‘Why, what should threaten you?’ I asked the man who ruled England.

‘I shall be the one that wonders what might threaten me. You shall be the one to warn me if it does. You are to be Robert’s eyes and ears at the house of the Lady Mary. He tells me that he can trust you; make sure that he can.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said obediently.

* * *

Lord Robert said that I might send for my father to say goodbye to him and he came downriver to Greenwich Palace in a fishing smack on the ebbing tide, with Daniel seated beside him.

‘You!’ I said without any enthusiasm, when I saw him help my father from the bobbing boat.

‘Me,’ he replied with the glimmer of a smile. ‘Constant, aren’t I?’

I went to my father and felt his arms come around me. ‘Oh, Papa,’ I whispered in Spanish. ‘I wish we had never come to England at all.’

‘Querida, has someone hurt you?’

‘I have to go to the Lady Mary and I am afraid of the journey, and afraid of living at her house, I am afraid of . . .’ I broke off, tasting the many lies on my tongue and realising that I would never be able to tell anyone the truth about myself ever again. ‘I am just being foolish, I suppose.’

‘Daughter, come home to me. I will ask Lord Robert to release you, we can close the shop, we can leave England. You are not trapped here . . .’

‘Lord Robert himself asked me to go,’ I said simply. ‘And I already said I would.’

His gentle hand caressed my cropped hair. ‘Querida, you are unhappy?’

‘I am not unhappy,’ I said, finding a smile for him. ‘I am being foolish. For look, I am being sent to live with the heir to the throne, and Lord Robert himself has asked me to go.’

He was only partly reassured. ‘I shall be here, and if you send for me I shall come to you. Or Daniel will come and fetch you away. Won’t you, Daniel?’

I turned in my father’s arms to look at my betrothed. He was leaning against the wooden railing that ran around the jetty. He was waiting patiently, but he was pale and he was scowling with anxiety.

‘I would rather fetch you away now.’

My father released me and I took a step towards Daniel. Behind him, bobbing at the jetty, their boat was waiting for them. I saw the swirl of water and saw the tide was ready to turn; we could go upstream almost at once. He had timed this moment very carefully.

‘I have agreed to go to serve Lady Mary,’ I said quietly to him.

‘She is a Papist in a Protestant country,’ he said. ‘You could not have chosen a place where your faith and practices will be more scrutinised. It is me who is named for Daniel, not you. Why should you go into the very den of lions? And what are you to do for Lady Mary?’