‘We don’t need your charity,’ says Margaret, giggling.

‘I’ll count to ten, then I’m coming after you.’

‘Oh, Cyril—’ Elizabeth begins in relief, spotting the footman coming down the corridor to clear the plates.

‘Cyril’s not going to save you,’ Philip interrupts her briskly. ‘Cyril, out of the way, that’s a good man. The princesses have a race to run. Are you ready?’ Encouraged to see that Elizabeth is starting to laugh helplessly, he holds out his fingers as an imaginary starting gun. ‘On your marks … get set … go!’

Shrieking, Margaret sets off, followed by Elizabeth, the puzzled corgi yapping at her heels.

‘Stop it, Susan,’ Elizabeth tries to shush her through her giggles as she runs after her sister.

The corridor is ringing with the sound of Margaret’s laughter, pounding feet, and barking.

‘… Seven, eight, nine, ten!’ Philip finishes quickly. ‘I’m coming to get you!’

Looking over their shoulders, the girls squeal with laughter at his mock growl. He pounds after them down the long palace corridors, past blank-faced footmen who flatten themselves against the walls as they pass, past priceless paintings and fragile porcelain vases, up and down the elaborately gilded staircases, and they are all breathless and laughing by the time they make it back to Elizabeth’s sitting room and flop into the pink and cream chintz armchairs.

‘I declare myself the winner,’ says Philip. ‘And Susan,’ he adds, pointing at the panting corgi, ‘you are the loser.’

‘Not fair!’ says Elizabeth, who has come in third. She is breathing hard and fanning her pink face with her hand, but she is going to stand up for her dog, who has flopped at her feet, stubby paws stretched out back and front, panting cheerfully. ‘Her legs are shorter than ours.’

‘I can’t help that. Susan knew the rules – and I did give you all a handicap.’

It was childish fun, but there was nothing wrong with a bit of nonsense now and then, and increasingly Philip finds himself looking forward to the cosy suppers at the palace.

Chapter 18

As February blows itself into March, it feels to Philip as if he is leading a strange kind of double life … actually, a triple life, when he comes to think about it. There are those innocent evenings at the palace, drinking orangeade and larking around in the corridors, and then there are the evenings he spends in London with David Milford Haven and other friends, drinking in smoky clubs, all of them struggling to adjust to the dull grind of peacetime life.

Then there is another world again, at HMS Arthur in Corsham, where he is training petty officers and sleeps in a chilly and sparsely furnished munitions hut with a tin roof. He spends his evenings in the Methuen Arms, drinking mild and bitter and playing darts or skittles and discussing the possibility of cricket in the summer. It is a long way from Buckingham Palace. The work is frankly dull after the excitement of the war, but he needs his first lieutenant’s salary, especially as his application for naturalisation is still stalled until the situation in Greece resolves itself. His future, it seems, is bound up with the British government’s Balkan diplomacy, with everyone waiting to see what the results of a plebiscite on the restoration of the Greek monarchy will be. Approving Philip’s application might make it seem that the British don’t hold out much hope for his uncle Georgie’s future, and until that is clear, Philip is stuck.