Paul said mildly, ‘You said you’d been laying the groundwork for this moment for years, Sergei; that if, and when, she became Empress, she would be eating out of your hand and that consequently Nicky would be, too.’

‘And I believed it – and it’s how things are going to be. I spoke without thinking and didn’t gauge the moment right. Things will be different when she realizes how inept Nicky is.’

‘They had better be!’ Veins stood out like cords on Vladimir’s bull-like neck. ‘Nicky’s as weak as water. Someone has to put some spine into him, and that someone isn’t going to be an adoring wife who will never see past his charming good looks and their bedroom door. For the sake of Russia, it has to be me, you and Alexis. We have to be the power behind the throne! Not a chit of a girl from Darmstadt.’

‘That our wedding ceremony is to take place in the chapel of the Winter Palace and not in St Isaac’s Cathedral, as it would have if my father hadn’t died,’ Nicky said as he and Alicky snatched a rare precious moment of privacy together, ‘means that although there will be a lot of the pomp and ceremony you so dislike, there won’t be quite as much as there might have been.’

He hugged her tight, as mad with desire for her as she was for him.

‘And am I to leave for the Winter Palace from Sergei and Ella’s palace on Nevsky Prospekt and accompanied by your mama?’

‘Yes, but not in your wedding gown. Being dressed in your wedding gown is a ceremony in itself and takes place in the Winter Palace’s Malachite Hall. Mama has asked me to warn you how heavy everything will be, for a cloth-of-gold mantle is worn over the gown, and a train yards and yards long will be attached to your shoulders. And then of course there is the weight of the jewels you will be wearing. Mama said that on her processional walk from the Malachite Hall to the chapel her knees buckled more than once.’

Alicky fought down rising panic. Fiercely she told herself that if she did as she had decided to do, and blocked out of her consciousness everything but Nicky and the vows they would make to each other, then the ordeal was one she could, and would, survive – and oh, how worthwhile surviving it would be.

‘Just think, dearest love,’ she whispered, close and safe in the comfort of his arms, ‘after the ceremony we will never need to spend a single night apart. No matter what each day brings, at the end of it will be the utter, utter bliss of lying in each other’s arms in a vast soft bed in our own private world – and for that blessing I will pay any price.’