I jumped to my feet and found I was trembling. “My lord?”

“He was taken by the French who suspected him as a spy, but they are holding him with other English soldiers,” he told me. “I daresay I can arrange for him to be exchanged for other prisoners of war, or ransomed, or something.”

“He is safe?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Safe?” I asked incredulously.

He nodded again.

“Not sick, nor injured?”

“See for yourself,” he said, handing over the three scrawled lines on the sheet of paper. “Held in the castle. If you were to write to him I could get it sent on.”

“Thank you,” I said. I read and reread the letter. It said nothing more than he had already told me but somehow in words of black ink on travel-stained paper it seemed more true. “Thank God.”

“Thank God indeed,” said my lord with a smile.

Impulsively I took his hand. “And thank you, my lord,” I said fervently. “You are kind to take the trouble for me. I know it. I am grateful.”

Gently he drew me in, put a warm hand on my waist. “Sweetheart, you know I would do anything in my power to make you happy.”

I hesitated. His hand was light, I could feel the heat of his palm through the fabric of my gown. I felt myself lean toward him. He stole a quick glance up and down the empty gallery and then his mouth came down toward mine. He hesitated, he was such a practiced seducer that he knew the power of delay to increase desire. Then he bent a little lower and he kissed me, tenderly and then with increasing passion until my arms were around his neck and he had me pressed against a wall, my head tipped back, my eyes closed, quite given up to the delicious sensation of his touch.

“Lord Robert,” I whispered.

“I’m for bed. Come with me, sweetheart-mine.”

I did not hesitate. “I am sorry my lord, no.”

“You are sorry, my lord, no?” he repeated comically. “What d’you mean, Mistress Boy?”

“I shall not lie with you,” I said steadily.

“Why not? Don’t tell me it is not your desire, for I shan’t believe you. I can taste it on your lips. You want me as much as I want you. And that is a good deal, tonight.”

“It is my desire,” I admitted. “And if I were not a married woman I would be glad to be your lover.”

“Oh, Hannah, a husband such a long way away and safely in prison need not concern you. A word from you to me, and he can stay there until there is a general amnesty. For all I care he can stay there forever. Come to bed with me, now.”

Steadfastly I shook my head. “No, my lord. I am sorry.”

“Not sorry enough,” he said crossly. “What ails you, child?”

“It is not that he might catch me,” I said. “It is that I do not want to betray him.”

“You betray him in your heart,” Robert said cheerfully. “You lean back against my arm, you tip your head, you open your mouth for my kisses. He is betrayed already, Mistress Boy. The rest is just enacting the desire. It is no worse than what you have done already.”

I smiled at his persuasive, self-serving logic. “Perhaps, but it is wrong. My lord, I tell you true, I have adored you since the day I first saw you. But I love Daniel with a true and honorable love, and I want to be a good wife to him, and faithful to him.”

“This is nothing to do with true love between us, sweetheart,” he said with his simple rake’s brutality.

“I know,” I said. “And now I want love. Lust is no good for me. I want love. His love.”

He looked at me, his dark eyes brimming with laughter. “Ah, Hannah, this is a big mistake for a woman like you, with everything to play for and nothing to lose. You are the closest thing to a free woman I have ever known. A girl educated far beyond her sex, a wife with a husband miles away, a woman with gifts, ambition, the sense to use them and the body of a beautiful whore. For God’s sake, girl, be my mistress. You don’t have to descend to being a wife.”

I could not help but laugh. “I thank you,” I said. “But I want to be a wife without descending. I want to choose Daniel when I find him again, and love him from my heart and with faithfulness.”

“But you would so enjoy a night with me, you know,” he said, partly from vanity, partly as a final attempt.

“I am very sure of it,” I said, as shameless as he. “And if I cared for nothing but pleasure then I would be begging you for tonight and every night after. But I have fallen in love, my lord, and no one but my lover will do for me.”

He stepped back and swept me a beautiful courtly bow, as low as if for a queen. “Mistress Boy, you always exceed my expectations. I knew you would make a wonderful woman but I never expected you would make a surprising and honorable woman. I hope your husband is worthy of you, I do indeed. And if he is not…”

I laughed. “If he breaks my heart a second time then I will come back to you as heartless as you are yourself, my lord,” I said.

“Oh well, it is agreed,” he said with a laugh, and went to his bed alone.

Within a few days his lordship and John Dee were ready to return to court. John Dee would go back to Bishop Bonner and would note the detail of the charges and the words of the interrogation of hundreds of men and women charged with heresy. He would see them sent for torture, and then when they confessed, he would see them sent for burning.

We walked to the stables together to check that the horses were ready for the journey, and an awkward silence fell between us. I would never ask him how he could bear to leave these innocent days in the country and go back to his work as hangman.

He spoke first. “Hannah, you know, it is better that it is me there, advising, than any other.”

For a moment I did not understand him, then I realized that it was a plot, another plot, within a plot, within the great plots. Better that John Dee was examining Princess Elizabeth’s supporters and friends than a man whose loyalties were solid to the queen and who desired to see them all burn.

“I don’t know how you can bear it,” I said simply. “The woman I saw, without her fingernails…”

He nodded. “God forgive us,” he said quietly. “I am sorry that you were taken up, Hannah.”

“I thank you for saving me, if that is what you did,” I said unwillingly.

“Did you not know that I interceded for you?”

“I did not quite understand it, at the time,” I said carefully.

John Dee took my hand and patted it. “You are right. I had a greater aim in view than your life. But I am glad that you were only brushed, and not broken, by this.”

We walked into the stable yard and there was Lord Robert, watching a wagon being loaded with goods that he wanted for his rooms at Richmond: a beautiful tapestry and some fine carpets. I went up and spoke to him privately.

“Will you write and tell me how the queen does?” I asked.

“You are taking an interest in the succession?”

“I take an interest in the queen,” I said. “I had no truer friend when I first came to her service.”

“And then you ran off and left her,” he observed.

“My lord, as you know, they were dangerous times. I was safer away from court then.”

“And now?”

“I don’t expect safety. But I have to find some way to make my living and to raise my son.”

He nodded. “Hannah, I would have you stay here for the time being, but by the summer I shall want you to meet me at court. I want you to see the queen again and enter her service.”

“My lord, I am a fool no more. I have a child to care for and I am waiting for my husband.”

“My child, you are a fool indeed if you think you can argue with me.”

That checked me. “I do not mean to argue,” I said pacifically. “But I don’t want to be parted from my son, and I cannot go back into breeches.”

“You can send him to a nurse. And you can be a fool in petticoats as well as breeches. There are many fools in petticoats, after all. You will not be an exception.”