‘He is back in her rooms? She is bedding the king as she should?’

‘Yes,’ I say, hardly moving my lips, my face turned towards the handsome young pair and their doting elder. ‘But to what effect, no-one can know.’

He nods. ‘And Culpepper is willing to service her?’

I smile and glance up at him. ‘As you see, she is hot for him, and he longs for her.’

He nods. ‘I thought as much. And he is a great favourite with the king, that’s to our advantage, the king likes to see her dance with his favourites. And he is a conscienceless bastard, that’s to our advantage too. D’you think he is reckless enough to risk it?’

I take a moment to admire the way the duke can plot with his eyes on his victim, and anyone would think he was talking of nothing but the weather.

‘I think he is in love with her, I think he would risk his life for her right now.’

‘Sweet,’ he says sourly. ‘We’ll have to watch him. He has a temper. There was some incident, wasn’t there? He raped some gamekeeper’s wife?’

I shake my head and turn away. ‘I hadn’t heard.’

He offers me his arm and together we stroll down the gallery. ‘Raped her and killed her husband when he tried to defend her. The king issued him with a pardon for both offences.’

I am too old to be shocked. ‘A favourite indeed,’ I say dryly. ‘What else might the king forgive him?’

‘But why would Katherine fancy him, above all the others? There’s no merit in him at all except youth and good looks and arrogance.’

I laugh. ‘For a girl married to an ugly man old enough to be her grandfather, that is probably enough.’

‘Well, she can have him, if she wishes, and I may find another youth to throw in her way as well. I have my eye on a former favourite of hers, just returned from Ireland and still carrying a torch. Can you encourage her, while we are on progress perhaps? She will be less watched, and if she were to conceive this summer she could be crowned before Christmas. I would feel safer if she had the crown on her head and a baby in her belly, especially if the king falls sick again. His doctor says his bowels are bound up tight.’

‘I can help the two of them,’ I say. ‘I can make it easy for them to meet. But I can hardly do more than that.’

The duke smiles. ‘Culpepper is such a blackguard, and she is such a flirt, that I doubt you need do more than that, my dear Lady Rochford.’

He is so warm and so confiding that I dare to put my hand on his arm as he moves to go back to the inner circle. ‘And my own affairs,’ I remind him.

His smile does not waver for a moment. ‘Ah, your hopes for marriage,’ he says. ‘I am pursuing something. I will tell you later.’