‘I don’t blame her,’ he says. ‘She was ill.’

‘I know she was.’

‘Everyone thinks I’m embarrassed about her but I’m not,’ Philip says, as if she has contradicted him. ‘I’m proud of her. She isn’t afraid of anything. The rest of the royal family left Greece after 1941, but my mother stuck it out in terrible conditions during the occupation. In the last few months before the end of the war, she survived on bread and butter and she gave away every other scrap of food she could find to people she said needed it more than she did.

‘It was even more dangerous in Athens after the liberation,’ he goes on. ‘The communists were fighting the British for control and there was a strict curfew but my mother insisted on going out anyway to distribute food to children. She told me yesterday that the British forces tried to get her to stay inside because it wasn’t safe. They were worried she might be hit by a stray bullet, but she just shrugged. Apparently she reminded them of the saying that you don’t hear the shot that kills you. “I’m deaf in any case,” she said, “so why worry about that?”’

‘I’d forgotten that she is deaf,’ Elizabeth says. ‘It must be hard for her.’

‘She lipreads very well but her voice … she doesn’t have the same tone as people who can hear,’ Philip says. ‘I never thought about it as a child, but I can hear it now. There’s no getting away from the fact that she can seem strange, Elizabeth. She’s not like other royals. My sisters can put on a show. They know how to be royal; they’ve been doing it all their lives. And you can rely on cousins like Sandra to put on tiaras and behave. But my mother?’ He lifts his shoulders. ‘No, she’s different. If we ever get to a wedding, I’m warning you now that there’ll be pressure to hide her away.’

‘No.’ Elizabeth’s voice is quiet but firm. ‘That won’t happen, Philip, I promise you. She’s your mother. She’ll be there.’

Chapter 37

London, June 1947

The meeting between Elizabeth and Princess Alice goes better than Philip has expected. Proud of his mother he may be, but Elizabeth can never have encountered anyone quite so unimpressed by her position or so unconcerned with protocol.

But then, his mother is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is not impressed by royalty.

Alice takes Elizabeth’s face between her weathered hands and looks deep into her eyes. ‘Yes, good,’ she decides. ‘You will do.’

‘Mama …’ Philip begins, embarrassed, but Elizabeth gestures to him to be quiet and in any case, his mother hasn’t heard him.

‘Am I good enough for Philip?’ Elizabeth asks, smiling, and Alice laughs as she drops her hands.

‘Yes, you have true eyes. And you speak slowly and clearly. This makes me very happy.’

‘I’m used to adjusting my speech to match Papa’s,’ Elizabeth says. ‘Sometimes he struggles to get the words out and it’s easier if we all slow down.’

Miss Pye, his grandmother’s ancient maid, totters in with a tea tray and Philip gets quickly to his feet. ‘Let me take that, Piecrust,’ he says, using the nickname he and David have given her which always makes her tut with a mixture of pleasure and disapproval. Overriding her protests, he sets the tray safely on a table next to his grandmother who frowns at his interaction with her maid. She and Miss Pye are devoted to each other, but the Dowager Duchess of Milford Haven doesn’t believe in familiarity with servants.

‘I’ll pour, Pye,’ she says. ‘You may go.’

The maid creaks out of the room after a shaky curtsey to Elizabeth. She is surely ready for a pension, but would be deeply offended if Philip suggested it, he knows. And who else would put up with his grandmother?

His grandmother pours and Philip is ordered to pass around the cups and saucers. Like everything else in this apartment, the tea service has seen better days. The once exquisite Meissen porcelain is cracked and chipped in places and he appreciates that Elizabeth doesn’t appear to notice how faded and musty-smelling the apartment is, from the tattered curtains to the threadbare rug laid over the floorboards.

Uncle Dickie has frequently offered to help his mother financially, but the Dowager seems to like the heavy Victorian furniture and general air of gloom and Philip refuses to be embarrassed by the contrast between Elizabeth, fresh-faced and glowing in her blue dress, and his decrepit relatives. The whole country is shabby at the moment, not just his grandmother. Judging by what he saw in Germany last year, things are not as hard here in Britain, but people still look tired and worn down. It makes him realise just how much Elizabeth symbolises hope for the future for so many people.

His eyes rest on her as she perches on the edge of the sofa, cup and saucer in her hand. Like his mother and grandmother, her back is perfectly straight. None of the women, he guesses, would ever dream of slumping into an armchair.

He likes the way she is careful to turn her head so his mother can read her lips. He likes the contrast between the discipline of her posture and the softness of her body, the passion that he senses is so closely guarded beneath her careful behaviour. It is a secret thrill to know that he will be the only one who will ever get the chance to unwrap all that restraint, all that control, and discover the warmth at the core of Elizabeth.

Her feet are placed neatly together, every hair is in place. It will be fun to muss her up a little, Philip thinks, letting his gaze drift up to her knees and to the modest cleavage. She has beautiful skin, clear and dewy, tantalisingly touchable, although obviously nobody is allowed to touch it. Her husband will be, he reminds himself with an inward smile. His eyes move on up the clean line of her throat to the curve of her mouth, the sweep of her jaw, the lovely clear blue of her eyes and the soft wave of her hair.

‘Time you were married,’ the Dowager says in the German accent she has never lost and he looks up with a start to realise that she has been watching him watching Elizabeth. ‘High time,’ she says with a minatory look and Philip has the alarming sensation that his tongue has been hanging out.

Swallowing firmly, he clears his throat. His grandmother can be alarmingly perceptive when she wants to be. He wouldn’t put it past her to have seen exactly what thoughts were going through his mind, and the idea makes him cringe inwardly.

‘The King doesn’t want to make an announcement until July,’ he says, uncomfortably aware of the dull colour in his cheeks.

‘Pah, that is just politics.’ The Dowager dismisses that with an abrupt wave of her hand. ‘You should be moving things on anyway.’

‘How?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘Nothing can happen while Papa withholds his consent.’

‘It’s not so long until July,’ the Dowager points out. ‘What about a ring? You will need to be ready as soon as the announcement is made.’ She turns her steely gaze on him. ‘What are your plans, Philip?’

‘I was hoping you weren’t going to ask that,’ Philip says. He has been worrying about buying an engagement ring. He has his lieutenant’s salary, but that is it: how the hell is he going to be able to afford a ring fit for a princess? He’s seen the jewels that she was given in South Africa; there is no way he could buy anything to compare and he can hardly offer Elizabeth a chip of a diamond.