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Chapters (116)
  1. Cover
  2. The Last Tudor
  3. Family Trees
  4. BOOK I
  5. BRADGATE HOUSE, GROBY, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  6. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  7. GREENWICH PALACE,
  8. GREENWICH PALACE,
  9. DURHAM HOUSE, LONDON,
  10. SUFFOLK PLACE, LONDON,
  11. THE OLD MANOR, CHELSEA,
  12. SYON HOUSE, ISLEWORTH,
  13. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  14. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  15. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  16. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  17. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  18. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  19. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  20. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  21. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  22. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  23. BOOK II
  24. BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON,
  25. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  26. BEAUMANOR, LEICESTERSHIRE,
  27. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  28. OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY,
  29. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  30. HANWORTH PALACE, MIDDLESEX,
  31. GREENWICH PALACE,
  32. NONSUCH PALACE, SURREY,
  33. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  34. HAMPTON COURT PALACE,
  35. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  36. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  37. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  38. CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,
  39. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  40. GREENWICH PALACE,
  41. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  42. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  43. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  44. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  45. CANNON ROW, LONDON,
  46. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  47. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  48. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  49. GREENWICH PALACE,
  50. ON PROGRESS: THE ROAD TO WANSTEAD,
  51. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  52. MR. MORE’S HOUSE, HIGH STREET, IPSWICH,
  53. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  54. THE LIEUTENANT’S HOUSE, THE TOWER, LONDON,
  55. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  56. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  57. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  58. LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON,
  59. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  60. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  61. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  62. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  63. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  64. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  65. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  66. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  67. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  68. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  69. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  70. THE TOWER, LONDON,
  71. PIRGO PALACE, ESSEX,
  72. BOOK III
  73. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  74. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  75. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  76. GREENWICH PALACE,
  77. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  78. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  79. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  80. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  81. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  82. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  83. WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
  84. WINDSOR CASTLE,
  85. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  86. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  87. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  88. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  89. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  90. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  91. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  92. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  93. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  94. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  95. CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
  96. CHEQUERS TO LONDON,
  97. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  98. GREENWICH PALACE,
  99. GREENWICH PALACE,
  100. GREENWICH PALACE,
  101. THE MINORIES, LONDON,
  102. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  103. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  104. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  105. GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE,
  106. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  107. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  108. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  109. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  110. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  111. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  112. GRESHAM HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON,
  113. OSTERLEY PARK, MIDDLESEX,
  114. ST. BOTOLPH’S-WITHOUT-ALDGATE, LONDON,
  115. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  116. BIBLIOGRAPHY

I am as hot as if I had a fever. I have to see his bare shoulders, his chest, the laces at his breeches. I long to see his thighs, his lean buttocks. I feel the heat in my face as he cups my cheeks in his hand, and he says: “Thank God that you want me as I do you.” He shucks off his shirt and I take a little breath at the sight of his lean torso, then I step forward and lean my flushed face against his warm bare chest.

He slides down his breeches, he is naked underneath. “Command me,” he whispers.

“Lie down,” I say, and he stretches out, naked and shameless on his back, and I let myself creep up the length of his body and lie on him.

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

NOVEMBER 1560

And then we have to wait, and it is delicious timeless pleasure and pain together. Every morning I hope that perhaps today Elizabeth will say that she is going to Hampton Court, or to Windsor for the hunting, or to New Hall or to Beaulieu or anywhere—I don’t care where her ridiculous fancy takes her if she would just go! But day after day Ned is on one side of the presence chamber and I am the other, and we have to nod politely as if we were friends, and we dare not speak to each other until the evening dancing throws us together, and now, though we have so much more desire, we have more fear, and we dare not go to the corners of the room and whisper.

It is an exquisite joy to see him, to snatch a moment with him. It is agonizingly wonderful to wake in the morning and see that it is a good day for hunting: sharp and bright and cold, and surely Elizabeth will go today? And then, when she says nothing, it is a delightful torment to dance with Ned, and steal away with him for a kiss and dare to do no more. It is a passionate courtship and now I know the joy that his touch brings to me. It is lust deferred, it is love delayed, there is nothing in the world more delightful than being in his arms, unless it is knowing that I will be in his arms later... but not now.

William Cecil, the queen’s advisor, comes over to sit beside me before dinner one evening, as we are waiting in the presence chamber for the queen to finish the lengthy process of dressing in her inner rooms.

“You are in your finest beauty,” he tells me. “We shall have the Spanish proposing marriage to you again. I have never seen you look so well.”