I struggle in earnest now, trying to stand, trying to pull away, trying to unwind his hard hands, pulling his fingers off my waist; but he is inescapable, his hands gripping me as if he would strangle me. “Now,” he says, a little breathlessly, “am I to force you? Or will you lift that pretty gown for me and we can get the business done and return to your mother’s dinner? Perhaps you will dance for us again? Like the slut that you are?”

For a moment I am quite frozen with horror, looking into his lean face, then, to my surprise, he suddenly snatches my wrist but releases my waist, and I jump up from his lap and stand before him. For one last moment I think of wrenching my hand free and dashing for the door and running away, but the skin on my arm is burning where he grips me, and the hardness of his expression tells me that there will be no escape, no chance of escape. I flush scarlet and the tears come to my eyes.

“Please,” I say weakly. “Please don’t make me do this.”

He almost shrugs, as if there is nothing he can do but hold my wrist as if I were a prisoner, and with his free hand he makes a small lifting gesture to the hem of my gown, my Tudor green gown.

“I will come willingly to you tonight . . .” I offer. “I will come in secret, to your rooms.”

He gives a hard condemning laugh. “Smuggled into the king’s bed for old times’ sake? So you are a whore, just as I thought. And I shall have you like a whore. Here and now.”

“My father . . .” I whisper. “You’re in his chair, my father’s chair . . .”

“Your father is dead, and your uncle was no great protector of your honor,” he says and gives a little snorting laugh as if he is genuinely amused. “Get on with it. Lift your dress and climb on me. Ride me. You’re no virgin. You know how to do it.”

He keeps tight hold of me as, slowly, I bend down and lift the hem of my gown. With his other hand, he unlaces his breeches and sits back on the chair, his legs spread, and I obey his gesture and the tug on my hand and step towards him.

One hand is still gripping my wrist as his other hand raises my daintily embroidered linen, and he makes me straddle him as if I were the whore he calls me. He pulls me down onto him, where he is sitting in the chair, and thrusts upwards no more than a dozen times. His hot breath on my face is spicy from dinner when he rears up towards me, and I close my eyes and turn my face to one side, holding my breath. I dare not think of Richard. If I think of Richard, who used to take me with such delight and whisper my name in his pleasure, then I will vomit. Mercifully, Henry groans in momentary pleasure, and I open my eyes and find that he is staring at me, his brown gaze quite blank. He has observed me like a prisoner on the rack of his desire, and he has got to his satisfaction without blinking.