‘How wonderfully kind of him.’

Vicky remembered Adam Priestley from tennis parties and occasional dances they had both attended. Like his father he was a typical Yorkshire man, tall, broad, big-boned and, which was not so typical, with a distinctive thatch of red curly hair. He was also, she now knew, kind.

On 5 July a telegram came informing them that Zelda had given birth to a boy at Schloss Niedernhall. ‘They’ve named him Claus Heinrich,’ her father said. ‘What Zelda’s father is going to think about a grandson with such a Prussian name, I can’t imagine.’

‘When the baby begins to talk, will he only talk in German, Great-Uncle Arthur?’ Paul asked, worry in his voice.

‘Of course not.’ Vicky’s father laughed at the very idea. ‘He’s your little half-brother and he’s half-American. He’ll grow up speaking German and English, just as you are beginning to do.’

Paul looked vastly relieved. Vicky, well aware of what Zelda’s intentions were for her second son, kept prudently silent.

The next few weeks were deeply restorative for Vicky. Though she missed Berthold and felt guilty whenever she thought of how lonely he must be without her, she knew that the respite she was taking from Berlin was utterly necessary to her.

The weather was hot, though not with the stifling oppressive heat she had become accustomed to in Berlin. In Yorkshire there was nearly always a light breeze and, when there wasn’t, there was always the river bank to escape to. While Paul scrambled in the rocky shallows, ceaselessly building dams and re-routing the flow of water where possible, she would sit in the shade of a tree, Max kicking chubby legs on a blanket beside her. Sometimes she would take her shoes and stockings off, hitch her skirts up and, like Paul, would wade into the deliciously icy, crystal-clear water, enjoying the sight of dragonflies and damselflies as they darted across the river’s glittering surface.

There were birds too. Yellow wagtails and dippers and, most beautiful of all, kingfishers. Water voles were a regular sight, and on one very special day they even caught sight of an otter.

Some mornings before they set off for the river Paul would go into Shuttleworth Hall’s kitchen and help the cook bake Yorkshire teacakes and curd tarts. Other times, especially if it was market day, he would accompany Josephine into Little Ridding. Vicky’s father even took him into Bradford and gave him a personal tour of the mill.

‘It was very frightening, Aunt Vicky,’ he said to her the next day. ‘The machines were so big and so noisy they were like huge monsters and you had to shout at the top of your voice to be heard. If Great-Uncle Arthur suggests taking me again, could you please tell him I don’t want to go?’

In the evenings, in the hour between suppertime and bedtime, he worked on a scrapbook. ‘It’s going to be for pictures of the new king,’ he said. ‘I’m doing it for Max to look at when he’s older, because he’s too little to know he has a new king now.’