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One of only a handful of female lawyers in America, her determination to enter that distinguished rank was based solely on her desire to help her people. And she'd succeeded against daunting odds for the same reasons. Like her father and her brothers, Daisy's allegiance was steadfastly with her clan.

Empress realized with a deeply grateful recognition, that she was fortunate in not having had to face such a cruel dilemma. While her family estates were in France, competent managers and her oldest brother, Guy, were supervising their operation. And her spiritual world wasn't as dynamically interdependent.

"Could Etienne consider living in Montana for a portion of the year?" she gently inquired.

Daisy straightened from her assistance in tower building, her expression unreadable. "He oversees a dozen estates, major interests in three European railways, a chair on the
Bourse
, his consuming passion for polo during the season commands hours a day—not to mention the maintenance of the thousand-year de Vec family grandeur. That combination would be hard to manage from Montana."

For the next month, Daisy and Etienne's letters crossed the great distance separating them, renewing and sustaining their impassioned hopes. Until one hot July day in a Paris bereft of every soul fortunate enough to have escaped to the cool countryside, Bourges telephoned the Duc with some more disheartening news. Their appeal for the change of venue had been heard by a substitute magistrate because Beauchamp had fallen ill—he wasn't expected to live—and they'd lost again.

"Bloody hell." Etienne sighed, leaning back against his chair and shutting his eyes.

"I've never been so systematically struck down by wretched coincidence. It's like a damnable act of God," Bourges complained. "Beauchamp had agreed to be reasonable."

"I suppose we can consider ourselves fortunate the reversal is only a loss in court for us," the Duc philosophically said, opening his eyes to the cool dimness of his study. "Beauchamp may not be so lucky."

"Apparently it was his heart. You're right of course, although I'm hard-pressed at the moment to dredge up benign reflections."

"So who denied us?"

"Plaige. Damn his jumped-up petite noblesse heart. His wife's connections put him where he is today and it's gone to his head."

"No doubt he was easily persuaded then by Charles's
pur sang
," Etienne ironically remarked. "Where do we go from here?"

"I've a meeting with Letheve tomorrow."

"A waste of time, Felicien."

"Maybe not."

Felicien had a doggedness one had to admire, but Etienne knew talking to Letheve was useless. The man followed Charles and Isabelle's dictates to the letter. "I'm going out to my river estate for a few days, so I won't be in touch," the Duc said, needing some solace after another bleak report from Bourges. "I'll call you when I return. And thank you," he finished, "for all your work."

"We'll get them eventually."

Etienne had to smile at his persistence. "I sure as hell hope so," he said.

He hadn't been back to Colsec since Daisy left, the past month intensely busy with business commitments. He'd traveled to each of his estates to oversee the condition of the crops and vineyards, made two swift journeys to the south of France where new rail lines were being proposed by one of the companies he financed, and saw to the construction of additional stables at his racing stud.

Daisy's presence immediately struck him as he walked through the rooms at Colsec, all so reminiscent of sweet memories: she'd eaten with him in the small flagstoned parlor and sat there on the Turkish sofa under the window; she'd laughed over her shoulder at him, coming down these stairs, her eyes sparkling with mischief; in that bed they'd made love and on that chaise one warm afternoon—for the first time, and there on the balcony, in the cool of the morning, in the balmy hours of the afternoon, at night under the light of the moon. And then he caught sight of the new bathroom added since his last visit, complete with modern plumbing so Daisy would have more comfort than his small tub afforded when she bathed. He'd forgotten. Walking through the large portal cut into the bedroom wall, he stood arrested by the spectacular view overlooking the garden. Floor to ceiling windows faced east to catch the morning light, and hand-painted tiles in rich rose and moss green trailed floral garlands over the sleek surface of the walls. A green marble bathtub, splendid and ornate with sculpted faucets of gold, dominated one wall. A dressing table built in under the eaves, lace-skirted and fitted out with perfumes and mirrors, awaited Daisy's pleasure.

Like he.

He had to walk outside along the river for a time to gain some control over his despair, to leave behind the haunting echoes and lost hopes, to come to terms at last with a sense of unutterable hopelessness. When he returned, he entered his small study and sat down to write to Daisy. Inundated with his melancholy memories of happier times, depressed with the most recent news from Bourges, the Duc was thoroughly discouraged as he began his letter. This cottage at Colsec, once his snug refuge, seemed empty and forlorn without the woman he loved and his words reflected his desolation.

I'm sorry
, he wrote,
but I don't know if this divorce will succeed. The appeal for change of venue was denied. While Bourges is hopeful, in my present mood I find it difficult to agree with him. I'm at Colsec, missing you dreadfully, seeing you everywhere, unable to hold you or talk to you. At times like this your dour warnings reverberate like bells of doom, numbing hope, paralyzing action. While my feelings for you haven't changed, they're unfortunately incidental to the bleak future of my divorce
.

He added a few lines more about the prairie garden outside his window, how it reminded him or her, but he found it impossible to be cheerful and he closed without his usual promise to see her soon.

Etienne's letter came at the worst possible time, for Daisy, too, was disconsolate over the numerous problems impeding their future. His joyless news seemed only to echo her own despair.

Riding up into the hills to be alone, she lay under the shimmering aspen, contemplating the new mood of his letter, its brevity, the gloomy use of the words "bleak, numbing, paralyzing." Smoothing out the single sheet of paper on the grass, she touched the curving forms of the words, as if she could feel his presence with her gesture. Almost two weeks had passed since he'd written that day at Colsec, and she tried to imagine what he'd looked like, seated at the small desk in his study on the ground floor. Had he been barefoot as he was so often at Colsec, was his hair wet from swimming in the river, had Gabriella brought him a citrus punch in a tall glass laced with kir, as he liked?

What had he meant when he'd said the divorce wasn't going to succeed? Only the present procedural step—or ultimately?

She knew the answer, of course, to her rhetorical question.

She'd known the answer to that query months ago in Paris.

Only her heart had refused to accept it.

That night she sent Etienne the message she'd been contemplating for weeks, defining her feelings, courteously and rationally acquiescing to his hopeless outlook.

I don't honestly know how to begin
, she wrote, struggling for the words to separate herself from the man she loved almost more than duty. Tears glistened in her eyes, her throat ached with suppressed sobs as her pen reluctantly transcribed the unhappy words.
Nor am I sure of the wisdom of my actions. But when I read your letter from Colsec, my heartfelt to the ground
, she went on, unconsciously expressing her grief in the words of her people.
Your despair was my despair, your bitter taste of lost hope
—
mine. We've never been rational, Etienne, to think we could overcome the powerful age-old prejudices of your class. Although I care less about the actual divorce
—
you know my feelings on the whitemen's customs
—
I do care profoundly about the duty we owe to our different cultures. I love you with the same passion we first knew at Colsec, and I miss you every moment, but I can't marry you
.

Our allegiances are to different worlds.

Worlds separated by distance and convictions.

Promise me we can be friends at least, so I won't have to lose you completely.

The Duc hurled her letter across the room after reading it, and then swearing, was obliged to go and fetch it to reread the horrendous words. Damn her black eyes! Friends? he fumed. She wanted to be friends? Not likely! he caustically raged. She must have found someone else, was his immediate next thought. Damn her and damn her treacherous faithlessness!

The third time he retrieved the perfidious letter, he ironed out the crumpled paper with the flat of his hand and went over her words slowly, as if some hidden meaning resided beneath the brief repudiating sentences. She was definitely stating she wouldn't marry him, he decided ten readings later, no matter how he interpreted the phrases, regardless of her protestations of love.

Rage filled his mind at her damnable noble-sounding phrases, at the utter practicality of her tone, at the possibility—his more cynical contemplation deciphered—a new suitor amused the beautiful, hot-blooded Miss Black. A furious, impotent anger swelled inside his brain at the thought of another man touching Daisy and with that implacable image in mind, an overwhelming impulse to strike out and hit something gripped his senses.
Friends
? She wanted to be
friends
like bridge partners or asexual pairings at the tennis doubles at Trouville each summer. He couldn't imagine being friends with the seductive, sensual Daisy Black. She had to be joking! She'd found someone else, it was plain to see, like she'd fallen into his bed with teasing laughter and wanton eyes, and he said that plain and simple in the telegram he sent off.

You're crazy if you think I want to be friends. Who's your new lover?

He didn't sign it for the clerks in the telegraph office were sure to gossip, but she'd know who the message came from. He paced, cynical and surly and impatient, waiting for her reply—not knowing if she'd reply.

She received the brutal reproach in the company offices in Helena and went cold at the tone. Composing an immediate reply, she stood shivering in the summer heat while the operator keyed the words.

There's no one. Believe me. No one but you. Can we be friends?

He hated that word suddenly—a repugnant spurious word for the intensity of his feelings.
Marry me
, he dispatched back heatedly.
I don't want a friend
.

I can't marry you
. She almost didn't write those words. She almost decided to become the Duc de Vec's mistress because he wasn't free to marry her even as he asked. The convoluted struggle between belief and disbelief, between trust and misanthropy brought her momentarily to a standstill while the young telegraph clerk waited for her reply. She didn't at base care about Etienne's divorce, but she cared about the repercussions attendant to its omission. And she cared, too, in a spiritual way, for her own peace of mind. Which simple reflection called in all her interior landscapes—predominant with images of her beloved mountains.