‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I have nothing to confess.’

And what is so horrid is that these rooms are Lady Margaret Douglas’s rooms, where she was kept on her own in silence for the crime of falling in love. Fancy that! She was here, just like me, wandering from one room to the other and back again, under arrest for loving a man, not knowing what the charge could be, nor what the sentence could be, nor when the blow would fall. She was here all on her own, in disgrace for thirteen months, hoping that the king would forgive her, wondering what was going to happen. She was taken away just a few days ago to make room for me—I can’t believe it!—they took her to Kenninghall, where she will be imprisoned again until the king forgives her, if he ever forgives her.

I think of her, a young woman only a little older than me, locked up and alone just like me, imprisoned for the crime of loving a man who loved her back, and I wish now that I had gone down on my knees to the king and begged him to be kind to her. But how was I to know that one day I should be in just the same state? In the very same rooms? Suspected of being a young woman in love, just as she is? I wish I had told him that she is only young and perhaps silly and she should be guided; not arrested and punished. But I didn’t speak up for her, nor did I speak for poor Margaret Pole, nor for all the men and women at Smithfield. I didn’t speak up for the men of the North who rose up against him. I didn’t say a word for Thomas Cromwell but I got married on the day he died without even a moment of pity. I didn’t speak up for the king’s daughter Princess Mary, but worse: I complained of her. I didn’t even speak up for my own mistress and queen, Anne, who I loved. I promised her my loyalty and friendship and yet when they asked me I signed a paper against her without bothering to read it. And now there is nobody who will go down on their knees and ask for mercy for me.

Of course, I don’t know what is going on. If they have arrested Henry Manox along with Francis Dereham then he will tell them whatever they want to hear. We did not part on good terms and he has no love for Francis. He will tell them that he and I were all but lovers, and then he is certain to tell them that I dropped him and went on to Francis Dereham. My name will be quite sullied, and my grandmother will be furious.

I suppose they will ask the Lambeth girls all about me. Agnes Restwold and Joan Bulmer are no great friends of mine in their hearts. They liked me well enough when I was queen with favours to give but they won’t defend me or lie for me. And if they dig up half a dozen of the others from whatever little lives they are living, they will say anything for a trip to London. If they ask Joan Bulmer anything about Francis she will tell them everything, I don’t doubt. Every single one of the girls at Norfolk House knows that Francis called me wife, and I answered to it. That he bedded me as if we were husband and wife, and I didn’t know—to be honest—whether we were married or not. I never really thought about it. Katherine Tylney will tell them all about Lambeth, quick enough; I just hope that they don’t ask her about Lincoln, or Pontefract, or Hull. If she starts telling them about the nights I was missing from my room then that will lead them to Thomas. Oh, God, if only I had never laid eyes on him. He would be safe now and so would I.