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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

Born a Serene Highness not royal enough even to have been marriageable until Queen Victoria had come to her rescue, it was a very sweet moment. As a very old lady, she remembered it as being the sweetest moment of her life, for in becoming a queen and an empress she knew, without any apprehension or uncertainty, that she was fulfilling what had long been her destiny – and she was determined to be the most regal queen and the most imperial empress England and India had ever had.

Chapter Thirty-Six

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SEPTEMBER 1912, ALEXANDER PALACE, TSARSKOE SELO

Alicky looked at herself in the gold-framed mirror hanging in her mauve boudoir. Although she was now forty, her willow-slim figure, superb bone structure, the English-rose complex-ion she had inherited from her mother and her gloriously thick red-gold hair ensured that, even in maturity, she was still beautiful, but it was beauty without radiance. How could she ever look or feel radiant, when she lived every hour of every day with such terrible fears and anxieties?

For seven years Russia had lived on the edge of full-scale revolution, but she couldn’t remember any time being as bad as it was now, for there was violence in every single corner of the country and assassination was an ever-present threat. She thought of what had happened to Sergei and was seized by a fear that was crippling in its intensity.

Making the situation a dozen times worse than it was already was her dear darling’s inability to be the kind of strong and forceful Tsar that his father had been. Nicky was too gentle, too kind. Desperately trying to do his best and never to hurt anyone’s feelings, he often made situations worse by dithering over decisions and then, having finally made one, changing his mind about it.

Her most overriding terror was that he would be assassinated. Exactly a year ago, and while Nicky was at the Kiev Opera House, his Prime Minister, who had also been attending the performance, had been twice shot in the chest and had died as a result of his wounds.

On top of her ever-present terror that, despite all the security that permanently surrounded him, Nicky, too, would die at the hands of an assassin, there was the non-stop nervous strain of keeping Alexei safe from any falls, knocks or bumps that might result in a life-threatening bleeding episode.