He glares at me under his fierce eyebrows. ‘Don’t mince words with me,’ he says coldly. ‘I don’t keep you here for you to tell me riddles. Is she doing anything that would cause me concern?’

‘She has a fancy for one of the king’s chamber,’ I say. ‘Nothing has happened beyond them making cow’s eyes at each other.’

He scowls. ‘Has the king seen?’

‘No. It’s Thomas Culpepper, one of his favourites. He is blinded by his affection for them both. He orders them to dance together, he says they make a perfect pair.’

‘I’ve seen them.’ He nods. ‘It’s bound to happen. Watch her, and make sure she is never alone with him. But a girl of fifteen is going to fall in love, and never with a husband of forty-nine. We will have to watch her for years. Anything else?’

I hesitate. ‘She is greedy,’ I say frankly. ‘Every time the king comes to dinner she asks him for something. He hates that. Everyone knows he hates that. He doesn’t hate it in her, yet. But how long can she go on asking him for a place for this or that cousin, or this or that friend? Or asking for a gift?’

The duke makes a minute mark on the paper before him. ‘I agree,’ he says. ‘She shall get the ambassadorship to France for William and then I shall tell her to ask for no more. Anything else?’

‘The girls she has put in her chamber,’ I say. ‘The girls from Norfolk House and Horsham.’

‘Yes?’

‘They misbehave with her,’ I say bluntly. ‘And I cannot manage them. They are silly girls, there is always an affair going on with one young man or another, there is always one of them sneaking out or trying to sneak him in.’

‘Sneak him in?’ he demands, suddenly alert.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘No harm can be done to the queen’s reputation when the king sleeps in her bed. But say that he is weary or sick and he misses a night, and her enemies find that a young man is creeping up the back stairs. Who is to say that he is coming to see Agnes Restwold and not the queen herself?’

‘She has her enemies,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘There is not a reformist nor a Lutheran in the kingdom who would not be glad to see her disgraced. Already they are whispering against her.’

‘You would know more than I.’

‘And there are all our enemies. Every family in England would be glad to see her fall and us dragged down with her. It was ever thus. I would have given anything to see Jane Seymour shamed by a scandal. The king always fills his household with the friends of his wives. Now we are in the ascendancy again, and our enemies are gathering.’

‘If we did not insist on having everything . . .’

‘I shall have the Lord Lieutenancy of the North, cost me what it will,’ he growls irritably.