‘Dearest, darling May! How long has it been?’ Ducky said rapturously, uncaring that their little group was causing disapproving heads to turn. ‘It must be ten years at least since we last met. You and Georgie were living at York Cottage, and I was still married to Ernie!’

As more heads turned in their direction, Kyril gave a meaningful cough.

Ducky removed her hand from his arm and linked arms with May, saying to Margaret, ‘Do forgive me, but I so want to have a long family chat with May, and here is quite obviously not the place to do so. Would you think it horrendously bad-mannered of me if I suggested I stole her away for half an hour?’ Without waiting for a response, she said to May, ‘The Hotel Bristol is only a few yards down the street, and we can catch up over tea and cakes while Kyril escorts Margaret around the rest of the gallery.’

Kyril, accustomed to Ducky’s lack of regard for accepted etiquette, proffered Margaret his arm. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ he said disarmingly, and before Margaret could agree or disagree, she found herself being escorted by a Russian she had heard of, but had never previously met, towards a large painting bearing the ominous title: A Woman Led Astray.

‘Goodness, this is fun,’ Ducky said as, in the Hotel Bristol, they settled themselves in a small lounge that gave them complete privacy. ‘What subject shall we hit on first, before Margaret and Kyril decide they have had enough of each other’s company and come to join us? My divorce from Ernie and marriage to Kyril? Your having become the Princess of Wales? The children we have had since we last met? Alicky, and the disaster she is making of being Tsarina? Ella having become a nun? It’s your choice, dear May. But let’s do it over champagne. I only mentioned tea and cakes when we were at the gallery in case your very proper-looking sister-in-law thought me too outrageously fast.’

‘Let’s start with your divorce and marriage to Kyril.’

A waiter deferentially approached. Champagne was ordered.

Ducky, whose olive skin and raven-dark hair made her look stunningly exotic, leaned back in the red-velvet armchair she was seated in and said, ‘Once Granny Queen had joined Grandpa Albert in a Happy Land Far, Far Away, the divorce was easy. We didn’t get married immediately, though. Kyril takes his time over things. However, once Russia had so thunderingly lost the war with Japan – Kyril nearly died once from war injuries, and then a second time from shame – we married in Paris, without even troubling to ask for Nicky’s permission, which we knew he would have refused.’