She turns to Philip and deliberately changes the subject. ‘What was it like going back to Corsham?’

‘Very strange,’ he tells her. ‘One minute I’m on the balcony at Buckingham Palace waving at hundreds of thousands of people, the next I’m letting myself in to my quarters in a tin-roofed Nissen hut! Do you know, the press had got into my room and taken photographs of fascinating items such as my iron bedstead, or the mess of pipes and family photos on the chest of drawers! Who on earth is interested in this stuff?’

‘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.