“Oh, no,” he says lightly, and turns to me with a smile. He glances up to the king’s rooms and nods to an acquaintance at the oriel window. “Because I love you desperately. Because I can’t sleep for thinking of you. Because I burn up with desire for you. Because I dare not look at you, because if I did, every man and woman at court would see all that in my eyes.”

I almost stumble as my knees go weak and I feel a pulse deep in my belly at his words.

“Walk on!” he raps out.

“I thought—”

“I know what you thought. You thought wrong,” he says abruptly. “Keep walking. Here is His Majesty.”

The king is seated on a great chair they have brought out to the sunny garden, his foot propped on a stool.

“I can’t tell you...” I whisper.

“I know,” he says. “We can’t speak.”

“Can we meet?”

He presents me to the king and bows low. “No,” he says as he steps backwards.

* * *

I am to be honored. The king’s beaming smile tells me that I am to be trusted with a greater post than any queen has held before, except for the greatest: Katherine of Aragon. The king tells me privately in the garden, and then announces to the country, that I am to serve as Regent General. Half of the council are to go with him to France, the other half to stay with me as advisors. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer is to be my principal councillor, and I see how the king balances the advice I shall hear: the next greatest man in my service will be the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, Cranmer’s natural enemy and an increasingly doubtful friend of mine. When he returns from laying waste to Scotland to teach them to welcome our proposals, Edward Seymour will advise me, and Sir William Petre, the quiet soft-spoken king’s Secretary, will serve me too.