‘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.

Uncle Dickie didn’t think about that when he was promoting the engagement, and now he’s in India and not available to ask for advice the one time Philip would welcome it.

Alice puts down her tea cup. ‘I have an idea,’ she says.

‘For once it’s a good one,’ the Dowager comments acidly as his mother shuffles out. ‘Not like staying in a war zone to feed orphans or deciding to become a nun!’ She shakes her head. ‘What can we do with her?’

Philip doesn’t answer. He is noticing how bent his mother is. Next to Elizabeth’s glowing youth, she seems thin and worn out by the privations of war.

When Alice comes back, she is carrying an old shoe bag. Elizabeth’s brows lift as his mother pulls open the drawstring and draws out what looks like a musty-smelling mess of yellowing cotton wool which she proceeds to pluck off until she is able to hold up a tarnished tiara.

‘Use the diamonds from this to make a ring,’ she says, passing it to Elizabeth who takes it, flustered. ‘Oh, but we couldn’t …’

‘What?’

Elizabeth clearly remembers the deafness issue. She looks into Alice’s face. ‘It’s lovely but it’s yours.’

‘And how much use do you think I have for tiaras nowadays?’ Alice’s smile is sweet and Philip is ambushed by a memory of her crouching down in a dusty garden somewhere, holding out her arms for him, smiling just like that.