‘As it’s you two, I don’t mind you stopping to talk, and I could do with a bit of bucking up.’ He rose politely to his feet. ‘It’s bad timing, the old Kaiser pegging it when Uncle Fritz is in such a bad way, isn’t it? You’d think, as he’d made it to ninety, he could have hung on a little bit longer. Two more years in which to recover his health would have made all the difference to Uncle Fritz.’

As May followed Irène’s example and seated herself on the fountain’s broad bronze rim, she wondered how two brothers so close together in age could be so dissimilar in looks and personality. Georgie had grown a beard, but it still didn’t make him look his age, which, in three months’ time, would be twenty-three. It didn’t help that he wasn’t very tall – certainly not as tall as she was, without heeled shoes and boots – and that, with his rosy cheeks and slightly protuberant blue eyes, there was a fresh-faced boyish openness about him.

There was nothing boyish about Eddy. Tall and lean and always dashingly dressed, Eddy was all handsome sophistication. There was something about him that was far more continental than it was English. In Florence and amongst Italians, Georgie would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Eddy wouldn’t have done so. With his glossy dark hair, gold-flecked eyes and a fashionable moustache waxed and turned upwards at the ends, he would have fitted in perfectly.

They were just as different in other ways. Georgie was addicted to stamp-collecting. Eddy, often accused of being ‘dreamy’ and ‘not interested in anything’, played hockey and polo – games that needed perfectly controlled aggression in order to be played well; and, giving the lie to what was said about him, Eddy played them very well. Like his father, Georgie teased people and, also like his father, he often teased unkindly. Eddy didn’t tease. Within the huge royal clan that was their family, he kept himself very much to himself.

‘Unnervingly secretive’ was how she had heard her father describe Eddy. ‘It’s rumoured he makes friends outside the royal circle.’ ‘Enigmatic’ was the description her mother used.

May simply thought him an ideal specimen of masculine beauty.

Her train of thought was interrupted as she became aware of Irène saying to Georgie, ‘Do you need bucking up because your parents’ Silver Wedding Grand Ball has had to be cancelled, or is it because you feel so sorry for Uncle Fritz becoming Kaiser at a time when he’s so ill?’

‘No,’ Georgie said bluntly as he remained standing, facing the two of them. ‘Although naturally I’m disappointed about the ball being cancelled, and I do feel sorry for Uncle Fritz.’ His shoulders were slumped, his hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets and his face was a picture of misery.