Philip can adapt to all three worlds – he’s good at adapting – but he feels at home in none of them.

‘How are things going with Elizabeth?’ Uncle Dickie asks whenever Philip sees him in Chester Street, and Philip always answers the same way.

‘Fine.’

‘Any sign of being able to move matters forward?’ his uncle asks hopefully at the beginning of March when Philip encounters him at the breakfast table.

Waving away the butler’s attempt to serve him, Philip pours himself a cup of tea and tries to ignore the pounding in his head. Definitely one too many martinis last night.

‘I’m taking it slowly.’

‘Well, don’t take it too slowly, or she’ll think you’re not interested. We don’t want anyone else to swoop in and bowl her over.’

Philip bites down on the impulse to tell his uncle to butt out and let him manage his affair with Elizabeth in his own way.

‘There isn’t anyone else,’ he says.

‘That you know of,’ says Mountbatten darkly. ‘What about Henry Porchester?’

‘He’s just a friend.’

But there had been that one weekend when Philip was invited to Windsor and he saw Elizabeth in the stables. She was a different girl with horses: easy, confident, affectionate. Philip watched her stroking a horse’s nose and laughing as it nuzzled her hair and found himself wishing she was that comfortable about touching him. It had come to something when he was jealous of a horse!

Of course Porchey was there, too, looking good in the saddle and chatting easily to Elizabeth about bloodlines or hocks or something horsey that Philip knew nothing about. Philip watched closely but he couldn’t detect anything other than friendliness in the way Elizabeth treated Porchester.

She prefers him, he is sure of it.

At least, he thinks he is.

In spite of all the cosy evenings at the palace, he has barely got beyond occasionally touching Elizabeth’s back. Sometimes he offers a hand to help her up, or takes her elbow to steer her round a puddle, and very occasionally he is able to manoeuvre his chair so his knee can brush against hers, but she hasn’t given any indication that she wants any more from him.

It doesn’t help that Margaret is usually there. This is deliberate on the Queen’s part, Philip suspects. Her brother, David Bowes-Lyon, has taken against Philip and the feeling is mutual. In Philip’s book, Bowes-Lyon is a slimy, vicious gossip. He is damned if he is going to ingratiate himself with the man, but it has cost him an ally in the Queen.

Still, the estimable Miss Crawford does try and draw Margaret away when Philip is around so he can be alone with Elizabeth sometimes. The best times are when his cousin Marina, Duchess of Kent, invites him and Elizabeth to lunch at Coppins. Philip suspects this may be at Mountbatten’s instigation but he doesn’t protest. Elizabeth is always more relaxed in the country and Philip enjoys driving her down in his sports car. At least Marina is subtler about pushing them together than his uncle.