were more important matters to attend to.
I went to my chamber and started to pack my travelling bag, one case only, for I needed to travel quick and light. That was why I did not see her when first she came; I was too preoccupied in choosing between two pairs of gloves, which to take, which to leave behind. It was such a quandary.
She slid into the room like a snake, silent, a darker shadow against the darkness of the day. It was only when I turned to throw Robert’s letters on the fire, to remove all trace of our plan that the flames leaped up and it was their flare of light that illuminated my sister Anna’s figure against the white wall.
I jumped and spun around.
‘What are you doing here?’
My greeting was not fond, but I was astonished to see her. After our mother’s death I had, to my shame, neglected Anna badly. Whilst my brothers had benefited from Robert’s influence, Antony, Anna and their papist household had been left to make shift as best they could. Sometimes I had imagined Anna in her new manor house in the country, the house that Antony had rebuilt in the ruins of Sawston Hall. I tried not to think of it, though, because Robert’s violence on that night when he had been thwarted in his capture of Queen Mary still sickened me. It was far easier to try to forget it and to pretend that Antony and Anna did not exist.
‘Amy.’ Anna came forward into the light. She looked old, worn, a ghost of our mother, or perhaps a diminished version of me. I had always been the prettier. I felt a sense of irritation. I could not see her now. I had too much to do.
‘Anna,’ I said. I tried to erase the annoyance from my voice. ‘You should have written—’
‘I wanted to see you.’
She came close to me, reached for my hands. Her faded blue eyes searched my face. I tried not to shrink from her. There was something at the same time vacant and intense in her expression that scared me.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ I said, all the while thinking how ill-timed this was and how I might be rid of her. ‘But—’
‘It’s about Robert,’ she said.
This was sufficiently surprising that it silenced me. I stared at her, baffled, wondering if she was mad. Her jaw was set and there was a determined glint in her eye now, and as I watched her hand slid down protectively over her belly in a gesture that made me feel a lurch of fear and sickness. For one mad moment I thought that surely, surely Robert had not got her with child. The thought that my husband might have given my sister the child that he and I could not have repelled me utterly, more than any thought of him as the Queen’s lover. Yet even as the suspicion started to form in my mind, I knew that it was false. Robert had not been faithful to me over the years but he would never have looked twice at Anna. There was something else here, something more sinister and dangerous than a mere affair.
The church clock, striking the hour, reminded me that I had no time to waste on Anna, no matter her grievance. Richard Varney would be here soon and I must vanish in the same moment. Any delay might spell disaster to my plan. Mrs Owen, deaf as a post and indifferent to everything about her, was no threat, but Mrs Odingsells was also downstairs and her sharp nose would twitch at any sign of trouble. I could only hope that Anna, like Richard, had entered by the back stair without being seen.
‘I can’t talk now,’ I said. I gestured towards the trunk. ‘I am going on a journey.’
It was as though she had not heard me. She sat down on the end of the bed. Her legs were so short that they did not touch the ground and she swung them back and forth like a child.
‘I never told you that I met Robert at Sawston,’ she said. ‘Do you remember that year? The year King Edward died and your husband tried to put the traitor Jane Grey on the throne?’ That myopic blue stare pinned me to the spot. ‘Antony gave Queen Mary shelter and for that Robert burned Sawston to the ground.’
My throat was suddenly dry. ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘I’m