It was a scorching hot day and even though they had sought a patch of shade beneath a tree, both of them had their parasols open. May adjusted hers on her shoulder a little more comfortably.

‘According to Eddy, they went in to see her hand-in-hand, and he told the Queen very directly that they were devoted to each other, that they wished to marry and hoped she would help them.’

‘And all this after she had told his father that such a marriage was absolutely impossible?’

‘Yes.’

‘Goodness.’ Alicky was deeply impressed. ‘Whoever would have thought Eddy would have so much backbone? I doubt if even Granny Queen’s prime minister would have the nerve to persist in such a way, after first having received a very definite royal refusal. And so was it then that Granny Queen changed her mind about things?’

‘No. She only changed her mind about consulting the government when Hélène said she would forsake her religion and become a Protestant if, in doing so, it meant she and Eddy could marry.’

‘I thought that very extreme of her.’ Alicky could be annoyingly self-righteous at times. ‘Totally committed as I am to Nicky, I would never give up my religion for him. When Mama contacted me from beyond the grave, she asked me never to forget my confirmation vows and it is something I will never, ever do, and Nicky would never ask it of me.’

‘Eddy didn’t ask it of Hélène, but the poor girl was so desperate, it was the only thing she could think of that might enable them to marry.’

‘I still wouldn’t have done it. Being a Lutheran is far too important to me.’

Having known Alicky for so long, May knew there was no give in her at all, once she had taken a stance on something. She also knew, from Alicky’s letters to her, that since her visit to St Petersburg, when she had decided that Nicky was the love of her life, there had been no opportunity for the two of them to meet again, and that no formal question of their marrying had ever been broached. If it was broached, Alicky being Lutheran when Nicky was Russian Orthodox would – unless Alicky was willing to adopt Russian Orthodoxy – be just as much of a stumbling block to their marrying, as Hélène’s Roman Catholicism had been, when it had come to her and Eddy wanting to marry.