‘Who else?’

A rumour is going about the court that Lady Worcester’s baby is not the earl’s child. Perhaps it was spread out of malice; perhaps as someone’s idea of a joke: perhaps because someone was bored. Her gentle brother, the courtier Anthony Browne, has stormed into her rooms to take her to task: ‘I told him,’ she says, ‘don’t pick on me. Why me?’ As if sharing her indignation, the curd tart on her palm quakes in its pastry shell.

He frowns. ‘Let me take you back a step. Is your family blaming you because people are talking about you, or because there is truth in what they say?’

Lady Worcester dabs her lips. ‘You think I will confess, just for cakes?’

‘Let me smooth this over for you. I should like to help you if I can. Has your husband reason to be angry?’

‘Oh, men,’ she says. ‘They are always angry. They are so angry they can’t count on their fingers.’

‘So it could be the earl’s?’

‘If it is a strong boy I dare say he will own it.’ The cakes are distracting her: ‘That white one, is that almond cream?’

Lady Worcester’s brother, Anthony Browne, is Fitzwilliam’s half-brother. (All these people are related to each other. Luckily, the cardinal left him a chart, which he updates whenever there is a wedding.) Fitzwilliam and Browne and the aggrieved earl have been conferring in corners. And Fitzwilliam has said to him, can you find out, Crumb, for I am sure I cannot, what the devil is going on among the queen’s waiting-women?

‘And then there’s the debts,’ he says to her. ‘You are in a sad place, my lady. You have borrowed from everyone. What did you buy? I know there are sweet young men about the king, witty young men too, always amorous and ready to write a lady a letter. Do you pay to be flattered?’

‘No. To be complimented.’

‘You should get that free.’

‘I believe that is a gallant speech.’ She licks her fingers. ‘But you are a man of the world, Master Secretary, and you know that if you yourself wrote a woman a poem you would enclose a bill.’

He laughs. ‘True. I know the value of my time. But I did not think your admirers were so miserly.’

‘But they have so much to do, these boys!’ She selects a candied violet, nibbles it. ‘I do not know why we speak of idle youths. They are busy day and night, making their careers. They wouldn’t send their account in. But you must buy them a jewel for their cap. Or some gilt buttons for a sleeve. Fee their tailor, perhaps.’

He thinks of Mark Smeaton, in his finery. ‘Does the queen pay out in this way?’

‘We call it patronage. We don’t call it paying out.’

‘I accept your correction.’ Jesus, he thinks, a man could use a whore, and call it ‘patronage’. Lady Worcester has dropped some raisins on the table and he feels the urge to pick them up and feed them to her; probably that would be all right with her. ‘So when the queen is a patron, does she ever, does she ever patronise in private?’