He had always preferred the company of men to the company of women. Although as a youth he had indulged in a couple of paid sexual encounters with women, he had done so more out of curiosity than desire. The only woman he had ever felt genuine love for was Ella, and Ella had rejected him for Sergei – the irony being that, up until the day of his horrific death, rumours about Sergei’s sexuality had been rife.

Other than Ella, women had never held any great emotional appeal for Willy. Dona, who had been pretty as a young woman and was reassuringly admiring and docile, had been a momentary aberration, and one he had grown bored and exasperated with even before their honeymoon was over.

He had always been happiest amongst his Hussars. And then he had met Phili – old enough to be a father-figure, debonair and sophisticated, creatively gifted, highly cultivated – and his entire world had changed. The huge social gap between them had meant nothing. In Count Philipp zu Eulenburg he had met his soulmate and, like the soulmates in the medieval poetry that the two of them so enjoyed, the union between them had never descended into coarse carnality. It had been a thing of spiritual beauty. And now, thanks to the editor of Die Zukunft, all the beauty had been destroyed and he, Germany’s All-Highest, had been made a laughing stock.

He had been unable to bring himself to bear the pain of seeing Phili again and, coward-like, had ended their relationship by letter. All connections with the Liebenberg Circle had been severed. All the prestigious high public and political appointments that he had, at Phili’s suggestion, showered on his former friends were terminated.

It was over, and his heartbreak was so extreme that his ministers began speculating that the damage caused to his arm at birth had not been the only thing that had been damaged. They suspected his brain had also been damaged, and it wasn’t long before gossip as to the Kaiser not being quite right in the head spread to the courts of England and Russia.

Alicky was far too worried about Alexei’s terrifying bleeding episodes to care about unkind gossip about Willy.

May, however, let everyone in Marlborough House know exactly how she felt about such gossip. ‘Bosh!’ she said forcefully, using one of George’s favourite expressions.

Privately, though, and knowing Willy as she did, she wondered if there was any truth in the gossip and, on Willy’s behalf, felt deep concern.

Chapter Thirty-Five

APRIL 1910, PARIS

It was the end of April and Paris was at its best. In the Champs-Élysées the chestnut trees were thick with blossom and flower-sellers were out in full force, the scent of tulips and anemones filling the air, as sweet and spicy as a drug.