He had turned away from me so that I could not read his expression. Not that I needed to see it to know. I had guessed and guessed aright but he did not want me to think he would have had me killed. He wanted me to believe that even with the stakes so high he would have remained loyal to me.

I knew better.

“It does not matter anyway,” I said, as though he had spoken to deny his guilt, “for there is another way.”

He looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time, as though the assumptions he had made about me for all of our married life were dropping away at last.

“Tell me,” he said. He refilled my glass. This time his hand was completely steady.

“I can disappear,” I said. “To all intents and purposes, I would be dead. Only you and I and whichever is the most trustworthy of your men—Anthony Forster, perhaps—would know the truth.”

He waited.

“First we must spend some time together in London,” I said, “to allay suspicion. We want people to think that we are reconciled.”

“The Queen,” he said, at once. “She will not like it.”

I felt a pang of irritation that when I was offering him all he ever wanted, still he was subject to her whims.

“You cannot tell her the truth,” I said sharply. “You will have to manage the situation. I will come to visit you.” I smiled at his expression. He looked as though he had the toothache. “It will not be so bad,” I said, “a few weeks only.”

He nodded. I could see he was eager to hear the meat of my suggestion to work out whether it was worth the pain of Elizabeth making his life a misery for a while. “When I leave,” I said, “I will go somewhere remote, somewhere even more isolated than Throcking.” I waited for the barb to bite. “It was unkind of you to send me there, Robert, and simply forget about me.”

“I know.” He looked ashamed. “I was so angry with you, so angry with us.” He made a gesture of resignation. “I hated the situation I found myself in. I wanted so much to be free; I thought it would drive me insane with wanting.”

“That is why the knot must be cut,” I said. “I too wish to be free.”

He nodded again, so eager now, malleable in my hands. “How is it to be done?”

“Anthony Forster has a house at Cumnor in Oxfordshire, does he not,” I said. “I will go to stay there for a few months. He is the most well-respected of your men. People believe him honest.” I smiled. “That will be important.”

“Forster is a sound man,” Robert agreed.

“He is your paid flunkey like the rest of them,” I said cuttingly, “but he is better at hiding his corruption.” I had had years and years in which to observe Robert’s retinue and my observation was that men took their lead from their master. Just as Robert could be brutal and none too scrupulous in pursuit of what he wanted, so did they echo him in their different ways.