The king was seated before the fire, wrapped in a warm robe of velvet trimmed with fur. As he heard the door open he leaped to his feet.

      I dropped into a deep curtsey. ‘You sent for me, Majesty.’

      He could not take his eyes from my face. ‘I did. And I thank you for coming. I wanted to see … I wanted to talk … I wanted to take a little …’ He broke off finally. ‘I wanted you.’

      I stepped a little closer. He would smell Anne’s perfume from that distance, I thought. I tossed my head and felt the weight of my hair shift. I saw his eyes go from my face to my hair and back again. Behind me, I heard the door closing as George went out without a word. Henry did not even see him go.

      ‘I am honoured, Your Majesty,’ I murmured.

      He shook his head, not in impatience, but as the gesture of a man who cannot waste time on play. ‘I want you,’ he said again, flatly, as if that were all that a woman would need to know. ‘I want you, Mary Boleyn.’

      I took a small step closer to him. I leaned towards him. I felt the warmth of his breath and then the touch of his lips on my hair. I did not move forward or back.

      ‘Mary,’ he whispered and his voice was choked with his desire.

      ‘Your Majesty?’

      ‘Please call me Henry. I want to hear my name on your lips.’

      ‘Henry.’

      ‘D’you want me?’ he whispered. ‘I mean as a man? If I were a farmer on your father’s estate, would you want me then?’ He put his hand under my chin to lift up my face so that he could look into my eyes. I met his bright blue gaze. Carefully, delicately I put my hand to his face and felt the softness of his curling beard under my palm. At once he closed his eyes at my touch and then turned his face and kissed my hand where it cupped his chin.

      ‘Yes,’ I said, caring not at all that it was nonsense. I could not imagine this man as anything but King of England. He could no more deny being king than I could deny being a Howard. ‘If you were a nobody and I were a nobody I would love you,’ I whispered. ‘If you were a farmer with a field of hops I would love you. If I were a girl who came to pick the hops would you love me?’

      He drew me closer to him, his hands warm on my stomacher. ‘I would,’ he promised. ‘I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love.’

      His head came down and he kissed me gently at first and then harder, the touch of his lips very warm. Then he led me by the hand towards the canopied bed and lay me down on it and buried his face in the swell of my breasts where they showed above the stomacher that Anne had helpfully loosened for him.

      At dawn I raised myself on my elbow and looked out of the leaded panes of the window to where the sky was growing pale and I knew that Anne would be watching for the sun too. Anne would be watching the light slowly filling the sky and knowing that her sister was the king’s mistress and the most important woman in England, second only to the queen. I wondered what she made of that as she sat in the windowseat and listened to the first birds tentatively sounding out their notes. I wondered how she felt, knowing that I was the one the king had chosen, the one who was carrying the ambitions of the family. Knowing that it was me and not her in his bed.

      In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall.

      The king stirred. ‘Are you awake?’ he asked from half-under the covers.

      ‘Yes,’ I said, instantly alert. I wondered if I should offer to leave, but then he emerged head first from the tangle of bedding and his face was smiling.

      ‘Good morrow, sweetheart,’ he said to me. ‘Are you well this morning?’

      I found I was beaming back at him, reflecting his joy. ‘I’m very well.’

      ‘Merry in your heart?’

      ‘Happier than I have ever been in my life before.’

      ‘Then come to me,’ he said, opening his arms, and I slid down the sheets and into the warm musky-scented embrace, his strong thighs pressing against me, his arms cradling my shoulders, his face burrowing into my neck.

      ‘Oh Henry,’ I said foolishly. ‘Oh, my love.’

      ‘Oh I know,’ he said engagingly. ‘Come a little closer.’

      I did not leave him till the sun was fully up and then I was in a hurry to be back in my room before the servants were about.

      Henry himself helped me into my gown, tied the laces at the back of my stomacher, put his own cloak around my shoulders against the chill of the morning. When he opened the door my brother George was lounging in the windowseat. When he saw the king, he rose to his feet and bowed, cap in hand, and when he saw me behind the king he gave me a sweet smile.

      ‘See Mistress Carey back to her room,’ the king said. ‘And then send the groom of the bedchamber in, would you, George? I want to be up early this morning.’

      George bowed again and offered me his arm.

      ‘And come with me to hear Mass,’ the king said at the door. ‘You can come with me to my private chapel today, George.’

      ‘I thank you.’ George accepted with nonchalant grace the greatest honour that any courtier could receive. The door to the privy chamber closed as I curtsied and then we went quickly through the audience chamber and through the great hall.

      We were too late to avoid the lowest of the servants, the lads employed to keep the fires burning were dragging great logs into the hall. Other boys were sweeping the floor, and the men at arms who had slept where they had dined were opening their eyes and yawning and cursing the strength of the wine.

      I put the hood of the king’s cloak up over my dishevelled hair and we went quickly and quietly through the great hall and up the staircase to the queen’s apartments.

      Anne opened the door at George’s knock and drew us in. She was white-faced with lack of sleep, her eyes red. I took in the delicious sight of my sister on the rack of jealousy.

      ‘Well?’ she asked sharply.

      I glanced at the smooth counterpane on the bed. ‘You didn’t sleep.’

      ‘I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘And I hope you slept but little.’

      I turned away from her bawdiness.

      ‘Come now,’ George said to me. ‘We only want to know that all is well with you, Mary. And Father will have to know and Mother and Uncle Howard. You’d better get used to talking about it. It’s not a private matter.’

      ‘It’s the most private matter in the world.’

      ‘Not for you,’ Anne said coldly. ‘So stop looking like a milkmaid in springtime. Did he have you?’

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