I am so pleased with the ring he has given me. It fits my finger like a wedding band and he says I must wear it on my wedding finger when I am alone, for it is a pledge of his love to me and we are promised to each other.

“I wish we could marry and live together at once,” I whisper to him. I am sitting on his lap, his great arms around me. He holds me as tenderly as if I were a child, and yet I feel the pulse of his desire for me as a woman when I put my fingers on his strong wrist.

“I wish it, too,” he says. “The moment that you say the word I will fetch a priest and witnesses and we will marry. Or we can go to a church. I don’t ever want you to face the questioning that your sister has suffered. We will have witnesses and we will have our betrothal in writing.”

“They don’t care about me,” I say resentfully. “I am so small in Elizabeth’s eyes that she does not even fear me. It’s not as if I am like my sister, with half the courts of Europe making advances and weaving plots. My marriage is a private matter: it should make no difference to her whether I am married or single, whether I have a houseful of children or only you to love.”

“Then shall we marry in secret?” he asks hopefully. “Do you dare?”

“Maybe next year,” I say cautiously. “I don’t want to remind the queen of her anger against Katherine. I am hoping that the council will persuade her to set my sister free this month. Some scholars are making inquiries that will prove her to be the heir, and prove her wedding was valid and so her sons are legitimate heirs. I can’t think about anything else until that is written and published.”

Thomas nods. He has a great respect for the learning of my family, the more so since Jane is now recognized as a theologian and her published writings are read everywhere. “Are you writing any of the book?” he asks.

“Oh, no,” I say. “It is all being done by a senior clerk in the chancery, John Hales. He has seen the original king’s will and says that it clearly names my mother and her line as heirs after Prince Edward and the princesses. Hales has proved that our grandmother’s marriage was a good one, so our line is legitimate and English-born and Protestant. Now Katherine’s husband, Ned Seymour, is paying for the opinions of clergy overseas to show that he and Katherine’s marriage was valid too, with private vows, and their sons legitimate. When all the evidence is brought together, then John Hales will publish it and the country will see that Katherine is proven heir to the queen: legitimately born, and legitimately married.”