Something else seemed even odder, for if Sergei was a brother of Uncle Sasha, who had inherited the Russian throne two years ago after his father’s assassination, then he was the brother of her Aunt Marie. And that Ella was contemplating marriage to someone she had grown up referring to as ‘uncle’ was, to say the very least, bizarre. Not letting her thoughts show, she asked, ‘And has Sergei asked you to marry him?’

Ella shot her a happy smile. ‘No, but I know he’s going to soon.’

May had never before been so aware of the age difference between them. At sixteen, she hadn’t as yet officially ‘come out’, but Ella, only two years older, had twice been offered the opportunity to one day be both a queen and an empress, for if she hadn’t rejected Willy, she would one day have been the German Empress and Queen Consort of Prussia; and if she hadn’t rejected Eddy, she would one day have been the Queen Consort of England and Empress Consort of India. And now, almost unbelievably, she was looking forward to receiving a third proposal of marriage – one that this time she intended accepting.

Aware that her own chances of receiving even one proposal were so slight as to be not worth thinking about, May returned her thoughts to Eddy. With Ella unshakeable about not marrying him, had Aunt Queen already got another prospective bride in mind? And if so, who? And where was Eddy? Was he still at Windsor, or had he already left? The last time she had seen him had been four years ago, for immediately after the family party at Osborne he and Georgie had left the country aboard a Royal Navy ship.

‘And as naval cadets, they are going to be away for three years,’ her mother had said at the time. ‘Aunt Alix is distraught about such a long separation from her darling boys, but Bertie is adamant. He believes that living under strict naval discipline will be to Eddy and Georgie’s advantage, although never having lived under it himself, I fail to see how he can possibly know.’

Bertie was Uncle Wales and, as Eddy and Georgie’s father, his word had been law. Almost immediately after the boys’ return – and without it becoming known whether the hopes of the voyage had been achieved – they had been sent to Lausanne for six months in order to improve their French.

When they had returned a month ago, only Eddy had remained in England, for it had been decided that the Navy was to be Georgie’s career. ‘And he’s now aboard a ship called a corvette, heading for the West Indies,’ her mother had said, on returning from afternoon tea at Marlborough House. ‘Poor dear Alix is prostrate.’

Not wanting to betray her interest in Eddy to her mother, May hadn’t asked where Eddy was, or what it was that he was doing.