The guards around Ned pause at the gate of the lieutenant’s house and then enter, disappearing from my view. I think they are bringing him into my rooms, to live with me, and I rush to the door as if I could throw it open, and then I remember I am locked in and step back from it. I pull at my flowing gown; I am so afraid he will find my broad belly a shock. He loved the narrow curve of my waist—will he find me ugly in these last days of my pregnancy? I pat my hair, I straighten my hood. I go to sit in my chair and then I stand up again, by the fireplace. I could almost beat down the door in my impatience to see him.

Then I hear the terrible sound of them climbing the stone stairs that go past my rooms. They go past my door, they don’t stop to come in, they go on up to the rooms on the floor above. I cry out in disappointment and I run to the door and press my face against it, trying to distinguish Ned’s footstep, trying to recognize his breathing. I hear the door above mine open, I hear them go in, and the clatter as men drop bags, scrape the heavy wooden chairs on the stone-flagged floor, and then the slam of the door and the grate of the key in the lock and the noise of their feet on the stairs as they descend.

He is above me. If he stamped with his heel on the floor, I would hear him. If I screamed at the top of my voice, he would hear me. I stand for long minutes, my face tilted up to the ceiling, the puppies whimpering as if they are longing for him too, hoping to hear a word from my husband, home at last.

* * *

Every day now I have strange cramps and my belly stands out so firmly that I think the baby must be coming. “I cannot go on like this,” I say desperately to Sir Edward. “Do you want me to die in childbirth like Jane Seymour?”

He looks anxious. “If you would only confess,” he says. “If you would confess, then I could get you sent to your uncle, or to Hanworth, and the midwives could come.”

“I can’t confess to what I have not done,” I say. I am crying for pain and self-pity. I am in a truly impossible situation, for who can ever prove to a Tudor queen that she is not in danger? All the Tudor monarchs think that they are in mortal danger, often without cause. King Henry saw imaginary enemies everywhere, and killed good friends and advisors from his fear.