“I know. I’m sorry,” I say shortly.

For a moment I wonder if I can tell him that I am deep in a sin far worse than gluttony, but I look at his hard-chiseled face and I dare not tell him that yet another Grey niece has put herself on the wrong side of the throne.

“What’s that you’ve got under your cape?” he demands suddenly.

“My cat, called Ribbon,” I say.

He does not smile at the pretty white cat. “Ridiculous,” he says. “Don’t let my hounds see it; they’ll tear it apart.”

“Letter for Lady Katherine,” his groom of the servery says, and hands me a letter with the Pembroke crest. “Messenger waiting for a reply.”

“Oh, really?” my uncle cheers up in a moment. “Henry Herbert writing to you, is he? His father spoke to me a little while ago. Said that they might think of renewing your betrothal. Open it up, girl.”

“I would rather read it later,” I say. My mouth is very dry.

He laughs. “Oh, don’t mind me,” he says, and turns to the groom and speaks of the arrangements for the queen’s dinner while I break the seal and spread out the one page.

Without delay I require you, madam, to send me, by this bearer, those letters and tokens with my picture that I sent you or else, to be plain with you, I will make you as well known to all the world as your whoredom is now, I thank God, known to me and spied by many scores more.

I think I may be sick. I read the words and reread them. He knows I am on progress—does he imagine I carry his portrait with me everywhere? Poor fool: I suppose he does. How vain he is, I think wildly. How stupid. How glad I am that we’re not going to marry, and then I think: oh God, if we’re not going to marry, if he’s going to name me as a whore, what am I going to do?

“All well?” my uncle inquires. “You don’t look too happy? A lover’s tiff?”

“It’s all well,” I say, stammering on the lie.

If Henry does not get his letters back and he announces that I am Ned’s lover, then I will fall from royal favor and my uncle and all my kinsmen will fall with me. Mary will have to leave court, and where will she go? We will not be paid as the queen’s ladies: we will not receive bribes from petitioners, nor her favors. My ruin will be the ruin of my entire family. And where will this baby be born, and who will pay for its keep?

“It’s all well.” I bare my teeth in a joyless smile. “All quite well.”