I think this is tremendously dignified. I enclose in the letter the precious poem that he wrote for me. I won’t ever forget it. I know every line. I have carried it in a linen pouch next to my heart as if it were an amulet against despair. But now I think I will send it back to him and let him be sure that I am releasing him from all his promises of love, from our hopeful betrothal, from being Troilus and Criseyde. I send a messenger with the package to Ned’s London house in Cannon Row and I tell him not to wait for a reply. There can be no reply.

The very next day we are walking back from chapel when Janey comes to my side with a letter sealed with the Hertford seal. “I have this from Ned,” she says awkwardly. “His messenger brought it at dawn. I think he was up all night writing to you. He commands me to give it to you at once. Please be my friend again. Please read this.”

“What’s that?” asks my little sister Mary, from under my elbow, bright-eyed with interest.

“I don’t know,” I say, but I can feel myself blushing with delight. It must be courtship. Courtship again. A man doesn’t stay up all night writing a letter to accept his rejection and send the reply at dawn. He must love me. He must want me back. He must be trying to persuade me.

“Is it Ned?” Mary asks. She pulls my hand down so that she can see the seal. “O-ho.”

“O-ho yourself,” I say. I step aside from the procession, which is following the queen to the great hall for breakfast.

“You can’t be late,” Mary warns me. “She’s sour as crab apples this morning.”

“You go,” Janey says. “If anyone asks, say that I am ill and Katherine has taken me to my room.”

Mary rolls her eyes impertinently and follows the ladies. Janey and I step out of the garden door and into the cold deserted courtyard. I open the letter.

“What does he say?” Janey asks, her voice muffled through her sleeve that she holds to her mouth, trying not to cough in the damp air from the river.

I raise my blurred gaze from the letter, but I can’t see her, my eyes are so filled with tears. “He says he will marry me out of hand,” I whisper. “As soon as the court returns to London. He says we are to wait no longer, that he will not listen to William Cecil’s warnings nor to anyone else. He says Robert Dudley advised him to trust to time, but Robert Dudley did not trust to time and is ruined. Ned says that he will no longer trust and wait.” I burst into tears and grip her hands. “Janey! He is going to marry me!”

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1560