Which other fellows? It had been several years since I had seen Will, and truthfully, he had probably forgotten me. We were, as I’d told Thomas, a long-passed youthful flirtation akin to his affection for Anne.

I brought the invitation to my father, who was home from court as the treasurer of the king’s household for the time being, the better to allow my brother Thomas to become proficient at his job as clerk.

“Sir, this has just arrived from Sir Thomas and Lady Boleyn.” I handed the invitation over to him, fully expecting him to instruct his secretary to write a polite note of refusal, as we were still a household in mourning. Still, I hoped he would allow us to go, as I was eager to see Anne again.

My father read it quickly. Then he turned to his secretary. “Please write Sir Thomas and thank him for the invitation. My sons and my daughter and I will attend, and my grandson John Rogers can return to stay here at Allington, as I know that the king is on progress and the other houses likely to be well occupied. Oh—and please inform Sir Thomas that My Lord Blackston will attend with our family. He will be here anon to complete his marriage with my daughter.”

I swooned, but just slightly.

“That will be all.” My father dismissed his secretary, and I remained for a few moments whilst he instructed me to prepare to be married shortly and return to my husband’s home with him afterward.

I went up to my chamber. Edithe was there, mending one of my gowns. “We will find something for Flora to rework among your mother’s gowns for the dance at Hever Castle,” she said. “Flora may accompany you to Baron Blackston’s, if it be a’right, lady. My Roger is here at the Boleyns’.” I nodded mutely, knowing I’d miss her desperately.

The day before the ball, Baron Blackston’s carriage arrived. I went to meet him, as was expected of me. But when the carriage door opened Simon came out and no one else.

“My Lord…. I am pleased to see you,” I said. “And”—I looked into the open carriage door—“Lord Blackston?”

“Is unwell,” he said shortly. “I am come to talk with Sir Henry on his behalf.”

I wanted to disallow my heart to hope, hope having often been torn out by the roots in my life. But perhaps, I thought, perhaps….

On the night of the feast my father and Simon shared a cart with Edmund, and I rode with my nephew John Rogers.

“A priest,” I said as we bumped along the hardened path to Hever Castle. “Was your father shocked?”

He nodded. “For a time, but I think he always knew I was thus inclined. He will train my brother to take my place in the family.”

“And…. no wife?” I pressed on.

He shook his head. “Not for lack of desire, I assure you. But in spite of the fact that Luther himself has taken a bride whilst serving God completely, I just do not feel able to part my heart thusly.”

“Luther says priests can be married then.” I was exultant.

“Not in England, they can’t,” John corrected me, and my heart fell. “They can’t even read Tyndale’s New Testament translation in England without risk of being burned alive.”

I leaned forward and whispered, though there were only we two in the cart. “Have you read Tyndale’s New Testament, John?”

He grinned at me and said nothing. His face was alight with passion. I envied him. I felt the desire to read the Scriptures in my own language kindle, but I quickly patted it out.

Anne must have had a hand in the seating arrangements as I was neatly placed at dinner next to my nephew, which meant that all of his friends rallied round our table to talk after the meal was complete. Try as I might to force my eyes away from the Ogilvys, I could not. Rose was there with her husband, the flush of new motherhood making her a bit fairer of face and thicker of waist. My own waist, fashionably thin underneath my corset, felt inadequate and unwomanly. Walter Ogilvy was there, coughing disruptively, and his wife was there, too, appreciably heavy with child. I envied her and felt the yearning in my own small waist. And then there was Will. He locked eyes with me each and every time I looked in his direction so I knew he must have been looking at me often.

The king roared his approval at a joke, commanded the musicians, and the dance began. Noticeably absent from his attention was the pregnant Mary Boleyn. I did not envy Mary her second child, certain, like her eldest, Katherine, to be a golden redhead unlike her husband, dark-haired Carey. The king threw nary a glance in her direction and all knew that his affections had, like the court, gone on progress for fresh lodging and novel fare.

“My lady, a dance?” George Boleyn came alongside me.

“Certainly,” I said, and he swept me into his brotherly arms. I leaned forward and whispered, “Does not your new wife expect you to dance with her alone all evening?”

“If she’d quit of her harsh chattering I may, but alas, there is no hope for that, so I dutifully make the rounds with my father’s guests,” he said.

“Why hasn’t the queen come?” I was certain that as the host’s son he would know.

“She’s angry because the king is considering naming the Duke of Richmond to the line of succession along with Princess Mary. No one other than a lawfully begot son of the king shall take precedence over Richmond.”

“Ah.” The Duke of Richmond was Henry’s bastard son by Bessie Blount, whereas Princess Mary was the one surviving child of Henry’s union with Katherine of Aragon.

“What is your opinion?” I whispered in his ear. As a courtier, George would have heard the murmurs in the king’s privy council.

“’Twas only one woman ever tried to rule England, the empress Maude, and Henry, as well as all of us, knows how that ended,” he grimly replied. I nodded my agreement. Decades of bloodshed, political unrest, and civil war. “He must not let that happen again. And he knows it.”

The music slowed, indicating a change in song. “And now I shall turn the conversation over to more pleasant matters, and the lady to a most pleasant partner.” And, as if by happenstance but most likely by plan, Will came to claim the next dance.

He took my hand in his and pulled me near. I nearly closed my eyes in delight, but I was aware of Simon’s gaze boring into my back. I dared not show my true feelings.

“You look well, Meg,” Will said, his voice deep and thick with emotion. I allowed myself to look into his eyes briefly and then willed the look he returned imprinted upon my heart and mind.

“You, too, sir. I trust your studies have gone well? My nephew John tells me that you both shall graduate with your MA at Cambridge and are shortly to take your vows.”

He sighed heavily. Well, I couldn’t help it. What other were we to talk of, and in any case, I had never hidden my true heart from Will Ogilvy and I wasn’t about to start now.

“Yes. My brother’s wife will soon have a child and my father feels secure in allowing me to take my vows. I shall do so shortly. Will you attend the ceremony with Alice?”

We parted momentarily but remained partners for the next dance as well, a notable social indiscretion and sure to draw eyes. I held my voice aloof. “I shall be married soon so I shan’t be close enough to attend. I wish you well.”

“Meg, please don’t put this barrier between us. Let us sit awhile and have a cup of wine, as friends, and I shall tell you about what I’ve been studying and where I plan to go.”

The idea of an intelligent discourse that did not include what was remaining in the larder, or how much small beer had spoiled, drew me. And the man did too; I admit it. He put his hand in the hollow of my back and steered me to a table, where a servant delivered two cups of wine. I looked about me and, not seeing Simon, Baron Blackston’s eyes and ears, breathed easier.

Will leaned in toward me in order to be better heard above the musicians. I had no place to look—not his eyes lest I be drawn in, not his lips lest I imagine what could not be. I affixed a firm, friendly, sisterly look to my face and tried to focus on his cheekbones. I’d traced them once and longed to do so again but a verse of Scripture came back to me, unbidden. Touch not God’s anointed. Noli tangere. He was not mine to touch.

“I’m going to Antwerp, to be a chaplain to the cloth merchants. But also…. there is printing going on there. And translating. Tyndale is there. And I have honed my gift for languages. I’m going to see if I can be of some help. Perhaps it was for this that our Lord called me. Imagine it, Meg, hundreds, thousands of people able to read what God says in their own language. German, French, English. Not dependent upon Latin anymore.”

“I’ve done quite well without Latin myself,” I said, wanting to remain aloof in light of his enthusiasm, but I couldn’t. I grinned.

“Still my stubborn girl,” he said, unaware what the words “my girl” meant to me. Or maybe not.

I could see Simon making his way toward me. I drew my shoulders back to appear disinterested. “Be careful in Antwerp,” I said. “I will pray for you.”

“Te somniabo.” He quietly echoed his long-ago words spoken in the gardens just outside. I will dream of you.

“Don’t,” I urged him. “It’s not fair to either of us.”

He nodded but held my gaze. “You’re right. I apologize. I love our Lord with all that I am, but I am still a weak man in at least one area. I…. I will not reach out to you again.”

At precisely that moment Simon arrived. “Meg,” he said overfamiliarly, “a dance? You’ve been sitting here so long.” He shot a look at Will.

“Thank you, yes,” I said. “This is Will Ogilvy, a childhood friend. He’s about to take his priestly vows with my nephew John.”

At that Simon relaxed, but not completely. They made small talk for a few moments and then Simon led me onto the dance floor, holding me, if anything, even tighter than Will had. As we did I thought, Unlike Anne, I could love a man with a weakness, so long as it was the right one.