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yours.”
    I turn at the door of the mews to look him in the eye. Perhaps George is right. Perhaps my incontinent speech will get me into trouble one day. Just not today.
    “I had thought you more perceptive than to take me seriously,” I say. “But then, the game of courtly love always catches the witless unawares.”
    Wyatt throws back his head and laughs, a great burbling roar that draws the attention of the courtiers clustered against the walls.
    His breath tickles the hair that has escaped my hood at the temple as he leans ever closer.
    “I always take such offers seriously.”
    “Well, you can sing for it, Thomas Wyatt.” I’m tired of his drivel and innuendos. “I saw what happened to my sister when she was my age. She succumbed to King François and the other golden boys of the French court. To their sweet words, their grins and dimples. They laughed at her behind her back. They talked about her like she was chattel. A mare to be ridden and passed on. She was forcibly removed from France by my father and married in shame.”
    “She came to our court and enchanted our king.”
    That is unlikely to happen twice in one family.
    “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
    “And you know nothing.”
    I square up and itch to strike the look of amusement off his face.
    “For your information, I can speak French better than anyone in this court. I know Latin and some Greek. I have read the works of Erasmus and the poetry of Clément Marot. I’ve met Leonardo da Vinci!”
    My words tumble over one another and I sound breathless. I pause to collect myself.
    “But you don’t know anything about how to get along in the English court.”
    “I know perfectly well how to get along in this court.”
    “So you choose to be segregated. A pariah. The one person in the room with whom no one will speak or even make eye contact.”
    No, I didn’t. It was chosen for me. By the court. By my clothes. By my tongue. The pain of having this pointed out to me by a stranger settles hard into my chest. Maybe life would be easier if I just fit in.
    “A loss for words.” He smiles. “I’m sure that doesn’t happen very often.”
    “Why are you speaking to me?”
    “Because I want to help you.”
    I gaze at Thomas Wyatt without reaction, the courtier’s smile on my lips but not reaching my eyes. I can’t trust him—a man for whom words are playthings and women little better.
    “And what do you get out of this?” I ask. “You offer your assistance, but it’s nothing that will line your pockets.”
    “Perhaps I only wish to promote the advancement of a former neighbor.”
    Even I can see that Thomas Wyatt would run down his neighbor with a rabid horse without a second thought. I make a noise halfway between disbelief and laughter.
    “Would you believe I seek to further my own reputation?”
    I am instantly wary.
    “And tarnish mine.”
    “But yours is already tarnished, Anne. Perhaps it needs a little poetic shine.”
    “What do you know about it?”
    “I heard a rumor about the Shrovetide pageant last year.”
    I hesitate. He wasn’t there. Yet the gossip chases me.
    “Oh?” I affect nonchalance. “What do you hear?”
    “That you had too much to drink. That you stumbled out of the Château Vert and threw yourself at the king.”
    “I danced with him.” Or tried to.
    “But he didn’t dance with you . It embarrassed your entire family. Humiliated your sister.”
    My sister wasn’t the only one humiliated. A sharp jab of guilt in the back of my throat prevents me from swallowing. No matter what I do, no matter what my intention, I’m always hurting Mary, who least deserves it.
    Wyatt doesn’t know what it was like. The candles. The richness. The wine.
    The king. The king was dressed in gold and crimson, like a god, with the emblem “Amorous” embroidered across his chest. We were masked. I was new at court, and everything seemed possible. For a single, glittering instant, I dreamed he could be