‘Oh, for God’s sake! It was just a bit of harmless fun. Nobody was hurt.’

‘I understand it caused a good deal of damage, not to mention embarrassment.’

‘No one was embarrassed,’ Philip insists, glowering, and Elizabeth looks him straight in the eye.

‘I’m embarrassed,’ she says. ‘My future husband, my future consort, thinks it’s funny to drink too much and throw smoke bombs around, not caring about anybody who might be shocked or inconvenienced. Of course I’m embarrassed, and the King is embarrassed, and you should be embarrassed too.’

‘Oh, right, so I can’t even have a good time with my friends anymore?’ Philip demands. ‘I’m dogged wherever I go by bloody reporters. I can’t do anything without that old monster Tommy Lascelles hauling me over the coals! What am I allowed to do, Elizabeth? Stand to attention like a stuffed dummy with my hands tied behind my back? What kind of life is that?

‘You knew what life as a member of the royal family would be,’ she points out. Philip’s anger is making her feel nauseous, but they need to have this out. She can’t back down now.

‘I didn’t know it would be as bad as this!’ Philip hunches a sullen shoulder. ‘I didn’t think it would be … like this. Stupid of me.’

Elizabeth’s hands are folded at her waist. She makes herself take a breath, keep her voice even. ‘Do you want to change your mind, Philip?’

‘I can’t, can I?’ He paces away from her, then back. ‘You saw all those presents. People have made sacrifices for us. We can hardly send them all back and say, sorry, we changed our minds. It’s all gone too far to stop now.’

It is not what Elizabeth wants to hear. All he needed to say was no, I haven’t changed my mind, but instead he is feeling trapped. If he could change his mind, he would: that’s what he is saying, and her throat burns with disappointment.

‘It would certainly be awkward,’ she says in a level voice even as the forbidden anger burns through her. ‘But it would be better than being trapped in a marriage you will regret. I thought we had an agreement, Philip,’ she goes on. ‘I know you don’t want to marry me. I know you don’t love me. You’ve never pretended you did, and I’ve appreciated your honesty. You’ve made it perfectly clear you wanted to marry me because I’m heir to the throne. You wanted the position. Well, this is the position.

‘No, wait,’ she says, lifting a hand as Philip opens his mouth to remonstrate. ‘Don’t say anything yet. Take a good look at yourself and what you want. Think what being married involves,’ she tells him, ‘because after 20^th November, there will be no going back. There will be no divorce and no chance of one, and you won’t be able to follow your father’s example and lead a separate life that suits you. That is not going to happen,’ she says clearly, coldly, because that is more controllable than the anger roiling along her veins.