All I can remember, Nicholas, is that I was working in my garden. I was transplanting a damask rose. They’re delicate. You have to be careful. The soil temperature has to be right. Perfect if there’s a warm, gentle rain falling. This rose came from a cutting of a very old one my mother had that she gave me. I planted it at midnight—an old gardener’s trick. Midnight on a full moon. I just remember the silver light of the moon shining down on my shoulders, and then suddenly I was no longer at 35 Ashbury Lane. I was at Richmond Palace. Elizabeth hadn’t been born. Queen Catherine of Aragon and the king were in their rose garden and I could hear them quarreling fiercely.

And then you met me, Nicholas had replied.

Yes, and then I met you. We fell in love, but I still often had trouble controlling my time travels. I couldn’t just come and go as I pleased. But once you made me the rose locket, it all became so much easier.

But now the rose no longer hung hidden beneath the bodice of his beloved but swung brazenly from the princess’s neck, the Lion’s Cub, Elizabeth. How had that happened? He felt a rage begin to simmer within him.

Franny was no more at ease than Nicholas had been three days before, but she was jittery for a somewhat different reason. When the gentleman had come striding toward her, she had stopped in her tracks with the milk pail. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was the man whose picture she had seen in the locket! He approached her directly. “Child, can you direct me to the palace cofferer, Master Parry?” She could hardly speak and simply stared at him. He bent over a bit. His face filled with concern. “Did you hear me, child? Are you deaf?” he asked gently.

“No, no, sir. I believe Master Parry’s round the other side of the stables. He’s traveling with the royal princess to Greenwich.”

“Thank you, child.” He slapped a farthing into her hand and rushed in the direction she had told him. Franny stood fixed to the spot, as if her work clogs had been bolted to the ground. “I can’t believe it!” she murmured. “It’s him! And he looks so much like Rose.”

She had tried and tried to write a letter to Rose.

Dear Rose,

Something very strange happened today. I seen a man . . .