When Anastasia had exited the room at her usual hurricane speed, Alicky steeled herself for Ella’s arrival. A week ago the girls’ governess, Sophie Tiutcheva, had made what Alicky judged to be an uncalled-for complaint about Father Grigory and the outcome had been her dismissal. The indignant governess had returned to her home in Moscow and given her version of events to Ella, and now here was Ella, paying her a sisterly visit – and it wasn’t hard to guess the reason for it.

That Ella was as disapproving of Father Grigory as Nicky’s family were mystified Alicky, for unlike them, Ella knew the nature of Alexei’s disease. How could she not, when so many of their relatives had either suffered or died from it?

If anyone should have been as grateful as she and Nicky were, for Rasputin’s ability to keep Alexei alive, that person was Ella. That she wasn’t lay quite beyond Alicky’s understanding. There were also other things about her once-favourite sister that had begun to irritate, not least Ella’s conspicuous display of devoutness and the way people had begun referring to her as a saint.

When Ella entered the room she did, though, give her sister a welcoming smile. Perhaps, with a little skill, the subject of Father Grigory could be avoided. Perhaps they could talk about Ernie, and how fast the two children he’d had with his second wife were growing. And if not Ernie, perhaps they could talk about Irène and Vicky. Or she could even, although she didn’t want to do so, talk about herself and how, under the constant strain she lived with, her health was now so bad as to render her an invalid at times.

‘I love coming into this room,’ Ella said as the doors were closed behind her. ‘It so reminds me of how Mama’s room used to look when we were children, and of Granny Queen’s rooms at Osborne, Windsor and Balmoral.’

As always, she was dressed in her specially designed pearl-grey habit and veil.

Alicky said, ‘There were no icons in Mama’s room, or Granny Queen’s rooms.’

‘No, but there was always lots of English chintz and, after Mama’s death, Granny Queen always had the same photograph of her that you have, and it hung on her boudoir wall in the same prominent position as it is here.’

The wall was covered in mauve rose-patterned silk, and opposite the photograph of their mother was a portrait of Queen Victoria. The many small occasional tables in the room were covered with silver-framed family photographs and objets d’art, just as their mother’s room and Granny Queen’s rooms always had been, and the overall effect was a mix of Russian and English cosiness that was a world removed from the ornate grandeur and splendour of the rest of the palace.