‘You look extraordinarily tired, pet lamb,’ her mother said, when May returned home to White Lodge. ‘I really don’t think it does you any good seeing so much of Maudie. However, Papa has exciting news for you. It’s so exciting that I think you should sit down and take a couple of deep breaths before he joins us and tells you it.’

May was in no mood for news, exciting or otherwise. Accepting that Eddy was in love with Hélène had been one thing. Hearing the intensity in his voice when he’d said he’d walk barefoot to the ends of the earth to marry her had been quite another, and all she wanted was to go to her room and get her feelings under control in private.

Removing her hat and taking off her gloves, she sat down at the large table around which so many family discussions had taken place – not least the discussion as to where, on the continent, they should move to, in order to fulfil the Queen’s request that they live more cheaply. Although they hadn’t realized it at the time, Florence had ended up being the happiest decision that, as a family, they had ever taken. She closed her eyes, overcome by the longing to be back there, living a carefree life within sight of the Arno once again at the golden-walled Villa I Cedri.

‘There you are!’ Her father erupted into the room as if he had been out scouring the country for her for hours. ‘And you are already sitting down? Good. Good.’ He seated himself opposite her, far more flushed in the face than was usual. ‘I have here,’ and he took a letter bearing a royal crest that May was unfamiliar with from his waistcoat pocket, ‘a formal request for your hand in marriage. Now, what do you think of that, May? Isn’t that a turn-up for the books?’

It certainly was. The blood drummed in May’s ears. Who on earth was it who had asked for her hand in marriage? No one she could remember meeting had made any kind of overture towards her – and, intriguingly, the crest had most definitely been foreign.

‘Who is it who wants to marry me, Papa?’ She was filled with such hope she could hardly get the words past her lips, for it had to be someone uncaring of the fact that she had no dowry, and who was indifferent to her semi-royal status.

‘It is someone who will most certainly have your Aunt Queen’s approval and who, because of his nationality, has my approval also.’

‘Yes, Papa. But please. A name.’

The Duke of Teck smoothed his hand across the heavy cream-coloured paper of the impressively crested letter. ‘He is a German prince, May. Ernst Gunther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.’

She stared at him blankly. Among all the vast ramifications of European royalty, it was a name totally unknown to her.