He read my face in one quick glance. ‘Displeased with me, Mistress Boy?’ he demanded. ‘Have I offended you?’

I shook my head. ‘No, my lord.’

He came closer and though I could smell the clean leather of his boots and the warm perfume of his velvet jacket, I leaned away from him.

He put his hand under my chin and turned my face up. ‘You’re unhappy,’ he remarked. ‘What is it? Not the betrothed, surely?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘What then? Missing Spain?’

‘No.’

‘Unhappy at court?’ he guessed. ‘Girls catfighting?’

I shook my head.

‘You don’t want to be here? You didn’t want to come?’ Then, quickly spotting the little flicker of emotion that went across my face, he said: ‘Oho! Faithless! You have been turned, Mistress Boy, as often spies are. You have been turned around and now you are spying on me.’

‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘Never. I would never spy on you.’

I would have moved away but he put his hands on either side of my face and held me so that I could not get away from him, and he could read my eyes as if I were a broken code.

‘You have despaired of my cause and despaired of me and become her servant and not mine,’ he accused me. ‘You love the queen.’

‘Nobody could help loving the queen,’ I said defensively. ‘She is a most beautiful woman. She is the bravest woman I have ever known and she struggles with her faith and with the world every day. She is halfway to being a saint.’

He smiled at that. ‘You’re such a girl,’ he said, laughing at me. ‘You’re always in love with somebody. And so you prefer this queen to me, your true lord.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘For here I am, doing your bidding. As I was told. Though it was a stranger who came to me and I did not know if I was safe.’

He shrugged at that. ‘And tell me, you did not betray me?’

‘When?’ I demanded, shocked.

‘When I asked you to take a message to Lady Elizabeth and to my tutor?’

He could see the horror in my face at the very thought of such a betrayal. ‘Good God, no, my lord. I did both errands and I told no-one.’

‘Then how did it all go wrong?’ He dropped his hands from my face and turned away. He paced to the window and back to the table that he used for a study desk. He turned at the desk and went to the fireplace. I thought this must be a regular path for him, four steps to his table, four steps to the fireplace, four steps back to the window; no further than this for a man who used to ride out on his horse before he broke his fast, and then hunt all day, and dance with the ladies of the court all night.

‘My lord, that’s easily answered. It was Edward Courtenay who told Bishop Gardiner and the plot was discovered,’ I said very quietly. ‘The bishop brought the news to the queen.’