Elizabeth goes towards the door to the privy chamber. We ladies are expected to follow without delaying to look at our own reflections, or straightening our own gowns. I go behind her, as my rank requires. In the absence of the disgraced Margaret Douglas I am first at court. I am going to slip away when everyone gets on the barge.

We walk through the privy garden to the pier, and there is the father of the bride in earnest argument with the new Spanish ambassador, Don Diego Guzmán de Silva. They start apart as they see Elizabeth, and then Sir Ambrose Cave explains that the French ambassador was dining with him before the wedding and is now refusing to leave. He will not give way to the Spanish ambassador. Clearly, the queen cannot walk into a diplomatic squabble—least of all when everyone knows that France and Spain are vying against each other to support the Queen of Scots against her loving cousin in England.

For a moment I think that Elizabeth will throw one of her tantrums and none of us will attend the wedding, and I will have to send to Thomas and tell him that our wedding, too, will have to be canceled. But then I see him towering head and shoulders over every other man at court, at the privy garden gate, waiting to make sure that the queen safely boards her royal barge. His warm dark gaze rests on me and then passes, expressionless, onwards. I am so relieved that he knows, that he understands, that he will not make a play out of anger and disappointment as these foolish ambassadors are doing.

William Cecil is deputed to solve the problem. He and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the queen’s ambassador to Scotland, go together to Durham House to clear the way for the queen. My Thomas is to walk with them. I see them go through the gate, Thomas holding the gate for the two great men, and following behind them with quiet respect.

The queen is unusually patient. From this I know that she is determined to attend Henry Knollys’ wedding. Elizabeth wishes it and will make great allowances to ensure that she is not crossed. She takes a seat, and someone fetches the musicians, who come tumbling out of the palace, thinking that they had finished work for the day, and they play for her, while the court stands around and chats to each other, alert for her attention, restless as waiting horses. In less than half an hour the garden gate opens again and my Thomas ushers in Sir William and Sir Nicholas, who are both smiling.

“Please,” William Cecil invites the queen. “Please embark in your barge. The French ambassador has left his dinner to oblige us all, and you can make your entry to the wedding.”

It could not be better for me. Everyone is so eager to go after the delay that nobody notices me at all.