He does not look at me. He does not look at me, ever. When I am dancing in a circle and my gaze goes from one smiling face to another I never see him. He is talking with the king, or in a corner laughing with a friend; he is at a gaming table, or looking out of the window. When the court goes hunting, he is high on a big black horse, his face turned down, tightening the girth or patting its neck. When there is archery, his dark narrowed gaze is directed only along the shaft of the arrow to the target; when he plays tennis, a white linen scarf around his neck, his shirt open at the throat, his attention is entirely on the game. When he comes to Mass in the morning, with the king’s hand resting on his shoulder, he does not look up to my gallery where the ladies and I are kneeling, heads bowed in prayer. During the long service, when I peep between my fingers, I see that he is not praying with his eyes closed; he is gazing at the monstrance, his face illuminated by the light falling from the window above the altar, as beautiful as a carved saint himself. I close my eyes then and I whisper in my mind: “God help me, God take this desire from me, God make me as blind to him as he is to me.”

“Thomas Seymour never says one word to me,” I remark to Nan when we are alone before dinner one evening, to see if she has noticed.

“Doesn’t he? He’s as vain as a puppy and always flirting with someone. But his brother never makes much of you, either. They’re a family who think very highly of themselves, and of course they won’t want a Parr stepmother to make people forget the Seymour mother of the prince. He is always perfectly polite to me.”

“Sir Thomas speaks to you?”

“In passing only. For politeness only. I don’t have much time for him.”

“Does he ask you how I am?”

“Why should he?” she demands. “He can see how you are. He can ask you himself, if he has any interest.”

I shrug as if I don’t care. “It’s just that since he has come home from the Netherlands he seems to have no time for any of the ladies, whereas before he was such a flirt. Perhaps he has left his heart behind.”

“Perhaps,” she says. Something in my face makes her remind me: “Not that you care.”

“I don’t care at all,” I agree.

* * *