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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

All that would be open to her was either marriage to someone semi-royal who, for very good reasons, no one else in the family was willing to marry, or spinsterhood. Neither option was remotely enticing.

But what if, when her family’s exile came to an end and they returned to England, she didn’t remain there? What if she returned to Florence and met and fell in love with someone who, like Mr Thaddy, was handsome and fun and non-royal? And what if this unknown person in her future loved her passionately in return and wanted to marry her? It was a scenario so revolutionary the blood pounded in her ears.

She thought of how out of sight and out of mind she had already become. Who, within the vast family that she was such a fringe member of, was likely to care if plain May Teck kicked over the traces and, living far enough away not to be an embarrassment, married someone non-royal? The answer was that she couldn’t imagine anyone caring very much.

In a nearby cedar tree, two chaffinches wrangled noisily. She rose to her feet and the birds immediately ended their quarrel, flying away in the direction of the river. May watched them until she could see them no longer, knowing she had come to a realization that, if she allowed it to, would alter the course of her life

Writing All my love, your Kindred Spirit May, she finished her letter and then, picking up her writing case, began walking back to I Cedri. There, full of his devastating Irish charm, Mr Thaddy would shortly be arriving in order to continue work on her portrait.

Chapter Eight

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MAY 1884, NEUES PALAIS, POTSDAM

It was barely dawn; still dark, and they were coming for Willy again. They were coming to force him into the iron monstrosity, to strap him into it for hours and hours, his head at an impossibly awkward angle, his body convulsed in pain. They were dragging him from his bed. He was kicking and screaming, shrieking for his mama, begging her to tell the men to let him go; but his mama was saying it was for his own good. His mama was saying he had to be put into the iron machine so that one day he would look as other boys looked; so that he would be able to run and ride, and eat with a knife and fork just like other boys; so that he would no longer be an embarrassment to her and a shame to Prussia, the country that he would one day rule. The hard leather of the straps bit into his four-year-old body. The icy cold of an iron restraint pressed hard against his forehead. ‘No!’ he was shouting. ‘No! No! No!’