‘Because I hate it, Cecily.’ He will not look at her, and throws an arm over his eyes. Now he tells her what he did not write, but she has long guessed. That the voice raised against him had been Beaufort’s, that the watch on the ports was set at his order. That, in London, the man’s spies dogged his steps, so that he could barely walk for tripping over them and never got to see the King alone. ‘It’s intolerable.’

She looks at him, stern. ‘Do you believe yourself the King’s heir?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And first among England’s dukes, well worthy of a king’s attention, and—’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Of course.’

She waits a long moment, then dares. ‘Do you remember? We spoke once, very long ago, about a nobleman’s duty when a king is unfit to rule.’

He is quiet a long while. She watches him breathe. It is a test that has her own heart hammering.

‘I have not forgot. Cecily –’ his hand sweeps up through his hair – ‘we wouldn’t get the support. The Commons, perhaps. The likes of Cade and his men. But, without noble support, that’s more danger to me than blessing. And our fellow dukes and earls are either snout in the trough with Beaufort or, like your brother Salisbury, keeping their noses clean and getting on with business. A weak king isn’t always a bad thing, providing no one calls you his enemy. I’m not the king for them,’ he grimaces. ‘They wouldn’t like the changes I’d make.’

Her heart trips, as it does when she slips the leash to set a hound running, or looses the jess from her fingers to let a hawk rise to its kill. A tight-reined excitement, a held breath. The idea is in his head, and she did not have to put it there. They can speak of it now, as they do of all things. It’s not a thing to be done today, he has the truth of that. It may never be. But one day, if the need is great and a chance at hand, she can believe, now, that he will not baulk at it.

She lays her fingers across his brow, irons out the lines that have deepened there since Trim. ‘Then what will you do now?’

He sighs beneath her touch. ‘Go back to London. Push for reform. I’ve got Oldhall in place now, and others. Work around Beaufort. Find ways to get Henry alone and talk to him.’

‘You must wrest Beaufort from his side.’

‘Aye. And put myself there.’ He looks so miserable.

She leans down and kisses his closed eyes. ‘We must speak of all of this. Of how it can be done.’

He smiles, wry. ‘See. I do need your counsel. We must speak of it all. But I’m so tired, Cecily. Let me sleep now.’ He turns on his side.