Free Forbidden by Susan Johnson Page A

cheerfully thought. "If I can be of any service, please allow me the pleasure of assisting you."
    "Thank you, but I'm managing adequately." Daisy was familiar with the resistance to women lawyers, the invisible or outright bar to entrance into male territory. So Parisian prejudices were a familiar hurdle. She'd eventually accomplish her tasks. Adelaide had offered Valentin's patronage, so the Duc wasn't the only offer to help she'd refused. "I wouldn't want you to neglect the polo fields," she added.
    Shrugging her small sarcasm aside, he smiled. "Perhaps my overworked ponies would appreciate the respite." Knowing his brother-in-law Charles's strong antifemale views and his reactionary opinions on women's suffrage, he casually added, "If you change your mind, the offer's open." And then, as if women's rights in general and Daisy's probable struggles with Charles's ministry were incidental to his gustatory pleasure, he said, "Don't you care for the pheasant?"
    The Duc had been eating with tangible appetite and obvious relish as they'd conversed. Daisy was beginning to wonder how he stayed so fit and lean.
    "I've eaten too much already."
    "You've hardly eaten."
    She was surprised he'd noticed. "You've eaten enough for three men."
    His brows rose momentarily. "Do you think so? I must burn it off." His faint smile was either suggestive or completely artless. Daisy wasn't sure, although in her more benign attitude toward the Duc, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Etienne motioned with a slight movement of his knife. "Do you mind if I eat yours? It seems a shame to waste Armand's talented interpretation of Hunters' Pheasant. I think he may have prepared it for me. He knows this particular dish is my favorite."
    "Help yourself," Daisy offered, glancing surreptitiously at the Duc's perfectly fitting white brocade waistcoat. Patently aware not an extra ounce of fat adhered to his lean muscled frame, she made another small adjustment in her previous judgment of the Duc as an idle aristocrat.
    "You must have learned to cook as a child," he incidently noted between mouthfuls. "Do the Absarokee have a variation on Hunters' Pheasant? It's equally good cooked out of doors."
    Daisy was resting against her chairback, ten-course meals normally eight courses too lengthy for her appetite. "We prepare a pheasant dish with native vegetables, although the flavor is quite different and… yes, I once did cook, although my skills are all but forgotten now, I'm afraid." His hands were extremely large and tanned. He must not use gloves riding. "The summer camps used to offer me some opportunities to refresh my memory," she went on, unconsciously admiring the strong line of his jaw, "but I find myself with less and less time to spend long weeks up in the mountains."
    "A shame," he said, turning to her,"… about the mountains, I mean. Cooking, of course—" he shrugged, "isn't a requirement in a beautiful woman's repertoire."
    She felt curiously for a moment as though she'd heard a touch of regret in his voice. She couldn't have, she decided in the next instant—surely in his class, women hadn't been within calling distance of a kitchen for centuries. And as she digested the substance of his statement concerning repertoires, she was certain she'd grossly misinterpreted. His remark was pure lordly arrogance. "Do you feel there are actually
requirements
!" she very softly inquired. The notion that women had repertoires and for what purpose seemed the height of chauvinist crassness.
    Hearing the prickly asperity in her soft voice, he knew he'd touched a nerve. As an American woman, she was automatically in the vanguard of independent women; as an Indian woman who'd accomplished the remarkable feat of becoming a lawyer, she rose distinctly above the norm. She was rare. And since he wanted that rarity, he decided to challenge her, since he suspected heated controversy and debate might intrigue her more than the conventional protocol of