It was such an unhappy thing to be talking about that they fell silent for several minutes and then, bringing up a subject she definitely wanted to talk to May about while they were on their own, Alicky said, ‘Granny Queen has become very heated in her insistence that it’s time I fell in with her marriage plans. She wants me to become engaged to Eddy and I had to endure a week at Balmoral with him – the idea being that by the end of the week our engagement would be announced. Naturally, it wasn’t. Eddy declared himself to be heartbroken with disappointment, but whether he really was I’m not quite sure. The problem for both him and Granny Queen is that although Germany and Denmark are littered with cousins and second cousins who tick all the right boxes, when it comes to their eligibility as a future Princess of Wales and then, further down the line, a future Queen of England, none of them are, at the moment, the right age.’

‘Moretta, Willy’s sister is.’ May was finding the subject almost as painful as the previous one. ‘She’s twenty-one.’

‘Maybe, but she isn’t Granny Queen’s favourite grandchild. I am, and she’s set her heart on me marrying Eddy, but even though I can see there is something very sexy about him – those slumberous, dark eyes and the way you can never quite tell what he’s thinking – I’m not going to marry him, because he isn’t my soulmate. Nicky Romanov is my soulmate and it’s something Granny Queen is just going to have to come to terms with.’ She pushed her swing into movement again, adding, ‘And although Granny Queen doesn’t yet know it, I shall be seeing lots and lots of Nicky before the year is out, for Ella and Sergei have invited me to spend the autumn and winter with them in St Petersburg, and Papa, God bless him, is in full agreement that I should go.’

May was enjoying all the fun and family hilarity that formed the keynote of any party held at Marlborough House. For her, Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix were master party hosts, and over the last two days she had been able to spend time with family she rarely saw – family such as Ducky and Missy, who were now eleven and twelve and were both exhilaratingly high-spirited. Together with Alicky, Irène and their brother Ernie, the six of them, at Ducky’s suggestion, had spent a riotous hour sliding down a Marlborough House staircase on tea-trays.

That evening, as her mother chatted to her and her dresser helped her into a sumptuous gown of shimmering turquoise silk, May told her mother what fun the tea-tray sliding had been.