‘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.

‘Well, it’s good to know you’re making yourself at home.’

Sitting beside her uncle, Elizabeth stiffens at the snide note in his voice. ‘Philip’s good at making a home,’ she says. ‘I never notice furnishings or anything like that, but he does. It’s wonderful the difference he’s made to the feel of my sitting room.’

‘Rather surprising,’ David says, ‘given that he’s never had a home of his own.’

Her uncle means it unpleasantly, Elizabeth knows, but it is true nonetheless. Surreptitiously, she studies Philip who is attacking his meal with a kind of furious energy. His brows are drawn together over the bridge of his nose.

She needs to remember that he has never known the security of a home and make allowances for his prickliness. This isn’t an easy situation for him, and if he can seem distant, well, when has she ever given him any indication that she would welcome more intimacy? That was not in their agreement. She can’t comfort him publicly, and she knows he wouldn’t want her to. But she can give him a home and a family of his own. She will ask her father again about refurbishing Clarence House.

***

As the days pass, Elizabeth lets herself relax. Philip goes grouse shooting with the King and wins her father’s approval by turning out to be a good shot. Sometimes she goes with them and follows the shoot, enjoying the crisp air and the pleasure on Philip’s face when he spots the lunch laid out in the rigged-up tent: venison pies and sausage rolls with Chelsea buns and sandwiches for tea.

There are picnics on the moors and a chance to walk through the pine forests. Sometimes she plays golf with Margaret and on wet days, there is a giant jigsaw puzzle set up on a table.