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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

‘Madgie,’ Alicky said when she found her, ‘do you know where Alexandrine is? Something odd is going on, now that Granny Queen has arrived. The only people with her in the drawing room are Vicky, Irène, Ella and Ernie. Everyone else has been ushered out, and a footman is now standing outside the door so that no one can enter. If it’s because Vicky is telling Granny Queen that there’s not going to be a wedding after all, Alexandrine will know, but I can’t find her.’

Margaret Jackson pushed her wire-rimmed spectacles up into her hair. She knew very well why the Grand Duke’s adult children were closeted with the Queen. It was because their father intended to marry Alexandrine and was too cowardly to break the news to his mother-in-law himself.

She quite understood his cowardice. His late wife had been one of Queen Victoria’s much-loved daughters and although it was five years since Princess Alice had died, five years was nothing to a woman who was still in black-garbed mourning for a husband who had died twenty-two and a half years ago.

That the Queen would not have expected the Grand Duke to even consider marrying again was not the only reason he would be nervous of breaking his news to her. There were several other reasons – the main four being that Alexandrine was a commoner, a divorcée, Polish and Russian Orthodox.

‘I don’t think you will find her in the palace, Alicky,’ she said equably. ‘Madame de Kolémine is not family, and she thinks it best that at such a family-orientated event she keeps a low profile. There is no need for you to worry about Vicky and Louis’s wedding being called off. Whatever Vicky, Irène, Ella and Ernie are discussing with the Queen, I know for a certainty it has nothing to do with tomorrow’s wedding.’

Alicky breathed a sigh of relief. She thought it a shame, though, that Alexandrine was not going to be at the wedding. She was certain it was something Alexandrine would have enjoyed.

Queen Victoria was white-lipped with rage. She had travelled to Darmstadt in the happy expectation of a gala reunion with her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and her many German cousins. Vicky and Louis’s wedding was one that had her full blessing. He and his two brothers were handsome and charming young men, and Louis had, in her eyes, the added lustre of being a serving officer in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. At an event so happy, what could possibly go wrong? The answer, within minutes of her arrival, was plenty.