She was so intent on what I was saying that she ignored my rudeness. ‘Well, what is the matter with you?’ she demanded. ‘Daniel has had you at least twice a week ever since your wedding day. No-one can doubt him. Are you ill?’

‘No,’ I said through cold lips. She would, of course, know exactly how often we made love. She had listened without any sense of shame, she would go on listening. It would not even occur to her that I could take no pleasure in his touch or his kiss knowing that she was just the other side of the thinnest of walls, ears pricked. She would not have dreamed that I had hoped for pleasure. As far as she was concerned the matter was for Daniel’s pleasure and for the making of a grandson for her.

‘Then what is the matter?’ she repeated. ‘I have been waiting for you to tell me that you are with child any day these last two months.’

‘Then sorry I am, to so disappoint you,’ I said, as cold as Princess Elizabeth in one of her haughty moods.

In a sudden movement she snatched my wrist, and twisted it round so that I was forced to turn and face her, her grip biting into the skin. ‘You’re not taking something?’ she hissed. ‘You’ve not got some draught to take to stop a child coming? From your clever friends at court? Some slut’s trick?’

‘Of course not!’ I said, roused to anger. ‘Why would I?’

‘God knows what you would or would not do!’ she exclaimed in genuine distress, flinging me from her. ‘Why would you go to court? Why would you not come with us to Calais? Why be so unnatural, so unwomanly, more like a boy than a girl? Why come now, too late, when Daniel could have had his pick of any girl in Calais? Why come at all if you’re not going to breed?’

I was stunned by her anger, it knocked the words out of me. For a moment I said nothing. Then slowly I found the words. ‘I was begged for a fool, it was not my choice,’ I said. ‘You should reproach my father if you dare with that, not me. I wore boy’s clothes to protect me, as you well know. And I did not come with you because I had sworn to the Princess Elizabeth that I would be with her at her time of trial. Most women would think that showed a true heart, not a false one. And I came now because Daniel wanted me, and I wanted him. And I don’t believe a word you say. He could not have the pick of the girls of Calais.’

‘He could indeed!’ she said, bridling. ‘Pretty girls and fertile girls too. Girls who would come with a dowry and not in breeches, a girl who has a baby in the cradle this summer and knows her place, and would be glad enough to be in my house, and proud to call me mother.’