First of the Tudors. Joanna Hickson

Lady Welles confides that her daughter has flowered – a rather coy euphemism I think – but it does imply that both nature and the law deem her ready for deflowering.’ He turned to face me then, delighted with his own coarse wit.

      I swallowed an explosion of wrath and fought to keep my voice steady. ‘She is not though, Edmund, is she? And you know it. You only have to look at her. She is still a child. Where are the breasts? Where are the womanly curves? And apart from anything else, whatever the Church’s rule on canonical age, conception would endanger Margaret’s life and that of the child.’