‘Yes. He’s a pest. I didn’t know his hope was public knowledge, though. Who told you?’

‘He did.’

At the stunned expression on Ella’s face, May giggled. ‘Alicky and I spent some of the afternoon with him down on the beach, where, incidentally, I saw Vicky walking with Louis of Battenberg.’

The fact that, after her conversation with their grandmother, her sister had immediately sought out Louis interested Ella, but something else interested her even more.

‘Why on earth were you with Cousin Willy? He’s such a bore – people go to great lengths to avoid him, they don’t seek him out. Once, at Balmoral, when Papa saw Willy approaching him down a corridor, he opened the first door he saw and darted into what he thought was a room. Only it wasn’t a room, it was a cupboard. Even though no one saw him hide, Papa says he felt an awful fool.’

Amused at the thought of the Grand Duke of Hesse’s embarrassment, May said, ‘I think the family have got Cousin Willy quite wrong. He was niceness itself to Alicky and me.’

‘That’s because you’re twelve and Alicky is seven, and he obviously didn’t feel he had to impress you. Papa says Willy’s bad manners and bullying are a way of covering up a secret lack of self-confidence.’

‘Because of his deformed arm and hand?’

‘I expect so. It’s a ghastly handicap. Do you know he needs someone to cut his food up for him? How did his desire to marry me one day come up in conversation? What was he saying about me?’

‘He hadn’t been saying anything. He’d been telling us about the nightmarish time when he was little and all sorts of hideous things were done to him, in the hope of making his arm grow properly. And suddenly he saw Vicky at the far end of the beach, walking with Louis – only at first he thought it was you with Louis. His mood changed so immediately when I told him it wasn’t you; and when I asked him why, he told me.’

Ella swung her legs from the bed. ‘Even if I fancied Willy – which I don’t − Papa would never in a million years give his permission. It was Prussian warmongering that forced our family’s grand duchy into the newly formed German empire, and it’s something Papa will never forgive. He would rather see me married to a Turk than married to a prince of Prussia. I fancy a biscuit. Do you want one? Granny always has some Garibaldis tucked away in a dresser drawer.’