“It leaves him a bachelor, though,” Nan points out. “No man will marry Mary with her father and brother in the Tower, and she giving evidence against them to save her own skin. Thomas Seymour rises up day after day. His family is the leading house in the kingdom and the king loves him. He could choose almost anyone.”

I nod. Of course he will marry Elizabeth if the king gives permission. Then he will be married to the third heir to the Tudor throne. Then I can dance at his wedding. Then I will have to think of him as my son-in-law.

“Who knows?” I say lightly. I nod to my ladies to open the doors and we walk from my bedroom into my privy chamber, and into my presence room, and there he is. He turns as he hears the doors open and I realize he has been waiting for me; and there he is.

When I see him a strange thing happens. It is as if I can see no one else. I don’t even hear the usual noise of the room. It is almost like a dream, like a slip in time, as if all my clocks freeze and everyone has gone and there is nothing but him and me. He turns and sees me, and I am blind to everything but his dark eyes, and his smile, and his gaze upon me as if he too can see no one else, and I think—ah, thank God, he loves me as I love him, for there could be no smile so warm, so directed, except from a man who loves the woman walking towards him, glowing, her hand outstretched.

“Good evening, Sir Thomas,” I say.

He takes my hand, he bows over it, he kisses my fingers. I feel the light touch of his mustache and the warmth of his breath on my hand and the slightest squeeze on my fingers as if to say “Beloved...” and then he straightens up and lets me go.

“Your Majesty,” he says. “I am so happy to see you looking so well.”

As he says the ordinary words his dark gaze is searching my face and I know that he will know that I have put on my best gown and reddened my lips. He sees the shadows under my eyes; he will know that I am grieving for Anne Askew. And he will also know, as a lover always knows, that something very grievous, very bad has happened to me.

He offers me his arm and we walk together, through bowing courtiers, to the window where he gestures with one hand as if to indicate the setting sun and the rise of one penetrating bright star on the horizon.

“Are you hurt?” he asks simply. “Are you ill?”

“I can’t tell you here and now,” I say honestly. “But I am not hurt or ill.”

“The king?”

“Yes.”

“What did he do?” His face darkens.