelle's noncooperation. Since Hazard had been involved in the unsavory negotiations over Trey's divorce from Valerie last year, he was acutely aware how large sums of money generally expedited reluctant spouses and a sluggish judiciary. He wondered whether the Duc hadn't been completely honest with Daisy in terms of his divorce or hadn't he considered the efficacy of spending some of his fortune for his freedom? Or had he considered and not been sufficiently motivated?

Knowing the Duc's reputation, Hazard suspected he hadn't been completely candid about the divorce. Familiar himself with attracting female attention, Hazard understood the fine line between utter honesty and politesse. In the years before his marriage, he'd managed with deft skill to accommodate a great number of ladies' amorous desires; one became well versed in the art of urbane gallantry. Even since his marriage he'd used that ex-pertise to good purpose in politely extricating himself from women intent on seducing him.

"In a country so new to the legal process of divorce," he tactfully said to his daughter, "I expect a smoothly operating judicial mechanism isn't possible."

"The Church, too, is adamantly opposed to the law."

"So I understand."

"The legitimists are antagonistic as well. Many of Etienne's class support the restoration of the monarchy, you know that." She shrugged, with a new Gallic insouciance, Hazard thought. "He was cut cold at the
Opéra
by the new clerical envoy to the Vatican… only one instance of old friendships now in jeopardy—over me."

"Over the divorce, not you," Hazard didn't want Daisy to bear the burden of a divorce that might or might not occur.

"I still feel responsible."

He couldn't be as frank as he wished… reflecting that the Duc de Vec may have been merely amusing himself—again. So he said instead with a comforting smile, "Well, I'm pleased you're home with us—whatever the reason."

Daisy's utterances, too, were less than frank. Her disclosure hadn't revealed the manner in which Etienne had practically
urged
her to return to Montana. Her humiliation over those reflections was too private to expose. She'd also not admitted her skepticism over Isabelle's alleged threat; Isabelle may have simply been a convenient excuse for Etienne to approve her leaving. "I'm happy to be back," Daisy said. "And I'm looking forward to working again."

In that, at least, no subterfuge existed. A peace of sorts had enveloped her as they'd traveled West, leaving the cities behind, leaving Paris and all her painful memories far away. The rolling prairie passing by the train windows made Paris less real, mitigated the ghastly visions of Isabelle's malevolent face, put her great longing for Etienne in some perspective. Lessened it? So far she hadn't experienced that saving grace; a great aching emptiness still filled her heart.

Would he actually write as he'd promised or telegram; had he already sent her letters, was he as miserable and dejected as she? But when she arrived in Helena, no letter greeted her; a false hope, in any event, with the speed of her journey—an omen, her unhappy soul prophesied.

Feted by her family and friends, Daisy reentered the welcoming comfort of her familiar world. She discussed the gallery openings she'd attended and the plays—her new Worth gowns elicited extravagant compliments. She agreed with all her acquaintances that Paris was particularly beautiful in the spring.

With so many millionaires in the wealthy mining town of Helena who traveled abroad or had Parisian friends, gossip about Daisy and the Duc de Vec had preceded her to Helena. Although no one was discourteous enough to blatantly inquire, Daisy was conscious of a burning curiosity. Even talk of divorce in the St. Germain enclaves precipitated the direst speculation on the crumbling of aristocratic mores. People were naturally inquisitive—the name de Vec represented immemorial custom.

Empress did broach the subject once, for as a friend of the Duc during her estrangement from Trey, she understood the full measure of his charm.

Daisy had come over to visit and see the children, so she and Empress were in the large sunny, nursery watching the youngsters at play.

"Will Etienne be coming West?" Empress asked.

Daisy shook her head first as though she didn't wish to answer and then briefly said, "No."

A sense of tranquility pervaded the nursery, the family scene bathed in golden sunlight, felicity in all the smiling children's faces. So contrary, Daisy mused, to the oppressive disorder of her own life.

Empress and Trey's young son, Max, was stacking blocks into towers with Belle, Valerie Stewart's daughter, who they were raising as their own. Empress's youngest brother Eduard, almost five now, helped the two toddlers steady their tippy structures.

Born only a month apart, the toddlers, both dark-haired and nearly of a size, had immediately developed a natural affinity for each other from their very first meeting, like twins would, understanding each other's imperfect language when no one else could decipher it, showing concern for each other, sharing toys and special treats as though it were natural rather than unusual in children that young. And gazing at the happy scene of the three small children engrossed in their building, Solange sleeping peacefully nearby in her cradle, Daisy wistfully envied the tender image. Etienne had wanted a child and had she been less practical, she might be carrying his baby. She wished suddenly with an inexpressible yearning now that it was too late, that she'd been less pragmatic. Even if he were lost to her, she'd have his child to love and nurture, she'd still retain a part of him as vivid memory of their love.

"Once Etienne's divorce is finalized," Empress said, interrupting Daisy's poignant reverie, "he'll certainly come West then."

"The divorce will never be finalized." Her declaration, blunt and low, had the tone of an unequivocal edict.

"You can't be sure!" Startled, Empress breathlessly took issue. "Surely de Vec will prevail."

"You don't realize Isabelle's stance. Divorce is death, I think, succinctly describes her posture, and she has every intention of living a long life." Daisy reached down to help Max steady his block tower, her voice prosaic, as though she were commenting on the weather. The past weeks, while not assuaging the sorrow of her lost love, had allowed her considerable time to analyze the incontrovertible strength in Isabelle's defense. "Etienne can't leave France anyway… even if some benevolent god obliterated all the barricades Isabelle has put in his path, because his numerous business interests are all based on the continent. And I can't live in Paris. My life is here."

In any other woman, Empress might have questioned the firmness of her convictions, but Trey's family was unequivocably committed to their clan, to the Absarokee vision of "driftwood lodges" with a strength of character and indefatigable courage almost reverently devout. The Absarokee term for clan was
ashammaleaxia
, which translated as "driftwood lodges." As driftwood lodges together along the banks of the rivers, so the members of a clan clung together, united in a turbulent stream, intrinsically linked to and part of the assemblage of human and spiritual personages surrounding him or her.

A more traditional woman wouldn't have questioned living in her husband's world, but Daisy epitomized a fundamentally nontraditional female role, for the Absarokee nurtured an egalitarian acceptance of mission regardless of gender. Men and women were equally eligible for social recognition and spiritual attainment.