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Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. The Summer Queen
  3. Dedication Page
  4. Family Tree of King George III
  5. Family Tree of Queen Victoria
  6. PART ONE
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. PART TWO
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. PART THREE
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. PART FOUR
  42. Chapter Thirty-Three
  43. Chapter Thirty-Four
  44. Chapter Thirty-Five
  45. Chapter Thirty-Six
  46. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. Chapter Forty-One
  51. Acknowledgements
  52. Select Bibliography
  53. The Summer Queen
  54. By Margaret Pemberton

The heat in Nicky’s eyes as he lowered his head to hers told her how passion-filled those nights would be.

Although there were a dozen maids fluttering around in Alicky’s bedroom on the morning of her wedding day, it was Ella who was assisting her with her toilette.

‘As you stayed beneath my palace roof last night, and as I am your older sister, there is no one who can tell me it is not royal etiquette for me to be doing so,’ she said, applying a faint touch of rouge to Alicky’s cheeks. ‘And I want to do it. It reminds me of when, after Mama died, I did so much of the looking after you.’

A light dusting of powder followed the rouge. Ella stood back from her handiwork and surveyed it in the dressing table’s large triple mirror. ‘I think you should wear a little lip colour as well, Alicky. Not much. Just a smidgeon.’

A few seconds later she said, ‘There, pet lamb. I have been very delicate.’

Alicky looked in the mirror. Was the face looking back at her the face of a woman about to become Empress of Russia? She didn’t know, but she did know that she’d had years of practice in concealing her inner fears and anxieties. She resolved that whatever fears and anxieties she met with in the future, no one, apart from Nicky, would ever know of them; not the crowds that would always be wanting a glimpse of her; or the hundreds of courtiers in the Winter Palace, the Anitchkov Palace, the palace at Peterhof and the palace at Livadia.

As she rose to her feet to allow the maids to dress her in the silver-and-brocade gown that she was to wear to the Winter Palace, she vowed that from now on, no matter how turbulent her inner feelings, outwardly she would always be the very essence of imperial dignity. It was what her Granny Queen would be expecting of her, and what her beloved Nicky needed from her, and she wasn’t going to let either of them down. Not now. Not ever.

A valet knocked on the door and gave a message to her lady-in-waiting. The Dowager Empress’s carriage had arrived at the palace and it was time for Alicky to join her.

Alicky took one last look in the mirror, set her mouth in a determined line so that her crippling nervousness wouldn’t be obvious to the crowds and then, draped in furs, turned and walked from the room. One part of her life was over. Another part – unimaginably, unbelievably different – was about to begin.

Chapter Thirty

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MAY 1896, ALEXANDER PALACE, TSARSKOE SELO

Alicky wrote to May, her pen flying over the imperial headed notepaper: