“You deliver a note from me to a girl I cannot have and I’ll deliver a note to you from a man you cannot have.”

“You have a note to me from Will?”

He nodded.

“Then what do you mean, ‘a man I cannot have’?” I asked. My father would be thrilled if something could be arranged with Earl Ogilvy. He’d pay a huge dowry if need be.

“Oh, nothing.” Thomas turned quiet.

“All right,” I begrudgingly agreed, tucking Thomas’s letter away. He pulled me close and danced a little jig right there in the ripe stable and I grinned along with him. Keep his spirits up indeed.

“You’re my dearest sister, Meg.” He kissed my cheek lightly. “The most affectionate. The kindest heart. Truly beautiful.” And he meant it. For a woman who is often a highborn companion rather than the center of the swirl, the setting rather than the stone, this compliment was not held lightly. He knew it and used it to his advantage.

Our father called to us from the edge of his expensive new portico and we went to join him and our guests in the drawing room.

Mistress Cobham sat in a corner, demurely playing the virginals, looking for all the world like an angelic being, though, I thought to myself, an angel who dwelled in which realm I could not say. Her brother George, the future Baron Cobham, sat nearby and drank spirits. Where he got them I knew not, as most houses did not keep them. As the fathers withdrew from the room young Sir George patted the seat next to him proprietarily.

“Have a seat, Mistress Wyatt.” He tried to keep his voice inviting but it sounded of a man speaking to his dogs. Nonetheless, trained well, I did as I was told.

“I hear you’ve been at court with your sister, Alice.”

“Yes, though I can hardly call it at court. I stayed at her manor house in the city and attended to her children whilst she attended to the queen. Nevertheless, we did get to spend some days together and for that I am grateful.”

“Did you like court?”

“I did,” I said. “I much prefer it to…. country life. Which one might equate with a slow death.”

He snorted. “I will agree with you there. Country life holds impossible challenges, the largest of which is the management of the animals, and by that, I do not mean the beasts of the field. I mean the hands hired to tend them but who rather spend their days drinking ale at my expense. If they poorly manage the field and the barns I have no recourse but to reprimand them. For if they cannot be held to account for that which is given them to steward, why, then, who is to blame?”

Used to reasoning with my brother Thomas and with Will, I answered with the first thing that came to mind. “The same might be said of those who steward the field hands themselves, is that not so?”

He slowly drained his glass of its amber liquid and quietly set it down. “Good day, Mistress Wyatt,” he said, and then he stood, curtly bowed, and left the room. I remained seated till his sister finished her ethereal song.

I didn’t have to wait long to have the echo from my observation return to me in full force. My father called me into his library shortly after a stiff and uneasy dinner with our guests. Edmund was already there, smirking in the background. Thomas idled by the window out of habit, well out of arm’s reach of my father.

I knew Father would not scar my face days before the celebration of Mary Boleyn’s wedding because the king was rumored to be coming. It’s not that hitting your child, or your wife, was unacceptable. It was only unacceptable to leave marks to prove that it had happened because it would cause discomfort to those who must look upon them.

“My Lord Cobham tells me that you have many opinions on matters which concern you not at all and are not shy about sharing them with your betters.”

“Father, I…. I was trying to have a conversation with him. That’s all.”

“Lord Cobham took it as a rebuke, and, as such, says he has no desire to marry a woman who may scold him for the rest of his years.”

I sat down in the chair next to me afore my knees buckled. “I, marry Lord Cobham?”

“Not any longer,” my father said, his rage barely contained, the skin on his face taut and red like an infected boil.

“Perhaps a scold deserves a scold’s punishment,” Edmund offered. I turned around and glared at him, not bothering to conceal the hatred in my eyes. A woman accused of being a scold would be tied to a clucking chair and publicly dunked in a nearby river, soaking her in humiliation to the general amusement of all who came to watch.

My father barked out a laugh. “Mayhap I should. But….” He came near my chair and towered over me. “You will marry whom I choose. You will be kind and quiet and submissive to the next man I bring to you. You will win him with your gentleness and you will prove your good breeding.”

“And if not?” I dared whisper.

“Then you will get you, immediately, to the furthest abbey I can find. And not an abbey of high standing, either, for I’ll not pay a dowry to the Lord when I’ve already paid your keep these many years. You’ll work out your short years in poverty and dirt so far away that it won’t matter what you say to whom. Do you understand?”

I nodded. He wouldn’t tie me to a clucking chair for the shame it would bring upon him, but he would keep his word and send me to a vermin-ridden abbey, that much I knew. “Yes, sir,” I said demurely, and I meant it this time. I was dismissed, and on my way back to my room I prayed, fervently, that I might speak to Will at Hever Castle and that his father would be in attendance to speak with mine.

The next day, as there were no stable boys in sight, my brother Thomas held my stirrup for me as I got on. Then he held the brood mare for our manservant so he could accompany me. No lady should travel alone, no matter how light the initial path, nor how dark it later grew.

“I expect my letter when I return home,” I said. “Or I’ll tell your intended about this innocent poem.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Thomas looked at me, shocked, and then relaxed when he saw my smile.

“Don’t test me,” I teased. Then I pressed my heels into my mount and we headed toward Hever Castle.

When I arrived, the castle was already in an uproar. They’d just been told to expect the king at the next day’s celebration and Sir Thomas, Anne’s father, was unsure if the entertainment, the wine, or the food was of high enough quality. Lady Boleyn supervised the servants, one of whom let me in. I went upstairs to the girls’ annex and found Anne with her hands on Mary’s shoulders as Mary wept. Anne caught my eye in the mirror to let me know she’d be with me shortly and I withdrew to her chamber to wait.

Momentarily, she joined me. “Meg! I’m so glad to see you.”

“Is Mary all right?” I asked.

She nodded. “You know Mary—always emotional, and on this day, when anyone would be emotional, she’s more like overwrought. She didn’t want to marry Sir William, though he’s a nice enough man. She’d fallen in love with a man in France, at Francis’s court, and won’t put him out of her mind. She just asked me how he fared. I told her he was to be married.”

“Oh dear,” I said, my heart tender for Mary. “It’s an awful thing to face a lifetime of being married to a man you don’t want. But she can’t chase a man she can’t have,” I pointed out. “It could be worse. At least Carey is handsome.” I paused. “Is Will coming this night?”

Anne grinned. “Yes, I’ve not heard otherwise. I’m glad for you.” She reached out, took my hand, and squeezed it as old friends do. But there was something more substantive, raised higher, a certain je ne sais quoi about her. She seemed sophisticated, and, well, French.

“I’d best get back to assisting Mary,” she said. “We’ll have a full week to talk and enjoy one another afore I must return to France to serve the good Queen Claude.”

I hugged her quickly and pulled away. “I’m eager to hear all of your news.”

“And there is news…,” she added tantalizingly.

“There’s always news with you,” I said, grinning. “Oh—I almost forgot. From Thomas.” I pulled the scroll out of the sleeve I’d used to smuggle it in.

“Oh, Meg, he’s still sending poems.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve told him he must let you go.”

“And so he must. He’s a dear friend to me…. but naught else.”

“I know,” I said. “Dance with him once at Mary’s wedding feast and then tell him he must move on.”

I took my leave and rode back home quickly with my manservant to beat the darkness. Once home I handed my wraps to my maid, Edithe, and then went upstairs to check on my mother.

Her chamber was darkened, as it almost always was these days. I’d spent a good amount of time with my sister, Alice, in the past year or two, staying at her household for months at a time and then returning to Allington to help my mother manage the household and her affairs, which I didn’t mind at all, for her sake. But she’d purposefully placed more and more of the daily concerns into the hands of her trusted lady servant, who had been with my mother since she was a child.

I didn’t know if it was her pain or her mood that made her desire the darkness. “Shall I open your tapestries a bit to let in the last light of the day, my lady?” I asked softly as I came into the room. She nodded weakly and I pulled them back. The effort released dust, and the motes floated to the ground in a gentle downward drift, symbolic of my mother’s state of being. It was clear she was not going to make it to dine this evening.

“Tomorrow is Mary Boleyn’s wedding celebration.” The ceremony itself had been some months past but Sir Thomas wanted to show off his fine gardens while they were in bloom. I sat on the edge of her bed and stroked the hair by her temple. I waved to her lady servant, dismissing her to rest for a time. “And the king is coming!”