“I am to be sent away?” My voice rose dangerously now. “You must reconsider now that I have come into my inheritance. I shall go to Norfolk and take up the running of the estates.” Suddenly I wanted it more than anything else in the world, wanted a place to belong, a path of my own to follow that was not tied to Robert. Arthur would be there; he would help me. I could learn all about the land and the seasons, the animals, the crops, the estate business. The idea intoxicated me.

Yet Robert was shaking his head.

“That would not be seemly, wife,” he said. “We have people to run our affairs for us, men whose knowledge of business is far superior to your own.” He looked down his aristocratic nose at me, the provincial daughter of a gentleman whose lineage went back a great deal further than his own.

“I see,” I said. “You will allow me no say in the running of my estates. Have you already borrowed against them to fund your extravagances?” My contemptuous gesture encompassed the tiltyard, the preening peacocks of the court. “I see you have. My land is already as good as sold and the money already spent—”

His hand closed warningly about my arm. “Amy. We’ll speak of this later.”

“Very well.” I took a deep breath and grasped for the ragged edges of composure. “Just tell me where you had planned for me to go.”

“Later,” Robert said, with a swift glance, a nod over his shoulder to the King.

“Now,” I said.

He grimaced but he conceded this one, small point. “William Hyde has generously offered his manor at Throcking in Hertfordshire,” he said. “It is conveniently placed between London and Norfolk—”

It was, I realised, also very conveniently placed for Hatfield Palace, where the Lady Elizabeth currently languished in exile from her sister’s court. If Robert were to visit her, I would be the pretext.

“Convenient indeed,” I said cuttingly, “to be able to visit your wife and your mistress within easy distance of each other.”

Fury darkened his eyes, violent and terrifying. His previous irritation had been no more than a shadow of this. “Do not speak thus of the Lady Elizabeth,” he said, very softly.

I knew it was indiscreet of me but by now I was drunk with grief and anger, all the more so because I knew that his concern for her sprang from a love I simply could not understand. All the misery and neglect I had fostered within me unknowingly over the past years seemed to well up.

“Why should I not?” I was shaking. “I know your regard for her far outweighs your love for me.”

“Amy,” Robert said again and this time his tone shrivelled what was left of me. His hand tightened on my arm. I winced at the pain. “You are distraught,” he said smoothly. “You there—” A scurrying servant slid over to us. “Take my lady back to her chambers. She is in grief.” His lips touched my cheek in a kiss as cold as snow. “I will come to you soon—”