‘A lot of people, I’m afraid,’ Elizabeth says.

‘Did you see the papers?’ Philip demands. ‘I’ve been reading about myself as if I were some animal in the zoo,’ he grumbles. ‘People are stretching the vaguest connection with me. Apparently I’m bosom buddies with the local butcher and the undertaker and all sorts of other people I’ve nodded to once in passing. It turns out I have a green thumb, too. I bet you didn’t know that,’ he says with a sardonic look. ‘The base grew some prize-winning potatoes and it seems that’s all down to me too.’

He jerks his shoulders in a characteristically irritable gesture. ‘It’s all so … ridiculous!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Elizabeth murmurs and Margaret glares at her.

‘Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault!’

‘I can be sorry that Philip’s having a difficult time, can’t I?’

‘Margaret’s right.’ Unexpectedly, Philip sides with her sister. ‘I suppose I should have expected the attention. I just hadn’t thought it would be quite so … intrusive. I nearly didn’t play cricket last week, even though I’m on the team. We’ve been happily playing cricket, skittles, and darts against the pub team ever since I’ve been there, and I didn’t want to seem standoffish, so I went down to the Methuen Arms with the other chaps on the Navy team.’

‘What happened?’

‘There was dead silence when I walked in. Dennis, the landlord, was behind the bar and looked at me for a long moment before pulling a pint and pushing it across the bar to me. “This one’s on the house, lad,” he said.’ Philip grins at the memory. ‘Then there was a sort of cheer and a bit of back slapping and we all got on with the game, thank God.’

‘Never mind,’ Elizabeth says. ‘We’ll be in Balmoral soon, and there’ll be no one to stare at you there.’

She can’t wait to take the train north. She has been enjoying all the excitement of the engagement, of course, but the wedding plans are rapidly becoming overwhelming. She is yearning now for the quiet of the hills, to be out on a horse, or wriggling on her stomach through the heather. But something in the quality of Philip’s silence makes her pause.

‘You are coming, aren’t you?’ she asks anxiously.

‘I suppose I must,’ he says, pulling a face.

‘I thought you liked it last year.’ Elizabeth is dismayed by his lack of enthusiasm. Balmoral has always had a golden place in her memories but last year they took on an extra sheen. When things have been tense or fretful she has been able to take herself back to that morning by the loch, to remember the smell of the heather and the sound of curlew and the look on Philip’s face as he lowered her into the heather and she has steadied.

Philip pulls a face. ‘It’s hard to like being eaten alive by midges.’

Perhaps the midges are a pest but there is so much else to enjoy at Balmoral. Elizabeth wants Philip to think about that day by the loch too, but why should he? He has never pretended to be romantic. She tells herself she doesn’t mind when he is off hand with her, that the last thing she wants is to be pawed in public, but sometimes, secretly, she longs for him to tell her that their engagement means more than a dynastic union.

‘You don’t have to go stalking if you don’t want to,’ she tells him.

‘Your father won’t be happy if I’m not slaughtering some kind of wildlife,’ says Philip morosely.

‘You could try grouse shooting this year,’ she offers. ‘You always get a good lunch with that party.’

‘That’s something,’ he says with a grudging smile that vanishes when Margaret tells him with a needle-sharp smile that he will have to take a kilt to wear.

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s expected of members of the royal family, and that’s what you’ll be when you marry Lilibet.’

Philip turns an aggrieved gaze to Elizabeth. ‘Is that right?’

‘I’m afraid Papa is very particular about it,’ she says and he glowers.

‘God, that’s all I need, to be forced to wear a skirt! Talk about emasculated!’

‘It’s a kilt, not a skirt,’ Elizabeth says, quite sharply for her. ‘It’s part of Balmoral, Philip, and Margaret’s right. If you’re going to be part of the royal family, you’re going to have to wear one.’

Chapter 42

Balmoral Castle, August 1947

Having longed to be in Scotland and dreamt of rediscovering the happiness of the year before, Elizabeth doesn’t enjoy being at Balmoral as much as she usually does. This is partly due to Philip, who is deliberately making no effort to fit in as far as she can tell. He puts her father’s back up on the first night when he appears in the kilt he insists on describing as ‘cissy’ and drops a curtsey. The King is not amused.

‘It was a joke,’ Philip says, exasperated, when Elizabeth remonstrates with him.

‘Not a very funny one. Now Papa will be cross all evening. I know this isn’t your idea of fun, Philip, but do try and fit in.’

‘I can’t fit in,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been to the right school. If I’d been to Eton, I’d be able to toady along with everyone else. Is that what you’d prefer?’

‘You know it isn’t,’ she says evenly. ‘Nobody’s asking you to be a toady. Just to be a little less … brusque.’

‘These old courtiers want me to sit quietly and not have an opinion. Why should I?’ Philip demands. ‘I’ve fought for this country. I’m entitled to a point of view!’

‘Of course you are,’ Elizabeth says, picking her words with care. ‘Perhaps you don’t have to voice it quite so forcefully though.’

Philip makes an irritable gesture. ‘None of them want me here. They think I’m not good enough for you.’

‘Oh, Philip that’s not true! They just think your manners can be a little rough sometimes.’

‘Do you know what Margaret told me?’ he goes on, evidently not listening to her. ‘That it was Peter Townsend’s idea to invite me here last year to see if I could behave myself properly! What infernal cheek!’ Philip paces around the room. ‘Townsend! The ultimate in middle-class values and a dead bore besides! How dare he presume to judge how I’d fit in? My mother was born in Windsor Castle in the presence of Queen Victoria herself. You don’t get to be more of an insider than that!’

Philip’s prickly refusal to be conciliatory makes for an awkward atmosphere at times, but it is not all his fault. Elizabeth overhears plenty of subtle barbs and put downs and it is exhausting trying to keep the peace. After the disastrous kilt incident, her father recovers his good humour and her mother is invariably charming, but some of the other guests seem to go out of their way to make Philip feel unwelcome.

Her uncle, David Bowes-Lyon, is one of the worst offenders. ‘I hear you’ve been rearranging the furniture at Buckingham Palace,’ he says to Philip across the dinner table. ‘How very domestic of you!’

‘Only in Elizabeth’s sitting room,’ Philip says.