All he knows is that he was relieved when her first letter came.

But he doesn’t feel like confiding any of that to Freddie and Sandra.

He grins instead and picks up his glass once more. ‘So, what’s happening tonight?’ he asks.

‘We’re all going to the Gezira Club.’ Tacitly accepting the change of subject, Sandra inspects him over the rim of her cocktail glass. ‘I hope you’ve got something to change into, Philip – you’re absolutely covered in dust!’

The war has divided so many families that Philip is glad of the chance to catch up with some of his. The Greek royal family are close, perhaps because their exile leaves them rootless, dependent on each other for a sense of home. Greece isn’t home, certainly not as far as Philip is concerned. He was little more than a baby when his parents packed him into an orange crate for a panicky flight from Crete.

In 1935 the Greeks voted for restoration of the monarchy and Uncle Georgie had returned to his throne after twelve years of exile. The following year, he had arranged for the remains of King Constantine, his father, his mother Queen Sophie, and his grandmother Queen Olga – all of whom had died in exile – to be brought from the Russian chapel in Florence for reburial in the family ground at Tatoï. Philip was given special leave from Gordonstoun to attend the ceremony.

It was a magnificent occasion, and the pomp and ceremony had struck a chord, bringing home as never before Philip’s position as a prince, his membership of a royal family. He even toyed with the idea of staying in Greece and joining the Greek navy. His father, though, vetoed the idea in no uncertain terms and Philip is glad now that he did. If he had a home at all, it was not Greece, but England.

Philip’s arrival at the Gezira Club that night is met with cries of delight. Uncle Georgie greets him with an extravagant hug. No cool shaking of hands for the King of Greece. ‘Philip! The very person I wanted to see! Now, come over here, my dear boy. I need to talk to you.’

Ignoring the pouts of the women, Georgie leads Philip out onto a quiet part of the terrace and offers him a cigarette. ‘I had your letter,’ he says.

Philip clicks his lighter to light first his uncle’s cigarette and then his own. ‘And?’ he asks, blowing out smoke.

‘I was very pleased to get it. I don’t need to tell you that an alliance with the British royal family would be immeasurably useful to us as a family. I have hopes that I will be able to return to Athens one day, in which case the British would be powerful allies.

‘I wrote to Bertie, of course, telling him that you had, as was proper, informed me as head of the family of your intentions towards Princess Elizabeth. I asked formally if he would consider you as a suitor.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said she is too young for now. I understand he and the Queen think that she hasn’t had much chance to meet any other young men yet.’

‘That’s rot,’ Philip says hotly. ‘Windsor Castle is stuffed with Grenadier Guards. Elizabeth has the officers to lunch every week, for God’s sake! If anything, she meets more young men than she does girls. Bloody Porchey is always hanging around.’ He smokes moodily. ‘The Queen wants to marry Elizabeth off to some tedious aristocrat in her hunting, fishing, and shooting set. She doesn’t like me, that’s the problem.’

‘I suspect it’s not you so much as your family. It would have been helpful if your aunts had been less forthright in their opinions about the Queen when she married Bertie but women … what can you do?’ Georgie shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, Philip, but the upshot is that I am to tell you not to think any more about Lilibet for the present.’

Philip scowls down at the cigarette in his hand, remembering that he had been in two minds after Christmas about whether to write to his uncle or not. He had decided definitely not to, in fact, until that lunch at Coppins when Elizabeth’s smile had held a cooler edge for some reason. Perversely, that had made him want her, and he had changed his mind, dashing off a letter to Georgie. He’d regretted committing himself on more than one occasion since and wished he could recall his request that Elizabeth’s father consider him as a suitor for his daughter. He should have been feeling relieved that the matter need go no further, but instead Philip finds himself outraged.

‘Don’t they think I’m good enough for them?’ he demands. ‘I’m descended from Queen Victoria. I’ve close family in practically every royal house in Europe. What more do they want?’

‘Perhaps for your sisters not to be married to Nazis.’

Philip snorts and tosses his cigarette away.

‘It might help if I could get back to Greece too, but there’s no sign of that with the war on. It’s not all bad,’ Georgie tries to console him. ‘You’re only, what, twenty-three? Plenty of time to get married and in the meantime, you can sow your wild oats. Have a good time.’

That had been exactly Philip’s plan, but the King’s rejection has put him out of humour. Marriage to Elizabeth has become not a trap but a challenge, and Philip has never been one to back down from one of those.

‘Then what does Uncle Dickie want to see me for?’

Georgie spreads his hands. ‘You know Dickie. Always intriguing, the old devil.’

Which was rich coming from Uncle Georgie, Philip thinks. Both his uncles could give Machiavelli a run for his money.

‘He’ll have some plan for you,’ Georgie is saying. ‘He’s been planning a match between you and Lilibet for a long time and he’s not going to give up just because Bertie is digging in his heels. It’s a pity he doesn’t have a son of his own. It might be less pressure on you, dear boy. He thinks of himself as your father.’

Philip says nothing. Dickie is not his father. His father is not dead. He is in Monte Carlo. Perhaps Andrea’s life has been a feckless one. Perhaps he is eking out a penniless existence far from the centres of power, and perhaps he did hand responsibility for his son over to the Mountbattens without much thought, but he is still Philip’s father.

He is still the father who swung Philip up onto his shoulders, the genial, urbane man with twinkling eyes and a trademark monocle. Once he stood on trial for his life, but no one would ever guess from his amused air or the charm that makes everyone who meets him convinced they are the one person he has been waiting to see.

There is a part of Philip, a part he despises as childish, that wishes his father would keep that sense of pleasure and pride for his only son. He knows that when it comes down to it, for all his charm and fun, Andrea will always put himself first.

But Andrea is his father, and Philip loves him.

He is grateful, of course he is, to all the Mountbattens: to Georgie and Nada, and Dickie and Edwina. They were ones who came to pick him up from school, who turned up for sports day and cheered him on, and made room for a boisterous boy in their busy, glamorous lives.

How could he not be grateful? But Philip is obscurely resentful, too, for that sense of obligation that makes it impossible to walk away and refuse to be a part of any of Dickie’s intrigues.

Suppressing a sigh, Philip turns back to his uncle. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘we’d better go back inside.’