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Back The Summer Queen
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

Woozy from chloroform, Alicky didn’t register the wonder of what had just happened. ‘It’s another girl, isn’t it?’ she said hysterically. ‘It’s a fifth girl, and Russia is never, ever going to forgive me!’

‘It’s a boy, Angel!’ Nicky’s voice was choked with tears of thankfulness. ‘He’s a big, healthy baby. Listen to him bawling. What a mighty tsar he will one day be.’

‘A boy?’ Her incredulity was total. ‘Truly, Nicky? Truly?’

‘See for yourself, my darling.’ Ignoring the ecstatic doctor and midwives, he helped her push herself up against the pillows. ‘Isn’t he a whopper, Alicky?’ Their son was kicking his legs and clenching his little fists in indignation at his so-very-sudden emergence into the world. ‘Isn’t he the most magnificent baby boy you’ve ever seen?’

‘He’s a miracle!’ Alicky’s joy was so all-encompassing she thought she was going to faint with it. ‘Oh, when can I hold him, Nicky? When will the cord be cut?’

‘Soon, Your Imperial Majesty,’ the doctor said, certain that, in gratitude for his last hour’s work, his reward would be dizzyingly lavish.

Even before the cord was cut, Nicky gave orders for the news of his newborn heir to be made public, and for the first time he and Alicky were able to listen to the boom of Peterhof’s saluting cannon fire in the joyous knowledge that the firing wouldn’t stop at one hundred, but would continue all the way up to a glorious three hundred.

In St Petersburg the batteries of the Peter and Paul Fortress thundered similarly. Soon church bells were ringing all over Russia. The national anthem played in parks and public squares. Flags flew. At a time when the country was at war in the east, the glorious news of an heir was doubly, trebly welcome.

As Alicky wrote to May:

And so, dear Kindred Spirit, I am at last the very proud mama of a beautiful and healthy baby boy. (You can imagine what that word ‘healthy’ means to me!) I can’t begin to tell you how magnificent he is! Like his papa, he has the most beautiful blue eyes and his hair is the palest gold you can ever imagine.