The morning found us on the river, setting out to meet my brother. The sky was blue overhead, blue as it is only in France.
Marie Helene was pale but looked better than she had the night before. Though we never spoke of her husband again, it gave her comfort to speak of him that one time. I understood her. I had not said Rose’s name except in prayer in almost twenty years. Some sorrows are treasures, never to be handled by another.
The Count of Valois looked in on us under our velvet awning, but he did not sit beside me, as I wished he might. The weight of other eyes rode him, for not only his men traveled with us now, but courtiers sent by my brother. For a moment, like the foolish girl I once had been, I feared that he no longer wanted my love, now that he knew he could not keep it. Bu
