She was accompanying her husband to Richmond Palace to celebrate Prince Henry’s investiture as Prince of Wales. All three Courts were on the river, that of the King, the Queen and the new Prince of Wales, and she was wishing me there to witness the splendor instead of her husband, for I was better company even in my grief. They were in her barge as her husband had none; he called them a tremendous vanity but used Frankie’s when he needed it.

“What is that on your sleeve?” Essex asked, as if it were stained.

“A silk favor from the King’s factory and my sister’s pearls,” she said.

The Earl snorted. Frankie was relieved that his disdain outstripped his curiosity, for the favor had been left outside her apartment that morning with a note reading: “This was spat by royal worms only.” There was no signature but the hand was not elegant; it could be Carr’s, the color was his, and among the folds were sprigs of purple heather, betokening admiration, beauty and luck. But the Court was brimming with Scots and she prayed that this was indeed from Carr and not some crusty old laird with a fancy for her. She felt like Brutus and Purkoy, straining at their leashes to find a mate. When she passed Robert Carr, she let out a sigh that he might walk through a cloud of her lust. He was a flirt, she knew it, but since the night at Holland’s Leaguer she believed he had elevated her to his prime quarry.

“Why do you count?” said Essex. Frankie had been adding up the moments she had been near her admirer that week, counting on her fingers without realizing what she was doing. They amounted to no more than a quarter of an hour, a minuscule fraction of life upon which to dream of happiness.

“There are so many Howard vessels,” she said calmly, “fifteen at least.”

“A swarm.”

“I meant nothing by it; an idle calculation.”

“Idle? You are never idle but always running about the Court and hanging around in passageways for attention.”

Frankie did not look at her husband. “I was told that not for a hundred years has there been an investiture of a Prince of Wales. Prince Henry has so long wanted his own Court.” As she well knew, her husband had yet to be noticed by Prince Henry in any favorable way. Although they had been brought up together as children and both were strict Protestants, the Prince was elegant, agreeable, a seeker of beauty and adventure, and therefore had found no bond with the adult Essex.

Her husband grunted. “He’s another one you’ve been accused of lying with when I was away. Did you think he’d make you his princess?”

“You know that gossip to be untrue.”

“He’s a nobler target at least than the lapdog Carr.”