Philip is silent for a while, clearly thinking. Their footsteps make no sound on the wet grass but Elizabeth can hear the dogs trotting busily around them, a whirr of wings as one of them flushes a pheasant from cover. The slow, steady drip of damp from the trees.

‘All right, I’ll be honest,’ he says eventually. ‘I don’t know what I want. Uncle Dickie does think I should try and sweep you off your feet, but you’re not someone who can be swept away, are you?’

How little he knows about her, Elizabeth thinks. He has occupied her thoughts for two whole years. She is grateful for the stolid expression that makes her hard to read. Some things – many things, in fact – she prefers to keep to herself. She is only young, but she has her pride and she has no intention of letting Philip know how desperately she wants him.

Because what he says is only partly true. She can’t be swept away by emotion, but only because she won’t let herself. The strength of her own feelings frightens her at times, so she keeps them firmly locked down. She doesn’t dare let them go, not when she has seen the effect her father’s sudden outbursts of temper have on people around him. Not when she knows how her Uncle David was punished for giving in to his emotions.

‘It’s too hard to plan anything while we’re still at war,’ Philip goes on. ‘I never know if a torpedo has got my name on it, and I want to live. If this damnable war has taught us anything, surely it’s that we should make the most of our opportunities. There’s so much I’d like to see and do, so much to be discovered; the thought of being tied down makes me itchy.’

Elizabeth keeps her hands in her pockets and her eyes down. They haven’t all learnt the same thing from the war. It has taught her not about opportunity but the price of duty. The responsibility of leading a country at war has weighed heavily on her father. She has seen the hollow exhaustion in his eyes, the care carved into his face.

A lifetime of duty is not much to look forward to, but she has seen the cost of shirking duty too. Her Uncle David chose love over duty and was exiled not just from his country but from his family too. Elizabeth will not risk the same fate. She does not dare. Better by far to keep her feelings under tight control.

‘But one day,’ Philip says hesitantly, ‘after the war … if you’re still looking for a prince …’

‘I could keep you in mind, perhaps?’ she offers when he leaves the sentence dangling.

He looks at her seriously. ‘I hope you will,’ he says. ‘I hope, if nothing else, we can be friends.’

Elizabeth’s face relaxes into a smile. ‘I hope so too.’

‘Will you keep writing to me?’

‘If you’d like me to.’