“She was his sole heir,” she tells me. “She had him change his will so that he disinherited his own brother. He did not even leave money to his children by her. When he died he left every penny of his ill-gained wealth to her, in her name alone, and set her up as a lady. It was from his springboard that she could vault to marry her next husband, and she did the same with him: took everything he owned, disinherited his own kin. At his death he left it all to her. That is how she got enough wealth to be a countess: by seducing men and taking them from their families.”

“So—a woman of few scruples,” I remark, thinking of a mother disinheriting her own children. “A woman who is the greater power in the household, who has things done to her own advantage.”

“A forward woman,” Mary Seton says disapprovingly. “Without respect for her husband and his family. A crowing hen. But a woman who knows the value of money.” She is thinking as I am—that a woman who does not scruple to make her fortune from the destruction of the church of God can surely be bribed to look the other way just once, for just one night.

“And him? The Earl of Shrewsbury?”

I smile. “D’you know, I think he is all but untouchable? All he seems to care for is his own honor and his dignity, and of all men in England, he must be safe in that.”

TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS

WINTER, 1569

How much are we being paid for her?” I ask George as we take a glass of spiced wine seated either side of our bedroom fire. Behind us the maids are turning down our bed for the night.

He gives a little start and I realize that I am, once again, too blunt. “I beg your pardon,” I say quickly. “Only I need to know for my book of accounts. Is the court to pay us a fee?”

“Her Majesty the Queen graciously assured me that she will meet all the costs,” he says.

“All of them?” I ask. “Are we to send her a note of our expenses, monthly?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Bess, dearest wife... this is an honor; to serve is a privilege that many seek but only we were chosen. The queen has assured me that she will provide. Of course we will benefit from our service to her. She has sent goods from her own household for her cousin, has she not? We have the queen’s own furniture in our house?”

“Yes,” I say hesitantly, hearing the pride in his voice. “But really, it is only some old things from the Tower. William Cecil wrote to me that Queen Mary’s household is supposed to be thirty people.”

My husband nods.

“She has come here with at least sixty.”

“Oh,” he says. “Has she?”