Her brown eyes are hazy; she looks at me as if I were far, far away. “Because he wants to punish you,” she says coolly. “He knows you don’t like him—you have been so indiscreet in that, the whole world knows you don’t like him. You call him a steward and the son of a steward in public. You didn’t bring him the result he wanted from the queen’s inquiry. Then he learns that you are joined with Norfolk and the others in a plot to unseat him from his place. Then he knows that you encourage the queen to marry Norfolk. Then he learns that his sworn enemies, the Northern lords Westmorland and Northumberland have visited you and the queen and been made right welcome. Why would you be surprised that now he wants to throw you down from your place? Do you not want to throw him down from his? Did you not start the battle? Do you not see that he will finish it? Have you not laid yourself open to accusation?”

“Wife!” I reprimand her.

Bess turns her gaze to me. She is not soft and weeping anymore; she is critical and plain. “I will do what I can,” she says. “I will always do what I can for our safety and for our fortune. But let this be a lesson to you. Never ever work against Cecil. He commands England; he has a spy network that covers every house in the land. He tortures his suspects and he turns them to his service. He knows all the secrets; he sees everything. See what happens to his enemies? The Northern lords will go to the scaffold, Norfolk could lose his fortune, and we...” She holds up the letter. “We are under suspicion at the very least. You had better make it clear to the queen and to Cecil that we know nothing of what the Northern lords planned, that they told us nothing, that we know nothing of what they are planning now, and make sure you say that Cecil had a copy of every letter that Norfolk ever sent, the moment that the Scots queen received it.”

“He did not,” I protest stupidly. “How could he?”

“He did,” she says crisply. “We are not such fools as to do anything without Cecil’s permission. I made sure of it.”

I take a long moment to understand that the spy in my household, working for a man that I hate, whose downfall I have planned, is my beloved wife. I take another moment to understand that I have been betrayed by the woman I love. I open my mouth to curse her for disloyalty but then I stop. She has probably saved our lives by keeping us on the winning side: Cecil’s side.

“It was you that told Cecil? You copied the letter to him?”