She meets Margaret’s gaze. ‘I won’t give him up,’ she says.

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ Margaret says. ‘They won’t let you do an Uncle David. If you refuse to be Papa’s heir, then they would be left with me, and we all know what a disaster that would be.’

Elizabeth can hardly miss the thread of bitterness in her sister’s voice. ‘You’d be bored as Queen,’ she says lightly. ‘You’d have to behave yourself.’

If she wasn’t going to be Queen, would Philip even think of marrying her?

‘That’s true.’ Margaret threw herself carelessly back in her chair in a way she would never have dared if her mother had still been there. ‘It doesn’t sound any fun at all. You can keep the top job, Lil. You can always wait until you’re twenty-five and then you can marry who you want without Papa’s permission.’

Five years is a long time to wait. Elizabeth can’t see Philip having the patience for that.

She is going to have to do something.

Chapter 25

Balmoral Castle, August 1946

‘I’m perfectly capable of unpacking my own bag, dammit.’ Philip jerks an irritable shoulder as he stands at the window.

Behind him, the footman who has been assigned to act as his valet is laying out the meagre and much-patched contents of his solitary naval valise on the bed. Philip has driven himself to Balmoral, a long but exhilarating drive, and he hasn’t brought a valet with him. What does he need with a valet? True, John Dean, the Mountbattens’ butler, often ensures that he looks presentable in London, but he can hardly drag his uncle’s servant to Scotland without so much as a by-your-leave.

But it seems that he has miscalculated. The King, a stickler for convention, has insisted that he have a valet for his visit, and the dour Ewan, at least twice Philip’s age, is evidently under instructions not to be sent away.

Watching Ewan lay out his father’s threadbare dinner jacket without comment makes Philip more uncomfortable than he wants to admit. Next come the worn socks, all of them badly in need of a darn, and the scuffed walking shoes with an unmistakable hole in the sole.

Ewan studies the shoes for a moment. ‘Would you like these to be sent to the cobbler in the village, sir?’

Philip’s mouth twists with a mixture of embarrassment and impatience. ‘That would be helpful, yes,’ he manages to grind out.

Ewan pokes around in the valise. ‘And your spare shoes …?’

‘I’ve got what’s there. That’s it.’

The unpacking continues in disapproving silence. When everything is laid out on the bed, Ewan studies Philip’s wardrobe.

‘I see you have no kilt, sir.’

‘Do I look like a man who’d wear a bloody skirt?’

The footman’s expression is carefully blank but the atmosphere is frosty.

‘And pyjamas?’

‘Never wear the things. Can’t stand ’em.’

Nor does Philip possess plus fours for shooting or a gun of his own. He is wearing flannel trousers and an open-necked shirt but in spite of being in the middle of bloody nowhere, it appears something more formal is expected.

It’s too late now, Philip tells himself, shrugging off Ewan’s unspoken contempt. The man will get no kudos in the servants’ hall for looking after the penniless prince, that is obvious.

The main thing is that he is here. Invitations to Balmoral are an honour and he wonders how Elizabeth managed it. Reading between the lines, Philip gathers that neither the King nor the Queen were keen to invite him and although Elizabeth hasn’t said as much, he understands that the visit is something of a test, a chance for him to prove himself.

Well, he is ready for that. Uncle Dickie has warned that there are still problems with his naturalisation, largely thanks to his cousin George’s inability to deal with the communists in Greece, and there is no sign that the King is ready to give his daughter permission to marry, but Philip is determined to sort matters out with Elizabeth once and for all. There has been too much shilly-shallying.

Turning his back on Ewan’s carefully blank expression, Philip contemplates the view, such as it is. Heavy grey clouds slump over the landscape, obscuring the hills he drove through earlier, and the trees themselves seem to be sagging beneath the weight of the rain that has evidently been falling in sheets but has now slowed to a dreary mizzle. Scotland’s summer seems every bit as damp and dreich as its reputation.

His room is on the ground floor and about as far away from the bathroom as it is possible to get. Although apparently he is lucky that there is a bathroom at all. Modern conveniences are evidently an afterthought at Balmoral. Like the rest of the house – or at least what he has glimpsed of it so far – the room is decorated in a riot of tartan: tartan curtains, tartan carpet, tartan rug on the bed. There’s even a tartan soap dish on the old-fashioned washstand. Ewan has already informed him that hot water will be brought in a jug. A jug! Perhaps he’s lucky not to have been issued with a chamber pot.

Philip allows himself a wistful memory of the Mountbattens’ house, so comfortably equipped and convenient. What is it about the Windsors that makes them embrace frugality so eagerly? It’s almost as if they’re embarrassed by their own royalty.

Nothing appears to have changed at Balmoral since Queen Victoria’s day. On the way to his room, he was led down corridors crowded with gloomy landscapes – all too accurate judging by the view from Philip’s window – and moth-eaten antlers. The flocked wallpaper in his room is still marked with the old queen’s cypher, VRI. Philip traces it with his finger. Victoria Regina Imperatrix. Victoria, Queen and Empress.

And his great-grandmother, Philip reminds himself.

He may not be able to afford a new suit or plus fours, but he is as royal as Elizabeth. He has stayed at some of great palaces of Europe. He shouldn’t care what a footman thinks of his wardrobe.

But he still wishes the fellow would stop fussing around and go.

It is all worth it, though, when he goes along to the drawing room as commanded and Elizabeth comes towards him, holding out her hands. Her smile is so dazzling that Philip actually blinks. Recovering, he smiles back as he takes her hands and gives her fingers a meaningful squeeze. He even begins to lean down to kiss her on the cheek before he catches the King’s eye over her shoulder. The royal gaze is thunderous, and Philip, in a rare burst of discretion, straightens and steps back.

Still, he is glad that Elizabeth stays by his side as he goes to make his bow to the King, who is correctly dressed, unlike Philip. The buttons on his short jacket and waistcoat are bright, his kilt and sporran neat, his ghillie brogues polished to a shine. In person, though, the King is thin and prematurely stooped, and a muscle twitches under his eye.

‘What do you think you’re wearing?’ he barks. He can’t bear incorrect dress.

Philip looks down at his dinner jacket and trousers, annoyed to find he is glad Ewan polished up his old shoes without asking so at least they look respectable. ‘Sir?’

‘Papa, you can hardly expect Philip to have a kilt,’ Elizabeth puts in calmly.

‘I can expect him to be properly dressed,’ says the King, eying the bagginess around Philip’s shoulders with disfavour. ‘Where did you get that jacket from?’