After a little while, the door to the bedchamber opens and Katherine comes out. There are dark shadows under her eyes, and her face is pale. ‘Lady Rochford,’ she says in a little whisper as she sees me. ‘Do you have my wine ready?’

I am recalled to the present. ‘It’s ready.’ I seat her in the chair nearest the fire.

She puts her bare feet up on the fender. She shudders. ‘He disgusts me,’ she says inconsequentially. ‘Dear God, I disgust myself.’

‘It is your duty.’

‘I can’t do it,’ she says. She closes her eyes and tips back her head. A tear creeps out from under her closed eyelids and runs down her pale cheek. ‘Not even for the jewels. I can’t go on doing it.’

I pause for a moment and then I whisper: ‘You will have a visitor tonight.’

At once she sits up, alert. ‘Who?’

‘Someone you will want to see,’ I say. ‘Someone you have longed for, for months, perhaps even years. Who would you most want to see?’

The colour floods into her cheeks. ‘You cannot mean . . .’ she starts. ‘Is he coming?’

‘Thomas Culpepper.’

She gives a little gasp at his name and she leaps up. ‘I have to dress,’ she says. ‘You must do my hair.’

‘You cannot,’ I say. ‘Let me turn the key in the bedroom door.’

‘And lock the king inside?’

‘Better that, than he wakes and comes out. We can always find an excuse.’

‘I want my perfume!’

‘Leave it.’

‘I can’t see him like this.’

‘Shall I stop him at the door and tell him to go away again?’

‘No!’

There is a little tap on the door, so soft that I could not have heard it if I had not the ears of a spy. ‘There he is now.’

‘Don’t let him in!’ She puts a hand on my arm. ‘It’s too dangerous. Dear God, I shan’t lead him into danger.’

‘He only wants to talk,’ I soothe her. ‘There can be no harm in that.’ Quietly, I open the door to him. ‘It is all right,’ I say to the sentry. ‘The king wants Master Culpepper.’ I open the door wide and Culpepper steps into the room.

At the fireside, Katherine rises to her feet. The glow of the fire illuminates her face, gilds her gown. Her hair, tumbled about her face, glints in the light, her lips part to whisper his name, her colour rises. The ribbons of her gown tremble at her throat where her pulse thuds.

Culpepper walks towards her like a man in a dream. He stretches out a hand to her and she takes it and puts his palm at once to her cheek. He holds a handful of her hair, his other hand blindly finds her waist, they slide towards each other as if they have been waiting for months to touch like this; indeed they have. Her hands go to his shoulders, he draws her closer, without a word being said, she gives him her mouth, and he bows his head and takes her.