Essex would break her body and her spirit at Chartley, where there would be no one to stop him. I had thought him capable of killing Frankie since I first met him, but it seemed she only believed it then. Her provocative gamble had rebounded. She had thought her husband too spineless to fight back, most bullies cower when confronted, but she was wrong.

She yanked at the front of her dress as if to help her breathe, turned and walked to the door. I followed. Suddenly, there was an almighty crash. Spinning around, I saw the cabinet on the floor, pieces of splintered wood and shattered inlay all around it, the parrot flapping and screeching in alarm above the ruins. Essex was smiling.

“As I said, not sturdy.”

10

So began a strange period in limbo, with Frankie gone but her predicament close. All we could arrange before Essex chased me from her room was that Richard Weston would act as messenger between us. She asked me to be her eyes and ears at Court; I was an unwilling spy, but could not sever the cord between us. She had become as near to me as my own heart. On All Souls’ Day, Weston delivered a letter from Chartley. The night was clammy; thunder rolled over the city and a damp breeze rattled the candle flame as I read.

October 1611

Sweet Anne,

I crave your love and hope I have it and shall always deserve it. Please send me what Forman promised, for it remains as ever here. Send me some good fortune, for truly I have need of it.

My husband is merry and drinks with his men; he abuses me as doggedly as before and I begin to think I shall never be happy in this world. I beg, for God’s sake, get me from this vile place.

Your affectionate, loving friend,

Frankie

The first fat drops pelted the window. I put the letter down and looked out. The rain quickly grew fierce, falling in sheets on the roofs and streaming noisily into the street below. I wondered if Frankie was also up late, staring out at the pitted surface of the deep moat that surrounded the manor. She had already told me of it, and I could picture her in the room that had once confined the Scottish Queen Mary, using the same desk at which the Queen had written the letters that led to her execution. Through the night and the rain, was she gazing in despair at the sodden fields of Staffordshire? Frankie would have been alone as she wrote, her spying servants asleep, and the darkness or her distress had rendered her hand less elegant than usual. The words had a rushed air, like a note stuffed into a bottle and hurled quickly into the sea, the sooner that it may be recovered.