A man to rule over me, I think bitterly.

“A partner and steady counselor,” says Shrewsbury.

“The duke says that the other peers approve the idea.”

“So he wrote me.”

“Including Sir Robert Dudley? The queen’s great friend?”

“Yes, so he says.”

“So if Robert Dudley gives his blessing to this proposal, then the queen’s approval will certainly follow. Dudley would never involve himself with anything that might displease her.”

He nods. These Englishmen are so slow you can almost hear their brains turning like mill wheels grinding. “Yes. Yes. That is almost certainly so. You are right. That is true.”

“Then we may assume that although the duke has not yet told his cousin the queen of his plans, he will do so soon, with the confidence that she will be happy for him, and that all the lords of her realm and mine approve the marriage?”

Again he pauses to think. “Yes. Almost certainly, yes.”

“Then perhaps we have here the solution to all our troubles,” I say. “I shall write to the duke and accept his proposal, and ask him what he plans for me. Can you see that the letter is delivered for me?”

“Yes,” he says. “There can be nothing wrong in you writing a reply to him, since all the lords and Dudley know...”

I nod.

“If William Cecil knew, I would be happier in my own mind,” he says almost to himself.

“Oh, do you have to ask his permission?” I ask as innocently as a child.

He flares up, as I knew he would. “Not I! I am answerable to none but the queen herself. I am Lord High Steward of England. I am a member of the Privy Council. There is no man placed over me. William Cecil has no power over my doings.”

“Then what William Cecil knows and what he approves are alike indifferent to us both.” I give a little shrug. “He is no more than a royal servant, is he not?” I see his eager nod. “Just the queen’s secretary of state?”

Emphatically, he nods again.

“Then how should his opinion affect me, a queen of the blood? Or you, a peer of the realm? And I shall leave my lord Norfolk when he thinks that the time is right to tell the servants of the queen, Cecil among them. His Grace the duke must be the judge of when he makes an announcement to the servants.”

I stroll back to my seat near the fire and take up my sewing. Bess glances up when I take my seat. My hands are trembling with excitement but I smile calmly, as if her husband was talking of the weather and the chance of hunting tomorrow.