“You will be properly mourned,” he had promised me on the last occasion we had met in London. “The whole court will observe it and I will give you a grand funeral to match your state.” Perhaps he thought I would thank him, this man who was already thinking of me as dead.

The only pang of sorrow I felt was for my brother Arthur. I had no wish to cause him pain. Anna, I thought, would not miss me but Arthur had been a true and steadfast friend to me through all, and it gave me some guilt to think that I was deliberately deceiving him. I entertained the idle idea that one day I might write to him from my new life. Yet I knew I could not.

That afternoon, when Lady Pollard and Mrs Wayneman and Mrs Mutlowe had gone, I sat alone in the parlour for a little. My hands were idle but my mind was busy. The rumours were sown now and it was time to begin the next part of my plan. It was time to give my lord’s letter of instruction to Sir Anthony Forster. I stood up and smoothed the skirts of my gown. It was a new one, satin trimmed, with lace and ribbons tied in true lovers’ knots. I loved the deep indigo blue of it; it spoke of innocence and heavenly grace.

Down in the cross passage I met one of the maids.

“Is Sir Anthony in his study?” I enquired. “I have a commission for him.”

I need him to arrange my death.

She dropped a curtsey and murmured her assent. I felt her gaze on my back as I walked away; I knew there would be pity in it. She, like all the others, believed me to be ill used.

My hand was raised to knock on the study door. I felt the rush of cold air as the main door creaked open. I turned. The maid had gone and there was no one in the passage. The shadows shifted; cobwebs scuttered across the flagstones of the floor. It felt as though the world paused for a moment in its turning.

I saw the boy standing beneath the arch of the tower door, the same boy I had seen at Baynard’s Castle, and had thought a ghost. As before, he was dressed in a hooded cape of black with boots and hose, and he looked young and gaunt. In his eyes was a desperation that clutched at my heart.

“Amy!” he said. “Oh, dear God, I have found you!”

He spoke as though he knew me, but then over the years I had found that many people pretended to an acquaintance they did not possess. Usually it was because they hoped I had influence with Robert, although that had not happened recently, of course. I thought him a beggar boy, down on his luck. He certainly looked thin and threadbare enough.

“If you go around to the kitchens,” I said, “they will feed you—”