It was a dream that would now end in ashes, for there was another side to the small, squat figure who always dressed in black. Their Aunt Queen and Granny Queen was also Queen Victoria, and as such, when it came to what she perceived as her royal duty – or anyone else’s royal duty – she was as implacable and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. She would tell Alicky that her destiny lay in England; that it was her duty to marry Eddy and be a future Queen Consort of England, not a future Tsarina of Russia. And just as a long line of the Queen’s Prime Ministers had done before her, Alicky would be pressured into obeying, and royal duty would win out over love.

Alicky would marry Eddy, even though her heart lay elsewhere. Eddy would discover that he had married someone incapable of loving him. And she, May, would most likely never be loved at all.

A flash of lightning forked across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder so deafening that the chandeliers shook. Toria and Looloo jumped to their feet with little hysterical squeals.

Eddy said, ‘It was good talking to you, May, but I’d best get back to the girls. Thunderstorms scare the life out of them.’ And, turning away from her, he strode back over to them.

May, too, was afraid; not of the thunder and lightning, but of the future and what it might hold for Alicky, Eddy and, having been a debutante for nearly a year without attracting even one suitor, herself. Yet again she felt an outsider. She was a Serene Princess who was not royal enough to feature on a list of possible brides for Eddy; not royal enough to attract any other royal suitor; and not pretty enough to encourage an aristocratic suitor to overlook her lack of a dowry. All of which meant she was very unlikely ever to have a home of her own, or children.

She straightened her already very straight posture. Self-pity had never been one of her weaknesses and she had no intention of indulging in it now. She would deal in a positive way with the hand that fate had dealt her. She was already acting as her mother’s lady-in-waiting and she would begin acting as her secretary, in order that her mother could take on even more charitable work. When her brothers married and had children, she would be the best possible aunt to them, and she would continue with what she found so fulfilling – her interest in art and literature. In the future, whenever moments of bleakness took her unawares, she would remind herself that it was better not to be married at all than to be trapped in a loveless marriage.