“Lady Monson, good day, and this must be your daughter,” said Frankie, hiding extreme nerves under a warm smile. The Monson women curtsied low. Lady Monson was wife to Sir Thomas, Master of the Armory at the Tower and Master Falconer to the King. Reputedly the best falconer in Europe, he was also a client of the Howard family, Lord Northampton in particular, and friend to George and Simon Forman. It was Sir Thomas who appointed my brother Eustace to the royal mews and I had always enjoyed his company and was fond of his wife. She was a stout matron with nine living children and a necessarily practical bent of mind.

“Your ladyship, may I introduce my daughter Janet,” said Lady Monson. Frankie smiled at the girl and presented her with a small box. The girl opened it mutely. Inside was a ring of garnets and small diamonds.

“A token of gratitude,” said Frankie. Lady Monson smiled on behalf of her shy child.

“Perhaps we should begin,” said Frankie. I led Janet to the bed chamber. Laid on the bed were copies of the clothes Frankie was wearing, in the same pale green silk, made by a tailor living as far from Frankie’s as possible.

“Your waist is smaller,” I said as I helped Janet to change. I set about the white-faced girl with a box of pins. The shoes were slightly large, so I stuffed rags in the toes, then arranged her hair and powdered her skin until she looked as identical to Frankie as possible.

Once dressed, I took Janet into the closet off the bedchamber and helped her lie down in a large linen press. I smoothed the dress around the girl, closed the lid and, out of habit, said a prayer. A virgin at Court is rarer than a diamond in the Fleet ditch and it had taken much effort to discover one. The closet door was well disguised when shut so I hoped it would remain unnoticed. Lady Monson was taking her leave as I joined Frankie, promising to return when we sent her word.

“If this fails I am finished,” said Frankie. I resisted reminding her that we would both be finished, but I did stop her pouring herself a drink.

“You must smell the same as well,” I said. “Let us pray that this is the final hurdle.”

If it was the last, it was also the worst. To have to prove her virginity, even though it was Essex’s insufficiency under examination for the annulment, had brought a cold fury into her soul I had not witnessed before, not even at the worst of her husband’s cruelties. While admitting impotence in his marriage to the Annulment Commission, Essex had implied that Frankie was not chaste. The head of the Commission, Archbishop Abbott, a sincere but narrow-minded Calvinist who virulently hated Catholics, Howards and divorce, ordered her searched even though her virtue was irrelevant to the case.