Vicky’s eyebrows had risen. ‘You mean the same kind of speculation that our little brother Ernie is beginning to arouse?’

Ella had nodded. At sixteen, Ernie’s lack of interest in girls and his interest in the family’s male members of staff were obvious. Their father was forever sacking footmen who had encouraged Ernie’s attention, or finding replacements for those who had left because of it.

Vicky hadn’t asked Ella if marriage to a man who was rumoured to prefer his own sex was the kind of marriage she wanted, because it was quite obvious to her that Ella was embarking on her marriage with her eyes wide open, and for reasons that suited her own, not very run-of-the-mill emotional needs.

She said now, ‘People marry each other for all kinds of reasons, Alicky, and when people are royal, the reasons can be complex. Thankfully, my reason for wanting to marry Louis wasn’t complex at all. I married him because I couldn’t even begin to envisage marrying anyone else. I married him because I’m heedlessly, hopelessly in love with him.’ Her cheeks warmed as she remembered their lovemaking of the previous night. ‘We share a grand, all-engulfing passion, Alicky. It’s as simple as that.’

Alicky sighed rapturously. She knew all about grand, all-engulfing passions because she was often taken to the opera, and what Vicky was describing was the kind of operatic grand passion that thrilled her to the depths of her being. It was a passion that, when she was older, she fervently hoped to experience for herself. All that had to happen was for her to meet her one true love. An ecstatic shiver ran down her spine. When she did, she knew she would recognize him before he even spoke to her. Without a shadow of a doubt, she knew she would recognize him the instant their eyes met.

The journey to Russia was the longest Alicky had ever taken. Even though they were travelling by train, it took three days. For most of the way the track hugged the Baltic coastline and the land was flat and bleak, interspersed only occasionally by mist-shrouded, medieval-looking villages. Whenever the track turned a little way inland there was nothing but endless reedbeds and chains of eerily desolate lakes; and then, as they progressed deeper into Russia, the lonely lakes gave way to mile after mile of dark, mysterious forests of spruce and fir.