His quick flush rises to his cheeks. “Elizabeth—what’s the matter with you? My mother and I often have supper together, we often talk together in the evening, we pray together,” he says. “It’s easier for us if she can come and see me or if I need to see her.”

“You like to walk in and out of each other’s rooms, night and day?” I ask again.

He pauses, irritated. I have learned to read his expressions and this tightening of his mouth and narrowing of his eyes shows me that I am embarrassing him. I love to set him on edge, it is one of the only pleasures of my marriage.

“Do I understand that you want to move into the queen’s rooms so that I can walk in and out of your bedroom night and day, without notice? Have you developed a taste for my attention? Do you want me at your bedside? In your bed? Do you want me to come to you secretly for love? For love which is not for the procreation of children but for lust? Like your parents with their secret sinful meetings?”

I drop my eyes. “No,” I say sulkily. “It’s just that it looks odd that I don’t have the queen’s rooms.”

“Is there anything wrong with the rooms you have? Are they not furnished to your liking? Are they too small?”

“No.”

“Do you need better tapestries on the walls? Are you deficient in the matter of musicians? Or servants? Are you going hungry, shall the kitchens send you more little plates?”

“It’s not that.”

“Oh, do tell me if you are starving to death? If you are lonely or chilled?”

“My rooms are quite adequate,” I say through my teeth.

“Then I suggest you let my mother stay in the apartments that she uses, which she needs as my principal advisor. And that you keep the rooms that she has allotted to you. And I will visit you every night, until I go on progress.”

“You’re going on progress?” This is the first I have heard of it.

He nods. “Not you. You’re not coming. You’re not to travel, Mother thinks it better that you should rest in London. She and I are going north. She thinks that I should be seen by as many people as possible, visit towns, spread loyalty. Confirm our supporters in their posts, befriend former enemies. The Tudors need to stamp their mark on this country.”

“Oh, she definitely won’t want me there then,” I say spitefully. “Not if it’s a Tudor progress. She won’t want a York princess. What if people preferred me to you? What if they looked past her, past you, and cheered for me?”

He rises to his feet. “I believe she was thinking of nothing but your health, and the health of our baby—as was I,” he says sharply. “And of course the kingdom has to be made loyal to the Tudor line. The child in your belly is a Tudor heir. We are doing this for you and for the child you carry. My mother is working for you and for her grandson. I wish you could find the grace to be grateful. You say you are a princess, I hear all the time that you are a princess by birth—I wish you would show it. I wish you would try to be queenly.”