Later, when she was with Irène in the bedroom they were to share, and after she had endured hours of being introduced to a seemingly endless parade of Romanov royalty, Alicky said unhappily, ‘I can’t face this evening’s reception, Irène. Truly I can’t.’

‘Of course you can. It’s going to be wonderful. It isn’t only Romanovs we’re meeting for the first time. There are distant cousins of Mama’s here that we’ve never met before. Meeting them is going to be absolutely thrilling.’

Alicky didn’t think it would be thrilling at all. To her it sounded unbelievably daunting. She said hopefully, ‘Can’t you tell Papa I have a headache?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Irène regarded her in exasperation. ‘A great exception is being made in allowing someone of your age to attend an evening reception and consequently people will think your shyness quite natural, and perhaps even appealing, but it is a shyness you have to get over, Alicky. You are a royal princess, and royal princesses have to be perfectly composed in the public eye. You can’t continue to turn beetroot-red whenever anyone who isn’t intimate family speaks to you.’

Alicky bit her lip, knowing it was a battle she couldn’t win and would just have to endure.

What made the enduring more difficult than normal that evening was that because Vicky, Ella, Irène and Ernie were so enjoying the Romanov experience, they weren’t, as they often did, shielding her from unwanted attention.

As the hours passed, Alicky’s heart pounded more and more painfully and she knew red blotches were staining her cheeks. Making her shyness worse than usual was the fact that only Aunt Minny and Uncle Sasha spoke to her in English. Although they were Russian, everyone else spoke French to her, and her French wasn’t good enough for her to say even a few words in it without it being an embarrassing struggle. It all added to her nerves and sense of awkwardness. And then, just when she thought she wasn’t going to be able to survive another minute, she found herself facing a handsome young man with the bluest, gentlest eyes she had ever seen.

Time stood still.

She drew in a deep, unsteady breath. Unbelievably, wonderfully, it was the moment she had dreamed of. The moment when she knew herself to be facing the one person in the whole wide world who was destined to be her everlasting true love.

In flawless English and with an engaging smile, he said, ‘Hello, Alicky. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. I’m Nicky. Would you like me to show you the Knights’ Hall? There are wonderful life-size bronzes of knights on horseback in it.’