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a wonderful choice, for your skin and your hair.”
    “What a beautiful queen,” the duchess remarks resolutely. “You will wear this gown when you arrive at court, and are presented as queen.”
    “And perhaps for her coronation?”
    “No, a new gown will be made for the coronation—white and silver, perhaps, or purple and silver. Something grander, more regal, with a longer train.” The duchess turns back to me, studying my reflection in the glass. I lift my hand to touch the jewels at my neck again, but she smacks it away.
    “Don’t fidget, Catherine. You must be poised, serene.”
    I stand still. She stares at me.
    “You burn through the room, think of that. You are like a trail of fire in this gown, burning through the room. You must hold yourself properly, holding your head high like a lighted torch.” Her eyes pierce mine. “Walk for me.”
    I turn and walk around the chamber, practicing how to hold my head, how to move gracefully, the gown sparkling around me. But my mind is full of the other words the duchess shared with me, in private: Burn your past, burn your life . . . And here I am, walking the length of the royal apartments—my apartments—dressed like a flame.
    “Lift your chin, Catherine. Now try a small smile—nothing too garish.”
    Now that I am to be put on display as the king’s new bride, there are so many things about myself, my past, and my fears that I must conceal. All weakness must be hidden far beneath the surface, and the surface must be tailored to fit the demands of the moment. I will be tailored, time and again, like a gown of satin or velvet or silk.
    “That’s enough,” the duchess pronounces. “You must bathe tonight, Catherine, and then get to sleep. We’ll not have you looking weary on your wedding day.”
    I submit to their aggressive attentions as they unlace me from the delicate gown and strip me of my silk underclothes. Naked, I move closer to the fire for warmth. The duchess considers me for a moment, as if to calculate how pleased Henry will be with the body of his new bride. I lift my arms across my chest and lower my head, discomfited at the sight of my own bare legs, the minnow-shaped birthmark on my upper thigh. I worry that my secrets can be seen, a confession written in fingerprints upon my flesh.
    “In you go.” The duchess urges me into the tub as Lady Rochford pours in more water from the kettle warmed in the hearth.
    “It’s hot.”
    “It has to be hot.” Lady Rochford attacks my hair with soap and brush while the duchess inspects my fingernails. Once they are done, I am dressed in a silk nightgown, and my hair is carefully combed.
    “Jane will stay here with you,” the duchess tells me as I pull up the covers. “She will be readying for bed shortly. Now you must sleep.”
    “Yes, Duchess.”
    When I’m sure they are gone, I slip out from the covers. I open my oak chest and pull out the small wooden jewelry box. Jane was satisfied with the papers she watched me burn those nights ago at Lambeth, but she does not know what I know. The false bottom of the box conceals yet more letters and trinkets beneath—even more precious than those already fed to the flames. Still I know that Jane is right, I cannot keep them. Every night I intended to do away with them as soon as I had a moment alone, but I’ve been too exhausted to contemplate the endeavor. In weary moments I have entertained the notion of saving a letter or two . . . but no, it is too dangerous. And I had best take care of it now. I pull the letters from the box and sit upon the floor, before the fire.
    I was so young then, so young and so foolish. I shake my head over some old pages of music written for me in the flowing script of Henry Manox. The duchess appointed Manox as my music tutor, to teach me the lute and the virginals during my second summer at her residence in Horsham. I can laugh at these relics now: a page of composition, a scrawled letter requesting a private meeting in