It is. With painful clarity I can see the logic of it for the Seymours. It is a brilliant match for them, and Princess Elizabeth, when she is told of it, will pretend to obedience but will be delighted. She has a childish adoration for Thomas, for his dark good looks and his air of adventure, now she will think herself in love with him and she will talk about him and coo over him and give herself airs and I will lose my love for her in jealousy.

“You don’t like it,” he observes.

I shake my head, swallowing down bile. “I can’t like it, but I don’t speak against it. I see that you must, Thomas. It would be a great advancement for you. It would secure the Seymours their place with the royal family.”

“I shan’t do it if you say no.”

Again I shake my head. We go through the doorway into the shade of the entrance hall. The Seymour servants come to greet their masters. They bow and we turn towards the king’s presence chamber. It is not possible to speak, and everyone is looking at Thomas and commenting on the admiral’s return to court.

“I am yours,” Thomas says in a passionate undertone. “Forever. You know that.”

I release his hand and he bows and steps back.

“Very well,” I say. I know that he has to make his way. I know that Elizabeth is a great match for him. I know that she will adore him and he will be kind to her. “Very well.”

* * *

Thomas leaves the next morning before chapel and I don’t see him again.

“Are you ill?” Nan asks me. “You look...”

“Look what?”

She scrutinizes my pale face. “Queechy,” she says, using a childhood word with a little smile.

“I’m unhappy,” I reply in a moment of honesty. I won’t say more but I feel a little eased just by speaking one word of truth. I miss Thomas as a physical pain. I don’t know how I am going to bear his marriage to someone else. The thought of him with Elizabeth makes my stomach churn as if I am poisoned with jealousy.

Nan does not even ask me why I am unhappy. I am not the first royal wife she has seen blanched by the strain of being queen.

* * *