Micheline urged her steed forward faster, but it was not enough, and even in her frustration she had to admire his skill and masculine beauty as he rode.
Sandhurst brought his horse slowly to a walk and waited for Micheline to reach them. "Let's have something to eat," he suggested, swinging down from the stallion's back.
Seeing a pond nearby where the horses could drink, she nodded breathlessly. He had walked over to help her down, and though she certainly didn't need his aid, she capitulated and slid down into his waiting arms. The sensation of his strong hands encircling her waist was pleasurably unsettling.
"I apologize," he said with a smile. "If I were a gentleman, I'd have let you win."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Micheline declared. "I don't like people who do that. I certainly wouldn't have let you win if I could have helped it!"
"I know." He appeared pleased by this knowledge.
Together they took the bundles of food down from behind his horse's saddle, then the two steeds wandered off to rest and drink at the pond.
Sandhurst, with Jeremy's expert help, had raided the chateau's kitchen while Micheline changed clothes for their ride. Her eyes widened now as he spread a cloth over the long grass and produced a slender, fragrant baguette, apricots and strawberries grown in the king's greenhouses near Paris, slices of young chicken and ham, a little rush basket of curdled Vincennes cheese, and a generous stoppered flask of wine. There were even cups, serviettes, knives, and butter.
"Oh, m'sieur, it is a feast!" Micheline exclaimed. Suddenly she was ravenous.
"Wait." Sandhurst held up a hand. "Before we eat, I want to settle something."
She paused in the act of tearing off a piece of bread and waited.
"Are we friends?"
"Why, yes... I think we are, m'sieur."
"Then kindly do me the favor of calling me Andrew."
"D'accord... Andrew. Will you call me Michelle?" She blushed under his warm regard and admitted, "I liked it when you said it earlier."
"I liked it too." He smiled. "And I would be honored."
* * *
They took a more direct route back to the chateau, through the forest of Fontainebleau. In another hour the light would be favorably soft, and Andrew was eager to return to his sketches.
"I'm glad that one of us knows the way," he remarked to Micheline as she rode ahead of him.
"I always use this path when I get so far from the chateau. It would be easy to become lost in these woods. It's wider, too, than the rest, so we can go faster."
A companionable silence reigned between them then. Andrew watched the path unfold ahead of them, but he was frequently distracted by Micheline's graceful form. His gaze wandered over the line of her back, admiring the fire of her tumbled curls and occasional glimpses of her lovely profile. Thus, he failed to notice a sharp turn in the path ahead. Micheline took it with barely a pause. An instant later there was a loud crashing sound that mingled with a woman's scream.
Sandhurst reined in his stallion in the midst of the turn in the path. The horse came to a standstill just feet away from an enormous pile of cut birch trees. Swinging down, he found that the path's obstruction was waist-high. Micheline's gelding was on the other side, its saddle empty, prancing fitfully about while its rider lay crumpled on a bed of brown leaves.
He was at her side immediately. She was trying to sit up and he knelt to cradle her against him.
"Are you hurt? What happened?"
She blinked in confusion. "Oh, I feel so foolish! The horse—he's all right, isn't he? He made the jump—more alert than I—but it all happened so fast that I had no time to prepare. Suddenly I was falling..."
"Do you have any pain?"
Gingerly she flexed her arms and legs and moved her torso from side to side. "No, nothing's broken, I'm sure." Micheline looked up to give Andrew a reassuring smile, only to find him looking at her in a way that made her forget all else. Suddenly she was keenly aware of his hard thighs pressing against her, the strong fingers laced through her hair, the velvet-clad masculine chest that cast its shadow over her more delicate form.
"Michelle." His voice was husky. Now that she was in his arms, reason was forgotten. Her eyes were opened wide, her soft lips slightly parted, and color slowly stained her cheeks. The yearnings Sandhurst had repressed since the first moment he saw her rose up and took