May paused, the pen still in her hand. There was a lot more that she could write about Mr Thaddy, but a sixth sense told her it might be best if she didn’t write that he was only six years older than her, that he was terrific fun and possessed the dramatic good looks of a certain type of Irishman, having blue-black hair and ravishing blue eyes. Such a true description could, if Alicky were to share the letter with her father, be misconstrued. She didn’t want lurid rumours about the nature of her feelings for Mr Thaddy spreading from Darmstadt to Windsor and Marlborough House, and Aunt Queen telegramming her that their friendship was most unsuitable and one that had to be terminated immediately.

She chewed the corner of her lip and then, to emphasize Mr Thaddy’s respectability, wrote:

Shortly after we arrived in Florence, Mr Thaddy was introduced to Papa by the President of the English Club, and he and Papa have become great friends. Since Papa’s stroke, Mr Thaddy has been kindness itself to Papa, sitting with him and keeping him amused in a way that, under the circumstances, isn’t easy.

She then added, to make it clear that Mr Thaddy wasn’t an amateur artist:

He has trained both in London and in Paris. In Florence, a city famed for its art, his work is very highly regarded.

Which was true, for although the portrait he was painting of her had not been commissioned, portraits that he had been commissioned to paint included one of Russian Princess Woronzoff, wearing twelve ropes of priceless pearls, and one of Queen Natalie of Serbia, her little Pomeranian dog in her arms.

Thinking it best, May now changed the subject:

My life is now far busier than it was when I lived in England. I go to singing lessons, painting lessons, and Italian and French lessons. Thanks to my many visits to the Uffizi and Pitti galleries, I am also becoming quite knowledgeable about Italian Renaissance art and can tell a Bellini from a Botticelli at a glance. (Something that wouldn’t, I think, ever have happened if I had remained living in England.) As for the family wedding in St Petersburg, we shall sadly not be attending it, as to do so would be very costly for us and our being there would be too obviously an instance of Mama still being heedless of her expenditure – something none of us want to bring to Aunt Queen’s attention.