“You think?” Arthur looked at her very directly and her heart did an odd sort of flip. He continued to wrap the bandage methodically around her hand and her wrist, as gently as before. Lizzie suddenly became acutely aware of his touch against her skin and by the time he had finished and tucked the end in she was squirming to escape.

“Thanks,” she said, jumping up and heading for the door. “I’ll just grab my bag and...”

Go. There was no way she was hanging around here any longer. She felt very odd.

Back in the grand hall, someone had swept up the glass and the place was empty. It was as though nothing had ever happened. Lizzie could hear the band playing and splashes and screams from the pool. The party had moved up a gear.

She called her driver, who was there in three minutes. She was in such a hurry to get away that she left her very expensive jacket behind. Days later, when she finally emptied the wedding favours, teabags and scented candle from her goody bag, she found that in the confusion someone must have accidently slipped the little stone angel in with all the other stuff. She meant to return it to Amelia but after all the fuss it never seemed like the right time. Then she saw Amelia wearing her jacket as though it were her own so she never mentioned it again but stowed the angel away in a cupboard. She knew it was petty but Amelia had started it and the jacket was probably worth more than the ornament anyway.

Over the years she forgot about the stone angel, but she never forgot Dudley and Amelia’s wedding. She tried but there was no way she could ever forget a day that had ended with Amelia in hysterics and with blood on her hands. It felt ill-starred. It felt as though, sooner or later, something bad was going to happen.

2

Amy: Stanfield Manor, Norfolk, August 1549

I met Robert Dudley on a night of moonlight, fire and gunpowder.

The wind had a sharp edge to it that evening, summer already turning away towards the chill of autumn. It brought with it the scent of burning from the rebel camp twelve miles to the north. The sky burned too, in shades of red and orange below the dark clouds, so that it was impossible to tell what was fire and what was sunset. They said that there were more than twelve thousand men assembled on Mousehold Heath, more than in the whole of Norwich itself, and Norwich was a great city, second only to London. Among the rebels’ prisoners was my half-brother John Appleyard, taken by our cousin Robert Kett, to help my father ponder whether his loyalty was to his king or to his kin. John’s capture cast a dark shadow over our house but our mother made no plea—it was not in her nature to beg, not even for her children—and Father stood firm. He was and always would be the King’s man.