After a few days of snow it began to rain and continued interminably for a fortnight. I hoped that Frankie had retrieved the ring and sent Mary Woods away with a flea in her purse, but I kept my distance. I taught the younger children to cook biscuits and listened to Arthur’s grief for Prince Henry and his hopes for a position in Prince Charles’s new Court. He increased our stipend and I used the extra money to prepare for our wedding. Prince Henry’s death, the rain and high winds, put fashion from people’s minds; had Arthur not proposed, God knows what would have happened to us. It was a thought that made me sensible and grateful. I did not trouble him with where we would live after we were married, how the children would be educated, whether I would have my own carriage and other such matters, and I made all the arrangements with the church.

In early March, Arthur arrived at my front door just as a messenger was handing me a note. I could tell from the seal that it was from Frankie. An apology, perhaps? I wished that I was already married and could hide away on my husband’s estate.

“My father has come to visit,” said Arthur, not dismounting.

“Will you come in? When will I meet him?”

Arthur was looking at the note in my hand. “I hear she is in trouble,” he said. I felt so powerful a dread at his words that the noise around me seemed to hush, as if the world itself flinched from me. “There is talk that a cunning woman has been arrested who claims she was working to rid the Countess of her husband. You had better go to her.” I could not tell whether his grim expression was from care for me, or displeasure that I was friend to a woman caught up in scandal. He did not ask if the rumors were true, which I took to be a good sign. He either trusted me to know nothing, or to be discreet if I did. If it was now discovered that Frankie had seen a cunning woman, how soon might Arthur discover that we had also used Forman’s skills to encourage him to marry me?

“I can meet your father and go to Frankie afterward?” I said, but Arthur was already turning his horse. He nodded goodbye.

I ran back inside for my cloak, deciding to catch him up. He would take the route through Ludgate barrier to Fleet Street, but the lanes and courts between my house and the gate out of the City were choked with mud and deep puddles, traffic on wheel and foot struggling in both. Arthur’s horse must have picked an elegant course through the obstructions for I did not see him ahead. I fell to worrying about Mary Woods and whether Frankie could be questioned or was too high placed.