“Dudley never said a word to me,” Lizzie said. “If he had, do you think I would have hidden it from you?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. He sounded tired. “After all, I hid it from you. I could have told you, but I didn’t.”

Lizzie swallowed the hurt. Of course Arthur had hidden it from her. It had been devastating, shattering his life. And she had been Dudley’s friend. Arthur would never have confided.

Arthur shifted slightly, angling his body towards her. “I loved Jenna,” he said, “properly loved her, I mean. Yes, we were young and it might have all gone wrong in time but to me at that time it felt real and mature and more important than anything.”

Lizzie nodded. “I can’t say I understand,” she said, “because I’ve never experienced that sort of first love. I’ve always protected myself against feeling too much. But I understand that it could be like that for you.”

“What hurt the most when I found out,” Arthur said after a moment, “was realising that Jenna hadn’t felt the same about me as I did about her. When I heard about the party... That she’d been sleeping with Dudley...” He shook his head. “I’d been so grief-stricken when she died and it felt as though I’d never known her. It felt like such a betrayal; it almost killed me.”

“Perhaps Jenna did love you as much as you loved her,” Lizzie said. “We all make mistakes, Arthur, and we can all be self-destructive when we’re unhappy.”

Arthur looked up. He gave her his heart-shaking smile and for the first time, Lizzie felt a shred of warmth.

“That’s a very generous thing to say,” he said, “and I think I’ve come to terms with it now, but—” he shrugged “—for the last couple of years, since I found out, it just about ate me up.” His gaze focussed on her, sudden and intent. “When I met you, I could see it happening all over again,” he said. “Another crazy, mixed-up girl—” he gave her a wry smile “—whom I really, really liked and wished I didn’t.”

Lizzie’s heart stuttered and then started to race.

“You said you knew I disliked you,” Arthur said. “That was the least of it. I knew there was a connection between us but I didn’t want to get involved with you. Why would I? You were Dudley’s friend, maybe more than just a friend, and I’d already lost two people I loved as a result of Dudley’s selfishness. He was never directly culpable and yet it always came back to him in some way. So I thought it best to steer clear of you.”

“I understand,” Lizzie said. She swallowed hard. “I guess,” she said, struggling for lightness, “that it wouldn’t have worked between us anyway. I mean, we may have been following some sort of pattern laid down in the sixteenth century, but Queen Elizabeth I never had a thing going on with Amy’s brother Arthur Robsart, did she? From what I’ve read of her it sounds as though she spent the rest of her life alternatively pining for Robert Dudley and trying to make him jealous with other men, which sounds pretty ghastly to me but hey, she had to do what she had to do.”