Pondering all this, Anne began to realize what it might take to cause the idealistic Micheline to turn her back on the past and accept marriage to a stranger from England....
* * *
Dawn broke frosty and clear. Rising early, Micheline shared crusty bread, fruit, and milk with Aimée and her daughters. Then, shortly after eight o'clock, she donned her cloak, bade the others good-bye, and set off for what had become her habitual morning walk in the woods of Fontainebleau. Micheline loved the contrast between the pristine gray forest, all stark branches and carpeted with dead leaves that warmed and nourished the plant life through the winter, and the opulent artifice of the king's chateau—where few people or things were ever quite what they seemed.
Tramping now through the damp leaves, Micheline spied a great roebuck, gray now in winter to blend with the trees. His head was bent as he munched on some late breakfast, but he raised it instantly at the first sound of Micheline's approach. She stopped, smiling at him, and was gratified to realize that he trusted her. Calmly, he returned to the bit of green nourishment he'd discovered.
Often she felt more at home here in the forest than in the "civilized" court. Thomas and Aimée were wonderful and she'd come to like the king, but there seemed to be an invisible barrier between herself and nearly everyone else. Her heart was still with Bernard; even more here than at Chateau du Soleil, for he had spent time at Fontainebleau. Micheline often imagined him doing the things that she did now, speaking to the same people, inhabiting the same chambers.
Aimée tried to persuade her almost daily to try to look toward a new life, but Micheline had come to realize that she felt safer with her memories. Her instincts told her that it would be a mistake to seek her future in the court of Fontainebleau where values were different from hers. Micheline had learned to trust her heart, and it told her, over and over again, to be herself. Any changes would evolve naturally, inside her.
Rosy-cheeked and refreshed, Micheline emerged from the forest after more than an hour. She had brought a crust of bread and stopped now to feed the crumbs to the carp that darted about in the pond. When voices rose from the other side of a tall sculpted hedge, she stopped and held her breath.
"I am thoroughly fed up with the holier-than-thou behavior of Micheline Tevoulere!" a girl was complaining.
Micheline, though embarrassed, was about to show herself rather than go on eavesdropping, but an answering female voice brought her up short.
"Isn't everyone? We're all itching to tell her what her sainted Bernard was really like! Why, if she only knew..."
"That he'd made love to me?" giggled the first girl. "Why, it was months before I even knew he had a wife! The man was shameless!"
"And it wasn't only you, Felice, in case you've forgotten. From what I've heard, it sounds as if Bernard Tevoulere slept with half the women in the court!"
"And what about those naughty little games he liked to play in bed? The longer he was at court, the more outrageous he became."
"Certainly no one was surprised when Arnaud Guerre dispatched him in that jousting match. Arnaud had murder in his eyes for weeks beforehand, but Bernard had become so cocky, he seemed to be daring Arnaud to do his worst!"
"Poor little Bernard," sighed Felice. "I confess I rather miss him! I'll never forget the time he brought a bowl of grapes into bed. I wonder what his prim little widow would say if she heard what he did with those grapes!"
The two women shared peals of wicked laughter.
Feeling as if she might retch right there, Micheline turned and bolted. Her skirts became tangled and she tripped, but picked herself up and ran on, back to the Chateau de Fontainebleau, which now loomed ahead of her like a hell on earth.
* * *
Unable to speak or even think, Micheline managed to suppress the urge to be ill as she rushed across the courtyard, her head bowed, past everyone who greeted her. The seigneur de St. Briac was one of these, and he stared after her, perplexed, before returning to his chambers to seek out his wife.
Micheline's rooms were modest but afforded a splendid view of the gardens behind the Oval Courtyard. She threw herself on the testered bed and tried not to think, but it was