I was desperate to be gone, for Thomas’s words about Robert ate away at me all the more now that he was dead, but I could not leave my sister at such a time.

“I will send for Francis,” I said, thinking that once her children were with her I could slip away. “Is he at Hoxton? And Elizabeth and Mary too. It will comfort you to have your children with you.”

But Muriel gave no sign of having heard me. She was comfortless for she had lost not only her husband but her guiding light, the rudder that steered her world.

“Don’t go!” She grabbed my hand as I made to leave the room to find the steward and give him instruction. “Stay with me, Anne. I need you.”

“Of course,” I said, and I went to the library and wrote hasty notes to Francis Tresham and his sisters Elizabeth Parker and Mary Brudenell, and I made possets of chamomile for Anne and sat with her whilst she told me endlessly what a wonderful man Thomas had been and how she was a broken reed without him.

It took five days for Francis to arrive, riding hard, his wife and children following behind him in a carriage. His sisters and their families followed and Lyveden was suddenly full of people and voices, but not even the children’s presence could lift the gloom as the business of death ground onward. Meanwhile, my preoccupation was to find Robert and to that end I cornered Francis one evening after dinner.

“Have you seen your cousin Robert lately?” I asked him. “I believe he has been in London these past few weeks? Indeed, I wondered whether he might come with you when he heard the news of his uncle, for he loved Sir Thomas so dearly.”

I sensed rather than saw his sisters Elizabeth and Mary exchange a glance that was loaded with meaning.

“I haven’t seen Robert for many months,” Francis said. He had been a tall, fair and easygoing youth who had grown into a man whose edges seemed blurred by soft living. “I am not in his confidence these days.” He sounded piqued and I knew that even though he was the elder, he had always hung on Robert’s favor. Perhaps they had had a falling out.

“Ladies.” I turned to Elizabeth and Mary. “Do you have any news of my son?”

They looked as guilty as a pair of naughty children and it reminded me of the days long past when the cousins had all egged each other on in some scrape. But this was no childish prank; this was treason.

“I know that there is mischief afoot,” I said bluntly. “Your father told me before he died. It is imperative I speak with Robert. Where do I find him?”

A rather uncomfortable silence had fallen over the table now, not the silence of respectful grieving but a blanket of secrets and lies.

The girls looked at each other again. “Madam,” Mary said reluctantly, “we do not know.”