‘Oh, it’s not funny really,’ Dolla says as one story follows another and they are all laughing helplessly.

No, not funny, Philip thinks, but this is the first time he has been able to listen to stories of his mother told with affection. The first time he has been able to laugh about her with people who loved her as much as he did.

He belongs here in a way he never has anywhere else, except perhaps on the deck of a warship.

‘It’s a shame Mama couldn’t be here,’ Margarita says as Theodora sends Berthold to find another bottle of the wine secreted in the cellars.

‘I did ask her,’ says Sophie. ‘But how would she have got here from Athens? It’s impossible trying to move around at the moment.’

‘Philip managed it,’ Berthold points out.

‘Philip is resourceful, and a young man. I can’t see Mama hitching a lift in an army truck, can you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Your mother has no sense of grandeur. I’ve never met anyone who behaves less like a princess. She would be quite happy in the back of a truck.’

‘That’s true,’ says Theodora with a sigh. ‘I think she is safer in Athens, in any case. Although she would probably approve of how dull we are going to look at the wedding tomorrow. Didn’t Tiny tell you?’ she asks when Philip looks enquiring.

‘Tell me what?’

Sophie’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Can you believe I forgot? That is the good thing about you coming, Philip. We were all in shock about the jewels, but you arriving quite knocked all that out of our heads.’

‘What jewels?’ he asks.

‘All the Hesse family jewels! Diamonds, rubies, emeralds … necklaces, tiaras … even some letters from Queen Victoria … everything of value we had.’ Sophie sighs. ‘Remember I told you that we didn’t have time to take them when we left Friedrichshof? Well, we asked permission to go back and retrieve them and Dolla, Margarita, and I went there yesterday.’

‘We wanted to put on a show for the wedding,’ Margarita puts in.

‘But when we got there, they’d been stolen!’

‘Stolen?’

‘We’ve taken the matter up with the American authorities,’ Friedel says grimly. ‘It looks as if someone there has been poking around in the cellars. When it was obvious that we were going to end up at war, Christoph built a secret chamber and it made sense at the time to put all the princesses’ jewels safely together in a box which he hid under the flagstones and then bricked in. But someone must have noticed the new brickwork. They’d broken down the wall, lifted the flagstones and helped themselves to the jewels.’

‘It was such a shock!’ Margarita’s voice trembles at the memory. ‘That empty box! It was as if they had taken all our dignity away.’

‘We will have to rely on the Americans to get the jewels back,’ says Berthold.

‘Well, anyway, even before you arrived, Philip, we had decided not to be downcast about it,’ Dolla tells him. ‘We have endured worse than losing our jewels. It would have been nice to have put on a show for Sophie’s wedding, but we don’t need tiaras to hold our heads high.’

‘Good for you,’ Philip says, smiling at her. His sisters were tougher than he remembered.

‘And it means more to have you here than to have diamonds to wear,’ Margarita tells him fondly.

***

Sophie marries Georg in the chapel the next day. Her dress is old, even to Philip’s inexpert eye, and for a royal wedding, it is a quiet affair. But bride and groom look happy, which Philip supposes is the main thing, and Dolla and Berthold do their best to provide a wedding breakfast, helped along by another of Berthold’s secret visits to his cellar for champagne.

‘Your turn next, I hear?’ Berthold says to Philip when they are sitting over the remains of the meal.

Philip suppresses a sigh. ‘Nothing is settled yet. It may never happen, Berthold. Plenty of people don’t like the idea of Elizabeth marrying me.’

‘Because of us?’ Berthold glances around the room.

‘Partly. The German connection is never going to be helpful,’ Philip says honestly. ‘It’s unfair but there it is. Nothing is settled in Greece either, and until it is, it seems I can’t be naturalised as a British citizen. The King and Queen aren’t keen on me.’ He shrugs. ‘Meanwhile the gossip mills are going into overdrive. It was a relief to get away for a while,’ he admits. ‘And the truth is that I haven’t yet asked Elizabeth to marry me – or she hasn’t asked me, which I gather she has to do, technically.’

‘And what will you say if she does?’

Philip meets his brother-in-law’s eyes and smiles a little crookedly. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ he says.

Chapter 23

Café de Paris, Monte Carlo, April 1946

The white-jacketed waiter sets two martinis on the table in front of them and fades discreetly away. Philip picks his glass up and throws half the martini down his throat.

‘Steady on,’ says Mike. ‘You’ll be blotto before she gets here.’

‘That was the idea. It’s not every day you meet your father’s mistress for polite chit chat.’

The gin is a welcome burn at the back of his throat but Philip puts his glass down. After all the hugging and kissing and tears when he said goodbye to his sisters, he was glad to meet up with Mike Parker. A fellow naval officer, the Australian has been his friend and rival since their days based at Rosyth, escorting merchant navy ships down E-boat Alley. Mike can be counted on to offer undemanding company on Philip’s trip to Monaco. Philip is grateful for the moral support and the knowledge that Mike won’t weep on him or ask him how he feels about his father or anything else.

He is here in Monte Carlo to pick up Prince Andrea’s effects, but first he has to make the acquaintance of Comtesse Andrée de la Bigne. They have arranged to meet at the Café de Paris, which in other circumstances Philip would have enjoyed. The café is decorated in the belle époque style, with its elaborate light fittings and ornate décor, although its glory is faded like so much else after the war, and there is an air of faint desperation to its customers. Their once-fashionable clothes are shiny with use and threadbare beneath the women’s furs.

Of course, he is not one to talk, Philip thinks, wiggling his big toe under its latest darn.

He’s not sure why he feels so nervous. He can hardly remember his parents living together and although Princess Alice still thinks of herself as Andrea’s wife, his mother has been serenely accepting of the comtesse’s role in his father’s life. It is not as if the comtesse has been a secret either. The war might have made communication difficult, but letters have been going backwards and forwards via neutral countries. Even his grandmother, frosty-eyed in her apartment at Kensington Palace, had shown herself remarkably well-informed about his father’s affairs and had issued dire warnings when Philip had told her he was going to Monaco.

‘Don’t expect an inheritance,’ she said. ‘That woman will have sucked him dry. Such women generally do.’ She waved cigarette smoke from her face with a harsh, wheezing cough. ‘Be careful she doesn’t get her claws into you, Philip. You don’t want any association with that kind of woman getting back to the palace. If you take my advice – which I know you won’t because you never do – you’ll leave well alone. Your father was a wastrel.’