Mary’s ready smile beams at me. “Lord, I wish you had seen it,” she says. “It was as good as a masque. Mrs. Ashley on her knees begging the queen not to favor Robert Dudley so openly, swearing that she would lose her reputation, reminding her that he is married and that she should not be constantly in his company, and Elizabeth, saying that if she loved Sir Robert, she didn’t know who could stop her.”

“But what did you all say?” I demand. “You ladies.” This scene took place in Elizabeth’s bedroom when she was dressing. Kat Ashley, her former governess, is the only woman brave enough to tell Elizabeth that the country thinks she is a complete whore and Robert Dudley an ambitious adulterer. My sister was lucky enough to be spectator to this scene. She was holding Elizabeth’s gold-tipped laces, waiting to lace her shoes, when Kat went down on her knees to beg the queen not to behave like a whore.

“We all said nothing, because we’re not brave fools like Kat Ashley,” Mary says stoutly. “I’m not reckless with a temper like you. You think I’m going to tell the Queen of England not to chase after the man she loves? You think I’m going to stand up to her like you did?”

“He’s not free to love,” I say primly. “And neither is she. There’s the difference between them and me and Ned. She is a queen who should marry for her country, and he is a man already married—and there is me and Ned, young and free and both noble.”

“You’re never talking of marriage with Ned?” Mary demands.

I go down on my knees to her, so that our faces are level. “Oh, Mary, I am,” I whisper. “I am! I promise you that I am.”

HAMPTON COURT PALACE,

OCTOBER 1559

Ned is high above me, mounted on his handsome horse, dressed in dark blue velvet, his jacket embroidered with darker blue thread, his bonnet of velvet trimmed with navy ribbon. I stand at his horse’s head, Mr. Nozzle balancing on my shoulder, and look up at him.

“How is the horse?” I say, and we both laugh at the thought of my awkwardness with him, only months ago, and now our confident joy.

He is going to the Charterhouse at Sheen, to ask my mother for permission for us to marry. “Don’t forget to remind her that Elizabeth can have no objection,” I say to him. “Don’t forget to tell her that I am old enough to know my own mind.”