“And do you believe it is?” she probed, wanting to know if this young man, already sporting a neatly clipped but light beard, still believed the words Topaz had introduced into his very young mind, that he'd once spewed off by rote.
“I shall never know if Catherine and Arthur consummated their marriage. No one will ever know. I say it would be cruel to bastardize Mary now, after thinking her parents were truly married. But once the divorce is final, it will be a moot point, will it not?” He regarded Amethyst as a student he needed to teach.
“Very clever thinking, Neddie, but the king wants a male heir. Mary doesn't seem to count,” she instructed him.
“Once he is dead, it will not matter to him. I believe a queen can reign just as effectively,” he informed her—from his intellect or from
