‘Yes. I’d told him, after the letter he sent to me via Alicky when we were last at Osborne, that I was never going to marry him; that I was going to marry Sergei. He said I was the love of his life and that if he couldn’t marry me, it didn’t matter whom he married. And three weeks later his engagement to Dona was announced. I’m just so desperately hoping they will be happy together, because if they aren’t . . . if they aren’t, I shall feel so responsible.’

May’s common sense seldom let her down. ‘There’s no reason why you should feel responsible for anything to do with Willy and Dona’s relationship,’ she said robustly. ‘You never gave him any encouragement, and he should have accepted years ago that you were never going to marry him. If he had, he would most likely have been over you by now. As it is, he isn’t and he’s chosen to marry Dona – who Mama says adores him and will never give Willy the slightest trouble – and his happiness is now in his own hands. It isn’t something you should feel responsible for.’

‘Thank you, May.’ Ella’s relief at May’s response was profound. ‘You are so clear-sighted about things, and there are times when I’m not. Have we to go and find the Edinburghs? As I’m set on Aunt Marie becoming my sister-in-law, I’ve been spending as much time with her as I can. Do you know she smokes Black Russian cigarettes? And that she always makes a conscious effort to wear more jewellery than anyone else? She says that, being both the daughter of the late Tsar and the sister of the present one, it’s her duty to do so.’

They left the room and began clattering down the spiral stone steps.

‘Our little cousins are just as bad,’ Ella continued. ‘When she plays at dressing-up, Missy does so with a Romanov tiara on her head and a rope of Catherine the Great’s black pearls reaching down to her feet.’

At the bottom of the steps, May said, ‘I can understand Cousin Marie having been nicknamed “Missy”. It’s a nice nickname. But how on earth did Victoria Melita get the nickname “Ducky”?’

‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps it’s to do with ducks and water, Uncle Affie being the only one of Granny Queen’s children to be a naval man? I believe it caused quite a stir in the family when he married the then-Tsar’s only surviving daughter. It’s strange, isn’t it, that when Missy and Ducky are only half-Russian, they always seem wholly Russian? The nice thing about it is that their temperaments, like Sergei’s, are too fiery for them ever to be dull.’