Tactfully, Sir William and his lady rise up and stand a little to one side, her ladyship still holding her cards so that she can return to the sinful game without a moment’s delay. My father signs to the musicians to play and half a dozen ladies form up to dance. At once the men bow and join them, and in the noise of the dance nobody can hear me when I say: “My lord father, lady mother, I believe that I cannot be betrothed to Guildford Dudley. I have prayed on it, and I am certain.”

“Whyever not?” my mother asks. She is so little distracted from her game that she looks at her cards and slides a few crowns across the table to the pile in the middle with only half her mind on me.

Lady Bess shakes her head, as if she thinks that my mother should attend to me.

“I am precontracted,” I say firmly.

My father glances up at my pale face. “No, you’re not.”

“I believe I am,” I say. “We all said that I should marry Ned Seymour. We made a verbal promise.”

“Nothing in writing,” my mother remarks. To my father she says: “I raise you another crown. I told you she would be like this.”

“A word is as binding as a letter.” I speak to my father, whose word, as a reformed Christian, must be his oath. “We made an agreement. You made an agreement. Ned spoke to me, as his father said he should: I assented.”

“Did you promise?” my mother inquires, suddenly interested. “Did you give your word to him? Did you say ‘I will’?”

“I said ‘quite.’”

She laughs out loud and my father gets up from the table, takes my hand, tucks it in the crook of his elbow, and leads me away from my mother and from the dancers. “Now listen here,” he says gently. “There was talk of a betrothal and we agreed that it might take place. But everyone knew it depended on Seymour’s return to power. None of my girls will be married except to the advantage of the family.

“And now everything has changed. Seymour is dead, his wife still imprisoned for treason, and his son has lost his inheritance. There is no value in any connection with them. You can see for yourself, a clever girl like you, this place is run by John Dudley. The king is not going to make old bones. It’s sad but we have to face it. He’s going to leave his throne to whichever cousin of the reformed religion has a son to take his place. One of you will get a son, and she will be queen regent until her boy is of age, and then the boy will take the throne. D’you see?”