‘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.