“Go and buy some pretty things,” he commands me. “I want you to look like a beloved wife and the finest queen that England has ever known.”

I leave the room a little dazed. If I look like a beloved wife, it will be for the first time. To my second husband, Lord Latimer, I was a partner and a helpmeet, someone to guard his lands and educate his children. He taught me the things that he needed me to know and he was glad to have me alongside him. But he never petted me, or gave things to me, or imagined how I would appear to others. He rode away and left me in terrible danger, expecting me to serve him as the captain of Snape Castle, confident I would command his men in his absence. I was his deputy, not his love. Now I am married to a man who calls me his beloved and plans treats for me.

Nan is waiting with Joan at the door, which opens before us. “Come on,” I say to her. “I think there are some things you’ll want to see in my chambers.”

* * *

My own presence chamber is already filled with people come to congratulate me on my wedding and hoping to ask me for a place or a favor or an audience or a fee. I walk through them with a smile to one side and the other, without pausing. I will start my work as queen today. But right now, I want to see my husband’s gifts.

“Oh, my,” Nan says as the guards throw open the double doors to my private rooms and my ladies rise to their feet and gesture, rather helplessly, to the half a dozen boxes that the king’s men have put all around the room, the great keys ready in the locks.

It is a sin to feel this leap of cupidity. I laugh at myself. “Stand back!” I say jokingly. “Stand back, for I am about to dive into treasure.”

Nan turns the key to the first chest and we together lift the heavy lid. It is a traveling chest and it holds the gold plates and goblets for the queen’s private tables. I nod to two of the maids-in-waiting to come forward. They unpack one glorious plate after another and tip the reflections so the golden lights dance around the room like mad angels. “More!” I say, and now everyone holds a plate and shines it into each other’s eyes and flashes discs of light into every corner of the room until the room is dappled with shifting reflections. I laugh with delight and we shine the gold plates on one another, rise up, dance, and the whole room is dancing with us, filled with dazzling light.