‘More than a while. We’ll be gone three months!’

‘It’s not that long.’

‘It is when you’re in love,’ Elizabeth says.

Margaret raises her brows. ‘Are you in love with Philip?’

‘Of course I am!’

‘It’s just that it’s hard to tell sometimes. You seem so cool about him.’

Cool? Elizabeth thinks about the heat that trembles and flares inside her whenever she looks at Philip’s mouth, about the way the merest brush of his hand leaves warmth simmering long after his touch.

Margaret wants her to swing around lamp posts and scatter rose petals as she runs singing through a meadow. She wants her to hang around Philip’s neck and shower him with kisses to prove her love.

But Elizabeth can’t do that. Her feelings for Philip are so strong that the only way she can control them is to bank them down, to bury them beneath a layer of cool composure. As it is, she is afraid they will spill over and leave her vulnerable to embarrassment and jeering.

To prurient speculation and avid public interest.

To Philip’s rejection.

That would be worst of all. She has been so careful not to make him feel awkward. Elizabeth fears that if he knew just how deeply she feels about him, he would regret asking her to marry him. When it comes down to it, they have made an arrangement. They have been clear with each other. It is not a love match. She saw the relief in Philip’s face when she told him she would make no messy emotional demands of him.

Very carefully, she sets Philip’s photo on the chest of drawers where a raised ridge has been added to stop items falling off when the ship tilts. The sleet is rattling against the porthole in a blur of white.

‘Philip and I don’t need to make a big show of how we feel,’ she tells her sister.

‘Well, as long as you know,’ Margaret says doubtfully. ‘I like Philip, but he can be a bit off-hand with you, I think. I’m not the only one who has noticed either. He’s not exactly devoted, is he? I can’t imagine him whispering sweet nothings in your ear.’

Nor can Elizabeth.

‘I like that he doesn’t paw me in public,’ she says. ‘I would hate it if he hung over me. It would be embarrassing.’

‘I just hope he’s more attentive behind closed doors, that’s all.’

Elizabeth doesn’t meet her sister’s gaze. She straightens the photo and lets her gaze rest on Philip’s face, on his mouth. How could she possibly explain to Margaret the dark knot of emotions that tangle around her whenever Philip is near? Desire and anticipation, nervousness and fear, guilt and exultation, all tumbling together to leave her edgy and unsure of everything but the fact that she loves him.

She is holding on to that.

She knows Philip can come across as arrogant. He is quick-tempered and impatient of pretentiousness and deference. Sometimes, yes, he is off-hand with her. He isn’t attentive but he teases her and disagrees with her and tells her exactly what he thinks. He doesn’t love her, but he likes her and he treats her like a woman instead of a princess. That is enough for Elizabeth.

‘We’re happy,’ she tells Margaret, uncomfortably aware of the defensive note in her voice. ‘Or we would be if Papa would just let us marry.’

‘He won’t be able to say no when we get back from South Africa,’ Margaret reassures her and Elizabeth sighs and touches Philip’s photo one last time before turning away.

‘I hope you’re right.’

As HMS Vanguard ploughs on into the Atlantic Ocean, the swell gets heavier and the wind more brutal. It screams past the portholes, sprays the deck with sleet and whips up great waves that send the ship pitching and lurching. Long before they reach the Bay of Biscay, Elizabeth is miserably seasick. She lies in her bunk and keeps her eyes fixed on Philip’s photo. If she dies, she will never see him again. That’s all she can think, but sometimes the sickness is so bad she wants only to die anyway.

Margaret doesn’t help by regularly bouncing into Elizabeth’s cabin and demanding to know if she is better yet. ‘Everybody’s miserable except me and Peter,’ she declares.

‘Peter?’

‘Yes, Peter. Peter.’ Margaret stares at her. ‘Gosh, you must be sick if you can’t remember Peter! He’s Papa’s equerry, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Urghh.’ It’s the best Elizabeth can manage.

‘Peter and I have been out on deck,’ Margaret rattles on. ‘It’s not as bad as it was. I had to hold on to him when we first went out, the wind was so strong but it was fun. And then we were both starving so Peter asked if we could have some lunch and we had the most delicious shepherd’s pie—’ She stops as Elizabeth beckons her closer. ‘What, Lil?’

‘I hate you, Margaret,’ Elizabeth says, weak but perfectly distinct. ‘Go away.’

Margaret only laughs merrily and dances out while Elizabeth turns her face to the wall with a groan.

***

It is two days before Elizabeth can sit up, three before she can leave the cabin on shaky legs. It is like venturing into a new world. The wind has dropped, the seas have quietened and the sun glitters on a dazzling expanse of water. Whichever way she looks there is only space and light.

She stands at the rail, breathing in the ozone, astounded by the power of the ocean. Vanguard steams on, engines throbbing, while the breeze lifts her hair and her spirits rise in response. She can barely remember life before the war. Since then it has been a dreary world, a world of dim lights and grey weather and rationing and making do, even at Buckingham Palace. All this glitter, all this light, feels like a gift. Elizabeth feels as if she has been cut loose, untethered, and she grips the rail almost as if she might float away.

Was this what it was like for Philip on board ship? Did he feel the same swell of the heart, the same expansion of the lungs? No wonder teaching at Corsham has seemed dull and unsatisfying. No wonder he hates the constriction of a tie and the stuffy culture at court.

Slowly, the rest of the household grope their way onto the deck as their stomachs settle and their legs steady. Elizabeth spends a whole day just sitting in a deckchair looking at the sea and marvelling at the sparkling swell and surge of the ocean. She misses Philip but she is not sorry to be here, overwhelmed by the power of it. Never has she felt so insignificant and yet so at ease. Never has she seen a horizon so vast. She is transformed by it.

Elizabeth hasn’t expected this chance to let go of everything. Responsibility has evaporated in the sparkling air. Isolated on board Vanguard, she lets herself forget the bitter winter being endured by people at home. She forgets the frustrations of Greek politics and her father’s intransigence. She doesn’t forget Philip, of course, but the missing him is less raw on the ship. There is something about being out there on the ocean, knowing that there is nothing she can do, nothing she can say that will make any difference to anything until they get to the end of the voyage.

It’s a kind of freedom.

Her parents, her sister, a household of ten travelling with them. And the officers and crew. There is nobody staring, nobody waving, nobody calling out intrusive questions. To her surprise, Elizabeth realises that Margaret is right: they can enjoy these three weeks at sea.

And she does. She and Margaret play tag and other silly deck games with the younger officers. They play deck quoits and badminton and take part in shooting contests. When they cross the equator, they enjoy the ceremony of crossing the line. Elizabeth writes to Philip about the crew dressed in wigs and skirts, about dunking other novices who have never crossed the equator before. She and Margaret are disappointed by the tameness of their own initiation, she tells Philip in the letter she writes to him that night.