They have papers for me to sign and seal, and Shrewsbury suggests that we go to the smaller family room so that we can be more private.

I take Cecil’s arm and let him lead me to the privy chamber. I smile up at him and laugh at his remarks about the journey. I tell him of my own ride to Wingfield and back again and how much I love to ride out. I tell him that my pantaloons for riding have scandalized Bess but that she allows me out in them after I told her that they are worn by my mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici herself. This makes him laugh, reluctantly, like a man who seldom does so. I ask him attentively after the health of the queen, and I look surprised and interested when he tells me of the Anjou proposal.

He asks me what I think of the bridegroom and I twinkle at him and let him see that I am laughing at the thought of it, and yet I answer him seriously enough and say that I know nothing against young Henri. Indeed, he was offered once to me, though I found it possible to refuse the honor. He smiles down at me; I know I have amused him. I slide my hand a little farther into his arm. He bends his head to say something quietly to me, and I look up at him from under my eyelashes, and I know that this man is for the winning, and I can win him.

And all the while I am thinking, In his doublet he carries the document that will set me free. All the while I am thinking, This is the man that killed my mother. All the while I am thinking, I have to make him like me, I have to make him trust me. Best of all if I could make him hopelessly besotted with me.

CHATSWORTH: BESS

OCTOBER, 1570

So what did you think of her?” I ask Cecil when they have met half a dozen times to talk and finally all the documents are signed and sealed and the horses at the door and Cecil is ready to leave.

“Most beautiful,” he says. “Most charming. A real heart stealer. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted her gone from your door, even if she were not prohibitively expensive.”

I nod.

“Clever,” he says. “Not educated like our queen—no scholar, no tactician—but clever and with a constant eye to her own interests. Cunning, I don’t doubt, but not wise.”

He pauses, smiles at me.