“I was always in danger of becoming a poor woman,” I explain. “A poor woman is the lowest thing in the world. A woman alone owns nothing; she cannot house her children; she cannot earn money to put food on the table; she is dependent on the kindness of her family; without their generosity she could starve to death. She could see her children die for lack of money to pay a doctor; she could go hungry for she has no trade nor guild nor skill. Women are banned from learning and from trade. You cannot have a woman blacksmith or a woman clerk. All a woman can do, without education, without a skill, is to sell herself. I decided, whatever it cost me, I would somehow win property and cling to it.”

“It is your kingdom,” she says suddenly. “Your house is your own little kingdom.”

“Exactly,” I say. “And if I lose my house I am thrown on the world without protection.”

“Just like a queen.” She nods. “A queen has to have a kingdom and without it she has nothing.”

“Yes,” I say.

“And does your fear of losing your house mean that you see your husbands as providers, and nothing more?” she asks inquisitively.

“I loved my husbands because they were good to me and left me their fortunes,” I admit. “And I love my children because they are my dearest own children and because they are my heirs. They will go on after I am gone. They will be heirs to my fortune, they will own my houses and wealth, please God they will add to them, and they will have titles and honor.”

“Some would say you are a woman without a tender heart,” she remarks. “A woman with the heart of a man.”

“I am not a woman who relishes the uncertainty of a woman’s life,” I reply stoutly. “I am not a woman who glories in being dependent. I would rather earn my own fortune than curry the favor of a rich man and look to him for my safety.”

As she is about to reply, the door opens behind me, and I know that it is my husband the earl. I know it before I even turn to see, because of the way her face lights up at the sight of him. I know that she would shine her smile on any man. She has all the discrimination of a whore. Any man or boy, from my eight-year-old page boy Babington to my forty-two-year-old husband: to them all she is equally delightful. She was even gaily flirtatious with Hastings in the days before he left.