That day there was to be a joust, one in a long procession of masques and tourneys I remember that year. The flower-bedecked pavilions, the ladies fluttering and gossiping, the press of the spectators, the blaze of heraldry, the stir of trumpets... I hated every last moment of it. Robert and his brothers were like so many flaunting peacocks amongst the crowd and I was supposed to smile until my face ached and applaud until my palms were sore.

“How fine your husband looks!” Lady Margaret Palmer gave me a sideways glance and an arch little smile. “All the women are hot for him.” She leaned further out over the balcony, crushing the sweet-smelling roses that garlanded the stands in attempt to catch Robert’s eye. In contrast I tried to draw back a little. I hated the dust and the heat and the blood of the tourney. My head was already aching and I put up a hand to rub my brow.

“Amy?”

My sharp-eyed mother-in-law had noticed my withdrawal. She was a kind woman, the Duchess, in a brisk manner that still intimidated me after two years of marriage. Weakness was not something that she either understood or tolerated. Generous to me though she was, I knew that she, along with the rest, had thought Robert should look higher for a bride. It was a long time since his love for me had seemed sufficient to protect me from those slights either real or imagined. Now our desire seemed an ephemeral thing; it was no longer so heady as in the early days of our marriage and it was all too quickly satisfied. Often it left nothing but emptiness between us in its wake.

I needed a child. Without one, I was nothing, less than a wife. The knowledge that a son would transform my status was becoming an obsession with me. Anna had lost her babe the previous year and yet still, ashamed as I was of it, I envied her. I had not even conceived yet.

“Do you feel the heat?” her grace enquired. “Is it the sun?” She drew me beneath one of the fluttering canopies. “Sit, my dear. Take some rest.” Her gaze flickered to my stomach. “You look very pale. I wonder... Do you think you may be with child?” She looked at me with her kind, hopeful eyes.

I could have told her no. I should have done. I was hot and sick because my flux was coming, as regularly as it always did. But I was tired of disappointing them, of the monthly letters to my mother that were full of inconsequential chatter and no news of a babe. Pain gripped me and a desire to be of consequence for once. It was pleasant to be approved of, to be ushered to a seat in the shade, to sit quietly whilst the Duchess sent a servant scurrying for a glass of wine to revive me. I lowered my gaze and pretended that I did not see the glances of surprise and hear the whispers that had already started: