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Sex was his weapon. Joan Larke is everything a Tudor virgin should be; she has beauty, innocence and piety. But her ambitious brother throws all this away without a moment’s hesitation when the up-and-coming Tom Wolsey casts his lustful eyes on her. Being little more than a mere chattel to the men who should protect her, Joan is thrust into the intrigues of the salacious Tudor court, where virtue has no value and ambition is the order of the day. Her lover, Wolsey, knows how many secrets are passed in the bedchamber, and shamelessly enlists any woman who comes within his influence as his spy. He turns each one, under duress, into an informer who brings him information from her pillow talk with the movers and shakers of the early 16th century. But he needs love, too, and he keeps Joan to himself—for a time. When Joan finds that she is no longer wanted and in peril of spending the rest of her life in a convent, she turns to Lady Anne Boleyn, who is rapidly supplanting Queen Catherine in Henry’s affections. But treachery is a double-edged sword, and the betrayer often becomes the betrayed in the shadowy world of Tudor court intrigue. Although many before her have ended up disappearing or going under the headsman's axe because their usefulness was over, Joan hoards secrets she can trade, for her life is on the line as the would-be queen and the ruthless cardinal battle behind the scenes to secure the favour—and love—of their king.