‘Why did no one tell me?’ Ducky demanded time and again, on the verge of hysteria. ‘You must have known, Alicky! Why didn’t you tell me Ernie is only interested in men? Why did you leave it for me to find out on my wedding night? And now I’ve found out, it seems that everyone else in the family knows of Ernie’s preference for Hussar officers, valets and stable-boys – and yet no one, no one, thought it important enough to tell me!’

‘You did return from your honeymoon pregnant,’ Alicky had pointed out, trying to get Ducky to look on the bright side of things.

Ducky’s dark eyes had flashed fire. ‘Oh yes, that major miracle occurred! But only because Ernie becoming a father and having a son to inherit Hesse and by Rhine after him was the only reason he married me. And if he could have come to bed fully dressed and with gloves on to do the deed, he would have.’

In October, Alicky received an urgent telegram from Nicky: Papa ill. We are at Livadia, in the Crimea. I need you, darling. Please come.

If she could have flown there in an instant, she would have. As it was, and with the telegram still in her hand, she ran to her bedroom, calling out for her lady-in-waiting and for maids. She needed to pack. She had to leave at once, if she was to give the love of her life the support he so badly needed.

She travelled by train as far as Warsaw with her lady-in-waiting and with Vicky, who had been on a sisterly visit to Darmstadt. At Warsaw, Ella, who had travelled from the Crimea to meet them, took over as Alicky’s escort, bringing with her no good news.

‘Uncle Sasha is desperately ill,’ she said as they settled into a compartment aboard the train that would take them to Simferopol, where they would be met by Nicky. ‘He has nephritis. His kidneys are on the point of failing completely.’

‘And when they do?’ Alicky’s heart was in her mouth.

‘Then he will die – and the doctors say it is only going to be days before he does so.’

The blood fled from Alicky’s face. How could Nicky’s father die now, when Nicky had not anticipated succeeding him for many years? What would happen to the future that she and Nicky had been so eagerly looking forward to? How could a life of quiet domesticity be lived, once they became Tsar and Tsarina? The answer, of course, was that it couldn’t.