Now, for the first time, it occurred to Vicky that Zelda might have had a part to play in their detour to Berlin.

Zelda glanced down at the diamond-encrusted watch on her wrist. ‘Be an angel, Vicky, and say goodnight to Paul for me, would you? I haven’t decided what gown to wear and Germans are so obsessive about time I daren’t run the risk of being late—not if I want to be considered daughter-in-law material.’

Already dressed for dinner in a powder-blue silk gown that skimmed her satin evening shoes and fell into a small train, Vicky turned away from the window. ‘Yes,’ she said agreeably, not understanding how Zelda could delegate such a precious ritual. ‘Of course I will.’

As she left the room she reminded herself of how modest her own lifestyle was in comparison to Zelda’s. Their late mothers, Georgiana and Christina Harland, had been sisters, but whereas her mother had lived all her life in the peaceful serenity of the Yorkshire Dales, Zelda’s mother, Christina, had gone to New York, married a merchant banker and lived a life of ostentatious luxury.

Zelda had never lived in anything other than a vast Fifth Avenue mansion and she was accustomed to Paul occupying his own nursery suite and being in the care of not only his nanny, but a shoal of nursery maids. She certainly wasn’t accustomed to his travelling with her. That he was doing so now was to please Vicky and her uncle.

The corridor that led towards the suite of rooms allocated to Paul and his nanny was walled and floored in dark red marble. Zelda thought it pleasingly grandiose. Vicky thought it oppressive and ugly. As she circumvented a life-size statue of Hercules she wondered if the other mansions on the Unter den Linden were equally overwhelming and gloomy.

Entering the nursery and seeing Paul seated in the centre of a vast high bed, his face rosy from his recent bath, his dark hair curling damply, was a welcome contrast to all the museum-like statuary.

‘Goodness, Paul,’ she said, laughter in her voice as she crossed acres of floor to reach him. ‘You remind me of the fairy story of the princess and the pea.’

He giggled. ‘Is that the story of the princess who could feel a hard lump in her bed no matter how many mattresses she slept on?’ he asked as his Scottish nanny, accustomed to Vicky’s bedtime visits, left them on their own.

‘It is.’ Vicky hitched up her evening gown and clambered onto the bed beside him. ‘And because she was able to do so the handsome prince, who was looking for a wife, decided she must be a very special princess, a really royal princess, and that she was the princess he would marry.’

‘Tell me it again, Aunt Vicky.’ He cuddled up against her, smelling of soap and shampoo. ‘Tell me it from the beginning.’

‘Once upon a time…’ she began, putting her arm lovingly around him, wondering for the first time if, like Zelda, she too should be thinking of looking for a husband. It would be nice to have children of her own—in fact, she couldn’t think of anything nicer. The trouble was she’d never met anyone she could even begin to imagine living with for the rest of her life. All the eligible young men she had met so far had been the hale and hearty sons of Yorkshire mill-owners, their only interests the wool industry and the brass to be made from it.