Willy hesitated and May, whose mother chatted to her with no holds barred, wasn’t surprised. The story of Willy’s gory birth was not suitable for a sensitive seven-year-old. It had been what her mother had described as a ‘breech birth’, which apparently meant that he’d been born bottom-first. In the struggle to bring Willy into the world, the court physician used forceps and, in doing so, the ligaments and nerves in Willy’s left shoulder were hideously damaged, resulting in an arm that had never grown or functioned properly and which, for Willy, was a complete and utter catastrophe.

Alicky asked again, ‘Were you born like that, Cousin Willy, or did it just happen?’

Willy said, mercifully not elaborating, ‘I was born like this.’

A braid of red-gold hair had fallen forward over Alicky’s shoulder and she flicked it back. ‘Does it make you feel different from everyone else?’

Willy gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I’m as different as the Man in the Moon is from everyone else. How could I not be? Do you know how my grandfather refers to me? He calls me the “defective” prince. Even worse, my mother is of the same opinion. You have no idea of the tortures I had to endure as a child. All carried out not for my sake, but because having been brought up to believe herself perfect, my mother couldn’t bear to be seen as having given birth to a child so glaringly imperfect. She insisted that the arm had to be made good, no matter how much I suffered in the attempt.’

‘But how could it be made good?’ May knew it was indelicate to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. In all the family gatherings she had been to at Osborne, she had never previously had such an interesting time. ‘What could the doctors do?’

‘When I was approaching toddlerhood, my right arm was strapped to my side, in the hope it would miraculously result in my using the left arm. I didn’t, of course. How could I? All it did was hinder my learning to walk, because it affected my balance and meant I did nothing for years but fall over. And when strapping my good arm to my side didn’t work, I was given animal baths.’

‘Animal baths?’ May stared at him wide-eyed. ‘What are animal baths?’

‘It’s when an injured limb is placed inside a freshly killed animal. In my case, the animal was a hare. I was only four at the time, and I can’t begin to tell you how terrifying the experience was.’

May felt ill. ‘But why on earth . . .?’