That same night I retire to my chambers still thinking of the mysterious woman I had seen the King kissing as my maids undress and help me to cleanse myself of the dirt of the day.

I only have a small series of rooms but none the less they are comfortable and warm with every comfort at my disposal.

My bedchamber, the largest of the rooms, has a large fireplace by the side of the bed, all ready lit and Grace, an old maid who has taken care of me since birth helps me into my nightdress and dismisses the other servants before respectfully bowing to me and leaving herself.

I take a moment to gaze around the room before I put out the candles I admire the portrait of my Mother that lies upon the far wall.

The King had commissioned it as a special gift for my last birthday, amongst many others from him and the Queen.

It has my Mother, who is quite beautiful resembles a pale marble statue of a Greek goddess alive only with the piercing blue eyes and long dark hair that tumbles down her shoulders in loose natural curls, sitting upon a chair in a dress of fine blue silk, visibly pregnant but posed regally like a Queen but with hands placed protectively upon her lap and a faint smile playing upon her lips.

By that look alone I always knew that she had loved and adored me.

Alas, she was only two years older then I when she died bringing me into world and believing that I had killed my Mother, my own Father refused to have anything to do with me.

Apart from acknowledging me and giving me his name he had my Mother's servants raise me and I never knew or saw him.

Everyone knew this.

So, a portrait of him would have been a most inappropriate gift from anyone.

What little I did know of him was that mad with grief, he quickly took ill with the sweating sickness but recovered only to be forever unable to move from his bed and became a bitter and broken man until the day he died.

Protected from sadness by Grace and the rest of the household servants I lived a charmed existence in our country home until the day of his funeral.

The rest, if I have told it right, you all ready know.

I need say no more and go to bed.

-----

The next morning I awake to the pleasant sound of birdsong and the faint happy chattering of my maids as they go about their work in the other rooms as Grace orders them to do so.

Rising to use to the chamber pot at the foot of the bed before and retiring to bed once more lie upon my side to watch the sun rising through the window when I'm suddenly startled by a sudden tender kiss upon my back.

I freeze but offer no resistance as I feel a hand slipping between my thighs and gently easing them apart to slowly caress the virgin flesh that lay between them.

I gasp as strange yet pleasurable sensations begin to overwhelm my senses and I managed to reach a hand beneath the covers and around their wrist squeezing it hard to make them stop.

With their other free hand they turn me over and I am surprised to see the same mysterious woman id seen with the King naked in the bed beside me.

She doesn't stop her other hand and stares at me as if she wants to eat me.

I open my mouth to speak to her and she leans over me and silences me with a kiss.

Then her body glides onto mine and I feel her heart pounding against my own.

Her arms come tight round my waist and she suddenly pulls me to her to position my legs around her waist and lock them at the ankles.

Then she has me many times before we are both taken over by a very sweet exhaustion and fall asleep still connected at the waist.

-----

Later that same day the King sends a messenger who tells me I am summoned me to a private audience in his chambers where we exchange pleasantries and it is explained that there is someone he dearly wants me to meet.

A few moments later the door opens and who should enter boldly but the same woman who had surprised and seduced me in my own bedchamber.

And her name was Anne Boleyn...