Vicky, Irène and Ernie found the journey tedious and spent it playing cards and solitaire. Alicky didn’t find it tedious at all. She thought the colossal scale of the landscape and the strange northern summer light it was bathed in were mesmerizing. Russia! How could anyone think forests that were home to bears and wolves, and goodness knew how many other wild creatures, tedious? Russia wasn’t just another country; it was another world, so strange and exotic that it seemed barely possible her sister was soon to be a part of it.

‘Even my Christian name of Elizabeth will change to Russian spelling and pronunciation,’ Ella said to her as their private train steamed ever further north-east. Outside the train window they watched as a flock of geese flew over the surface of a perfectly still silver-grey lake. ‘After my marriage, I will be known as Yelizaveta – Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Feodorovna Romanova.’

It sounded wonderfully grand and the only thing spoiling it was that May would not be at the wedding, and Alicky’s disappointment that she wouldn’t be having a reunion with her was vast. As May would be missing out on what was going to be a very special family occasion, Alicky decided that she would write her long descriptive letters so that, even at a distance, her Kindred Spirit might not feel too left out of everything.

As the flock of geese disappeared from view she said, ‘Where will we be staying when we reach St Petersburg, Ella? Will we be staying at the Winter Palace, or at another of the Romanov palaces?’

‘I don’t know, pet lamb. I do know that the wedding is to take place at the Winter Palace, but that a favourite family residence is at Peterhof, which is fifteen miles from St Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. Papa thinks it quite possible that for some of the time we will be staying there.’

Alicky was just about to ask if that meant the Winter Palace was the equivalent of Buckingham Palace, and Peterhof the equivalent of Windsor Castle, when Ernie strolled into their otherwise-deserted carriage and plopped himself down into one of its many comfy armchairs. Throwing a leg over one of the chair’s plush arms, he said to Ella, ‘Lord, is this journey ever going to end? Why couldn’t we have come by sea, like the Waleses are doing? At least it would have been more interesting.’

‘We don’t possess a yacht, that’s why,’ Ella said drily. ‘The Waleses have the use of Granny Queen’s Victoria and Albert.’

‘Lucky dogs.’ Ernie, thinking of muscular sailors in bell-bottomed trousers, withdrew a cigarette case and a lighter from his jacket pocket. ‘At least if Irène’s pash on Prussian Henry comes to fruition, the wedding will be on home ground and, if not on home ground, it will only be a hop and a skip to Berlin.’