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His brows rose a very small distance, a subtle promise of his own. "You have my permission to wash anything at all," he said very softly, rising then to reach out and take her hand.

"I dislike the word permission."

His darling Daisy was back in form. He grinned. "Invitation then, my spirited lady—does that suit your independent status better?"

"If I had more time, I might rid you of your stereotyping of my sex." Her voice was teasing provocation, her dark eyes alive with mischief.

"Make no mistake, darling, you are a rare, headstrong exception." He spoke with the conviction of much experience.

"But then the women you're familiar with are no more than ornaments to some man's life. The world beyond the narrow confines of Paris nobility offers a wider array of female accomplishments."

The Duc had no intention of arguing with his darling Daisy now that the specter of Isabelle's visit had been obliterated. And while Daisy was right in relegating the society women of his class to ornaments, in his journeys around the globe, he'd found women of Daisy's accomplishments were highly uncommon. "You're absolutely right," he said with a smile, "as always."

"I dislike patronizing men." Her smile matched his.

"In that case, I shall be rude and objectionable… a much easier posture to assume. Then you can be righteously offended."

"Like a sweet and pink young miss… the kind you offend no doubt with great regularity."

Offend wasn't quite the proper word; the Duc de Vec in fact tantalized all the timid sweet and pink young misses with his disreputable dark good looks. And had they dared—and had he been interested in sweet and pink young misses—he could have had any one of them.

During Bernini's aborted mission to rebuild the Louvre, he'd left artisans behind and architectural drawings, as well, for those nobles wealthy enough to afford his fees. Temperamental as a prima donna, he'd designed his glorious palaces with no concession to French climate or the function of the rooms. His de Vec patron had pragmatically adapted Bernini's genius for creating theatrical effects in architecture to the reality of daily living, his green-tiled grotto bath, an example. Hot water pipes maintained a compatible temperature year round—the skylights were reinforced with ornate metal bracket frames, the enormous pool and waterworks were heated.

Amidst Bernini's frolicking dolphins, cavorting putti, and gushing spigots, Daisy washed the Duc's hair as he lay on the stepped cascade, taking his ease after a strenuous afternoon of polo. Like a harem houri she served her master, and like a sultan of a seraglio, he accepted her homage.

"You're spoiling me," he murmured, half asleep under the warm water coursing over his lean, bronzed body.

Running her fingers through his sleek black hair, she rinsed away the last remnants of soap. "And you spoil me," she softly replied, wanting suddenly to protect him from the malicious presumption of his wife, wanting to care for him in the mundane intimacies of everyday life, wanting also to make love to him in endless devotion—to preserve as loving memories against her bleak future.

Bending down, she kissed him, the spilling water from the cascade running warm over the side of her breast, the sensation partly soothing, partly stimulating, oddly unsubstantial.

His lips were cool; she was warmer than he, a heartbreaking passion arousing her, prompted by her imminent farewell.

If she could, she would have stayed; if she could, she would have taken him with her. If she could, she would have set them both in another world, a secluded private realm where she would have willingly been his houri.

He rose on his elbows to follow her mouth upward when she moved away, his hand slipping behind her head to pull her back. "Stay," he whispered, drawing her body effortlessly atop him. They lay for long moments, his body cushioning hers, their mouths lightly touching, their breath mingling, the soft rise and fall of their chests tranquilizing as the rippling water and rising steam.

Small intimate paintings by Gérome adorned the walls, adding dimension to Daisy's strange mood of subordinate lassitude—the array of erotic portrayals of harem life, of slave markets and Arab interiors, like precious jewels on the cool green tile. The brilliant depictions, minutely detailed, indulged the artist's sense of exotic locale and his male sensibilities: Women lazily re-clined or bathed with servant girls; they stood passively before buyers or indulged in harem games; they beautified themselves for their master—ornamenting themselves with jewelry and paint and fragrant scents.

"Not mine," Etienne softly said, following the direction of Daisy's gaze. "My father's additions."

He had nothing here, Daisy thought, even the picture of him and his mother no doubt had been left by his father. And that was why there was no trace of women. Etienne didn't take them here. "Where's your bachelor apartment?" she asked then, not in condemnatory inquisition but in her currently diffident mood, almost meekly.

Immediately cognizant of her altered disposition, he didn't try to evade as he might have, but answered, "The Place de la Concorde."

"How nice."

His surprise at her answer must have shown.

"I'm enormously jealous."

He smiled, framing her face with the large palms of his hands, pleased he'd never brought any of his lovers here. "We perhaps have a corner on that market, and if our culture allowed, like an Arab man would, I'd buy you for my own."

"Without my permission?" She spoke in a curiously provocative way.

"Without anyone's permission, against armies of avenging angels or wrathful mullahs."

"And you'd keep me with your other harem women?"

"No," he softly replied, "I wouldn't. They'd poison you, for I'd have no more use for them."

"I must be losing my mind, for an elusive urge within me doesn't balk at such submission."

He smiled, his hands moving gently down her back. "It's the warm steam and this balmy hidden grotto and Gérôme's elegant illustrations that refine and glorify a distant culture. Bernini's design, compliments of Venice, owes much to the East too. You should try the slide then."

"Then?"

"If you're compliant."

"Why would I have to be compliant?"

He shrugged, wondering how much editing would be required for a woman like Daisy who considered herself not only independent, not only equal, but at times superior to men. "The slide was a source of entertainment for the harem women," he said in simple explanation.

"That sounds innocuous enough."

"And a source of entertainment," he carefully went on, "for the sultan or khan or mogul as well."

Her eyes were very close to his. "I see," she said and then unexpectedly laughed out loud. "Do you feel sufficiently despotic to take on the role of potentate?"

His grin was instant. "As imperious, darling, as Genghis Khan."

"On one condition."

"Anything."

Daisy's faint smile reflected the coquettish twinkle in her eyes. "You can only look, but can't touch." It was a Daisy Black mutation of submission—in her inimitable fashion, making her own rules.

"Agreed," the Duc de Vec lied, like a true despot, oblivious to rules.

Positioning himself for a clear and revealing view at the base of the slide, Etienne settled comfortably on the marble lounge designed at a convenient distance for just such a purpose. And when Daisy came slipping around the spiraling curve of polished marble, her laughter merry, her luscious bottom sailing through the air only scant feet over his fascinated gaze, the Duc considered for a moment the real advantages of ownership.

Her swooping plunge into the heated pool pelted him with water. She surfaced seconds later with vivacious laughter, shaking the water from her eyes, her long sleek hair flinging droplets in an arching fan-shaped trajectory. "Do you like the view?" she called to him, dreading water with a teasing smile on her face. He could have reached out and stroked her delectable bottom as she'd sailed over his head, had he wished. And she knew it.

"The view is prizewinning," he said with a rakish grin. Lounging at ease like a young prince of the blood, his nude body casually disposed as if on view, his wet hair lying in dark sleek ribbons on his shoulders, his eyes facetiously appraising, the Duc de Vec exhibited a demonstrable libertine disposition and connoisseurship.

Daisy's smile faded abruptly. "Are there often contests?" Her voice held that heated edge.

"I've been told," he said, "the origins of such slides involved a competition of sorts." Taking mild exception to her taunting, he considered a form of payback equitable.

"You've been told?" Each word was suddenly sharp with insinuation.

"Well… yes…" There. He was able to smile as complacently as Daisy had mockingly moments ago.

"You'll be competent to judge then, I presume," she oversweetly declared, wishing to discipline Etienne's overused libido.

"I think so," he quietly replied.

Seated at the top of the slide a short time later, displayed like a bibelot for his pleasure, Daisy raised her arms above her head and posed for a moment as if flaunting that which he couldn't have.

"Are you ready?" she purred.

He was this time, surprising her as she plummeted into the deep water, catching her and smiling into her startled face amidst spraying plumes of water.

"You can't touch me," she protested, trying to squirm out of his arms. "I made the rules."

Slipping one hand between her legs, he pulled her close. "I don't believe in rules."

"Liar."

"Flirt."

"Libertine."

"Coquette." And he slipped two fingers inside her as a sultan might appropriate his casual possession.

"Let me go." Her voice had taken on a ragged edge.

"I thought you were compliant," he murmured.

"No," she whispered as his fingers sank deeper. But she lay very still suddenly, savoring the exquisite sensations.

"In this small grotto, at this moment I own you," he whispered, recognizing her acquiescence.

"No one owns me." But her eyes were half shut, Etienne's massaging fingers skilled and adept.

"I can make you stay."

He could, right at that moment, he could.

And he did, carrying her to the marble lounge, positioning her atop his blatant arousal, holding her with a casual strength on the very crest of his erection until she whimpered for the feel of him. He accommodated her then, sliding her slick heated sweetness down his pulsing hard length with firm hands around her waist as though she were not only a slave to her passion but a slave to him. And inexcusably he held her there impaled for an hour and then longer, making love to her tenderly and selfishly, with thin-skinned resentment of his susceptibility and with impassioned sentimentality—against protest and clinging embrace until she'd climaxed so often, she was prostrate with exhaustion. As if his covetousness could be satisfied in lust.

She fainted finally—the ultimate submission—and while he should have been satisfied at last, he felt only fear.

While he could with the skill of his experience subdue her sexually, he had no sovereignty over her life. None. And she was leaving him.

He carried her as if she were infinitely fragile through the connecting dressing room to his bedchamber and laying her on the sun-warmed bed, wrapped her in a velvet coverlet. Alarmed at her continuing stillness, he kissed her gently on her cheek, silently chastising himself for his brutish behavior. Daisy was more defenseless than the Ismes of the world, unfamiliar with sexual excess, more ardently passionate, too, giving of herself intemperately.

He should have controlled his perverse discontent.

Had he truly hurt her? Lightly holding her wrist, he felt for a pulse. Her eyes fluttered open at his touch and she smiled winsomely. "You definitely hold the record now."

"Lord, I'm sorry," he whispered, regret poignant in his eyes. "There's no justification." He tenderly stroked the delicate curve of her cheek.

"I'm fine. Just tired."

"Are you sure? Should I call a doctor? I will… we should… we definitely should… I'll have Louis phone for—"

Daisy stopped his restless apologetic rush of words with a finger to his lips. "I'm fine. Really."

He took a breath.

"Would you have Louis order some food instead? I'm famished."

His grin was replete with relief. "Whatever you want. I'm penitent as hell. Do you want to hit me?" Contrite and conscience-stricken, he wished to make amends. "I'll buy you what—diamonds?… those black pearls we saw at Cartier?"

"Food, darling," Daisy said with a tender smile. "That's all."

"Food it is. Are you sure?" Hesitant and conciliatory, he would have given her anything.

"I'm sure."

"Louis!" Etienne shouted. "Get the hell in here!"

Some time later, after Daisy had restored herself with food, they lay on the Duc's bed, watching the setting sun color the sky an in-tense pumpkin-orange, exchanging kisses and endearments. Touching on the subject of Daisy's leaving with a cautious objectivity, Etienne said, "What if you have my child? What then?"