He threw the parchment on the table and speared it to the table with his dagger. “Am I to be hounded even in my hour of grief. I must send Bess and her sisters away. Out of my sight and out of people’s minds.” He looked across at Francis who was shaking his head. “You don’t agree? Then what, pray, does Lord Lovell think I should do?” he snapped. “Poison her as I did her brothers?” And he grabbed an inkwell John Kendall had left open on the table and flung it at a valuable tapestry.

Francis bided his time as Richard stalked to the window to stare out at the mantle of daffodils below him in Westminster’s well-kept garden.

“It is the view of your privy council that you make a public denial of this rumor. It is the only way to put it behind you.”

He stopped there. Francis had been Richard’s friend long enough to know that, after an explosion of ill-judged temper, Richard had to process information before he could be reasoned with. Usually, he was reasonable, but Richard was not himself these days—Francis had not heard him laugh for weeks—and so he braced himself for the next onslaught. Richard suddenly swung round and said coldly, “I will not do it, and there is an end to it. Let the rumor-mongers go to hell.”

Francis bowed and quietly left the room. Richard was wrong, he knew, and needed time to calm himself. In the meantime, he went to find Jack Howard.

Richard stood by the fireplace and turned the delicate gold-filigree ring around the tip of his finger, wondering what had prompted Kate to send the keepsake back to him. When he had given it to her those many years ago, he had made her promise that if ever she had need of him she would send it and he would see her. Jack Howard had delivered it from Suffolk the day before, saying Kate had accompanied him and was now a guest at his townhouse in Stepney.

Reasons for her having sent the ring raced through Richard’s mind as he waited for her. Did she need money for Dickon? He doubted it for he had been true to his promise to Geoffrey Bywood to send a generous stipend to cover the boy’s provisions. Perhaps she had found a suitable husband? But why would she need his permission? Perhaps a relative had been unjustly accused and she was seeking his intercession?

The rap on the door startled him, and he dropped the ring in the rushes. When Kate came in, he was down on one knee searching for it, and she could clearly see the outline of his crooked back through his doublet. She felt a pang of sympathy; the last time she had seen him he had hidden that side from her. The protrusion was far more visible after all these years, she observed sadly.