‘I remember watching you over my partner’s shoulder,’ she says. ‘It always seemed to me that you were very well pleased with your partner.’

‘I was just being polite,’ he says virtuously. ‘It was you I wanted to dance with.’ He pulls her closer. ‘And now I can.’

It is a happy summer for Elizabeth. She now has a private secretary of her own – Jock Colville – to advise her and manage her diary. She has her own car, a Daimler. She is busy with engagements, and now when she hears the shouts of ‘Where’s Philip?’ she isn’t distressed, because she knows where he is and that he wants to marry her.

She is even enjoying social occasions more than she used to. The visit to South Africa has given her more confidence, and she is more relaxed and better at talking to people. Her favourite times, though, are when she and Philip are alone. Whenever he can, he drives up from Corsham and parks openly in the palace courtyard. Sometimes, he pulls the roof of the sports car back and she ties a scarf firmly over her hair to stop it blowing around and they go out to Richmond Park. Wearing sunglasses, they can sit on a bench and nobody gives them a second look. They are just another courting couple enjoying the greenness and the space of the park.

Of course, there is green and there is space at Windsor, but there is something thrilling about the anonymity of the park, of pretending that they are just like any other couple. Philip rests his arm along the back of the bench behind her and his fingers graze her shoulder. He takes her to see Oklahoma! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and he holds her hand in the dark. When he dances with her, he holds her close, and his nearness makes her hazy with longing.

Oh, Elizabeth knows it is tame stuff for many of her contemporaries but sitting close to him, feeling him male and solid beside her, is enough to make her blood beat low and heavy, to set up a fine quiver in her belly.

She longs to be married, but still her father insists that an announcement must wait and the strain is taking its toll on Philip who can be irritable and tense at times. So when he asks her if she will meet his mother, Elizabeth says yes straight away.

‘Is she in London now?’

‘She’s staying with my grandmother at the moment. Rather her than me,’ Philip says with a wry look. ‘Grandmama’s apartments are draughty and uncomfortable and she sits all day in her chair smoking and complaining.’

‘What about?’

‘Oh, everything. Mostly about her husband having to renounce his – and her – royal titles in 1917. It’s only been thirty years but my grandmother likes to collect grievances. My mother isn’t like that at all, so I’m not sure how long the visit will last! I may have to help her to find an apartment of her own.’