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"Thank you for the offer, Empress, but don't bother with a letter of introduction." Daisy's voice was moderate, detached. "I won't have much time to ride."

The ocean crossing was unseasonably tempestuous, beset with gale winds that made even a daily walk on deck dangerous. Daisy's arrival time was delayed a full day by the storms. When she landed at Le Havre, Adelaide was waiting for her with an infectiously cheerful smile, her usual retinue of servants sufficient to ease a monarch's progress through a coronation, and a calendar of social events drawn up for Daisy that would exhaust an eighteen-year-old debutante.

With utmost diplomacy Daisy pared away as many events as possible on the train ride to Paris, using her legal mission as excuse. Which pretext turned out to be not only a feigned defense but an actuality, the procedures required to ultimately incorporate Solange into the Jordan estates taking hours of her time each day. French jurisprudence, not yet reconciled to female attorneys, offered obstinacy and delay at each step of the process.

After having passed two underproductive weeks, Daisy had visions of either leaving without accomplishing her tasks or seeing Paris in the autumn. Only today, she'd been denied entrance to the office of the deputy clerk with a rudeness only the French could convey. The vestiges of a headache that had plagued her all day still throbbed at her temples. The combs in her hair hurt, as did her heavy earrings, a rackety din of conversation overwhelming Adelaide's ballroom and Daisy's sensitive ears like a rushing tidal wave of fashionable inanity. Dammit, she hotly reflected, Henry
should
have come to Paris on this assignment. At least then his delays wouldn't have been predicated on gender bias—only nationality prejudice.
And
dammit, she'd
almost
managed to escape from the heated crush of Adelaide's ballroom, a moment ago.

Almost.

Except for the Comtesse Guimond's dulcet greeting and firm detaining grasp on her arm.

So now she stood facing the notorious Duc de Vec, waiting to be introduced, her disinterest barely concealed.

The Duc was patently restless, only held in check, as was Daisy, by the Countess's restraining hand.

It was obvious neither wished to be there.

When the hall clock struck the hour, Daisy and the Duc both took note of it like schoolchildren counting the minutes till dismissal.

With Daisy's inherent dislike of glittering society, were she not Adelaide's houseguest, she would have spent the evening upstairs reading.

The Duc de Vec had come at the last minute, as a favor to Adelaide's husband Valentin, when the seating arrangements for dinner required a hasty replacement for Baron Arras, who'd been injured on the polo field that afternoon. His friendship only extended to dinner, he'd warned Valentin; he intended leaving immediately after. And were it not for Isme's deliberate spite, eagle eye, and clutching hand on his arm, he would have been on his way to the Jockey Club. Instead, he was waylaid, impatient, his eyes shuttered against his annoyance.

"Etienne, darling, have you met Mademoiselle Daisy Black? She's sister-in-law to your
dear
friend Empress from Montana."

Introductions were made in an airy offhand manner underlaid with a sweet malevolence by Isme, the latest casualty of the Duc's amorous boredom. Since the Duc had recently ended their affair, with a woman-scorned resentment the Comtesse Guimond was hoping to embarrass the Duc de Vec with a member of Empress Jordan's family. His unsuccessful pursuit of the beautiful Mademoiselle Jordan the previous year had set tongues wagging; Empress had been the Duc's only known failure in matters of the heart.

"Daisy, may I present the Duc de Vec. I'm sure Empress has spoken highly of him. They were very
close
last year."

Isme watched like a peevish kitten, all blonde prettiness and malicious speculation to see how both would respond. Would Etienne feel awkward or gauche in Daisy's presence? Talk had it the Duc and Empress's husband met one evening in Empress's boudoir. Had this woman heard the details? How would Daisy Black regard the disreputable Duc de Vec? By reputation, from her family's vantage point, with her own reservations perhaps? She looked extremely cool. But then her splendid dark coloring and the heavy creme satin gown from Worth gave her a regal air. Unconsciously Isme straightened her petite, voluptuous form in emulation.

"Charmed, Mademoiselle," the Duc said with an effortless smile, bowing over Daisy's hand, immune to Isme's pointed innuendo.

The Comtesse Guimond's famed lavender eyes took on a sullen cast as she disgruntledly gazed at her ex-lover. She should have known better. It was impossible to embarrass de Vec.

"Good evening, Monsieur le Duc," Daisy calmly replied to a man she knew only by notorious reputation. Whatever calculated reason Isme had for forcing this introduction—the Duc was obviously in her clutches—Daisy refused to rise to the bait. In fact, had Isme known Empress's sister-in-law, she would have realized Daisy rarely showed her feelings.

The heat of the spring evening was palpable despite the high ceilings in the ballroom and the opened terrace-doors, the choking density of guests intensifying its effect. When Isme turned away, distracted by a young officer whispering in her ear, the Duc and Daisy seemed the only silent people in the ballroom awash with music, dancers, and animated guests.

"Is it this warm in Montana?" the Duc inquired, the weather always a polite way of avoiding conversation. He was already half-looking away over the heads of the milling crowd, gauging the distance to the door.

"Do you really care?" Daisy said as Isme drifted off on the officer's arm, like a spoiled child, uninterested in Daisy and the Duc now that her vengeful stratagem had failed.

His gaze came back instantly, green-eyed and mildly inquisitive. In the utter boredom of Adelaide's party, a small spark of interest flared. His voice when he answered was as neutral as hers, but his glance took in the tall slender dark-haired woman for the first time with more than his normal polite disregard. "Of course not," he said with a smile. "Do you care whether I care?"

Daisy refused to respond to his enticing lazy smile. The man was obviously familiar with the potency of his charm. He would have to find some other woman to fawn over him. "Should I?"

She was intensely direct, he decided, looking at her now with genuine interest. "I don't see why," he replied, smiling that celebrated smile he'd learned to use so successfully. He'd been sixteen when he'd first employed it to advantage and the intervening years had proved its perfection. Women responded to it, and adored him.

She didn't smile back.

She was the half-blood's sister, he immediately thought, with some of the same inherent arrogance Empress Jordan's husband conveyed. "You're Trey Braddock-Black's sister," he said, as though methodically taking note of her aloud.

"Half sister," she abruptly replied, the distinction seemingly relevant to her. She hadn't moved, her stance one of infinite repose, her hands lightly clasped around her ivory-handled fan.

"Ah…
you're
Adelaide's houseguest." His tone was one of gratified revelation: the name with the face with the circumstances all suddenly coming together. Valentin had spoken of Daisy; she was in Paris as legal advisor for Empress.

"Apparently," Daisy bluntly said, her headache adding asperity to her voice, "you didn't listen to Isme's introduction."

My, she was bristly, he thought, and unbidden, a second more speculative thought surfaced, habitual in a man favored in boudoirs across the Continent. Would she be bristly in bed?—an interesting concept. "Forgive me," he blandly apologized, enchanted with the small touches of fire in her black eyes. "Isme tends to chatter on." He was perhaps baiting her slightly with the taint of chauvinism in his last phrase, but a certain amount of truth existed in his declaration. Isme's conversation was generally forgettable.

"As do all women?" she retorted, her tone adversarial.

"Are we in court?" His voice dropped a husky octave or so and turned silken. He never rose to the petulance in a woman's tone. She intrigued him curiously, despite her contentious manner. She was also strikingly beautiful, like the romantic heroine in Chateaubriand's
Atala
.

"
We
aren't anywhere, Monsieur le Duc," Daisy said, responding to the practiced suaveness of his reply with a distinctly icy inflection. "Now if you'll excuse me…"

He watched her thread her way through the crush of people and exit into the hallway, continuing his silent contemplation as she ascended the curved stairway to the living quarters on the floor above. Mademoiselle Black, it seemed, was deserting the party.

A good idea actually, he decided the next moment as the final swish of her creme satin gown disappeared around the corner. He'd outstayed his original intentions.

He found in the course of his evening gambling at the Jockey Club that while he may have consciously dismissed the coolly acerbic Mademoiselle Black when she disappeared from sight up the stairs, her aloof dark eyes were reappearing frequently in his memory, as did recurring images of her standing before him with her extraordinary poise and arrogance, so unusual in a woman. Maybe it was the aqua vitae from Scotland he was drinking, but he was strangely affected by his vivid memories despite his conscious dislike of her. He disliked her rudeness and her unfeminine ways. She spoke too directly, like a man. He regarded that as unpleasant in a woman. And she hadn't smiled once. He disliked that as well. Women normally exerted a certain genial charm, an intrinsic quality of their gender and social training.

She was too mannish, he decided, as though some choices were being offered him and he was declining. Tossing down his winning hand, he silently reiterated,
definitely
too mannish.

But the classic perfection of her face insistently reappeared in his thoughts only a moment later as he scooped the gold markers into a pile. Brusque mannerisms aside, he thought, one couldn't deny her beauty. She was darkly exotic like some lush bird of paradise set amidst the frivolous female vanity displayed at Adelaide's tonight. The kind of woman who drew eyes. She'd worn egret feathers in the heavy black coils of her hair, enormous sapphires in her ears, the famed Braddock-Black sapphires no doubt, and a Worth gown suitable for a queen. On a lesser woman the resplendent adornment would have been overwhelming, but Daisy Black's beauty was splendid with an untamed quality that gleamed like shimmering flame. And she was also obviously intelligent. He'd never met a female attorney.

She piqued his interest, he admitted, a logical man at base.

Or perhaps more accurately, what piqued him was her immunity to his charm. Anyone with less assurance would have sensibly forsworn any further contact with Daisy Black and her immunity. Anyone having had less to drink might not even have contemplated her coolness as a challenge. Most men regarded Hazard Black's daughter as a female version of him and wisely withdrew from the field.

Etienne Mattel, Duc de Vec and bearer of a dozen lesser titles, was not most men, had from the cradle been disabused of that notion, and over the years had come to view himself, without conceit, as capable of accomplishing most anything he wished. He wished, he suddenly decided, to bring the cool Mademoiselle Black to bed. It would be like taming a wild creature or perhaps leashing a small storm, he thought, a faint wolfish smile appearing on his aquiline face.

A fascinating challenge.

"Are you ready, de Vec?" The voice of one of his fellow players interrupted his thoughts.

His smile widened. "I'm ready," he said and picked up his new hand.

Daisy had watched Isme's eyes as she'd introduced the Duc, heard the malice in her voice, and wondered what her motives were. It was apparent the minute Isme spoke that the Duc and she had been lovers. That special kind of intimacy between people is forever evident in gesture and mien, although surely with de Vec's reputation that nuance of friendship beyond friendship must be very common. He was reportedly the most sought-after man in Paris.

Definitely of no interest to her.

The absolute antithesis of what she sought in a man, the Duc de Vec was too handsome, too charming, too facilely competent—too idle. Men of his rank did nothing but pursue pleasure and sport. She found the aristocratic ideal disgraceful and reprehensible, a frittering waste of one's life.