How he has missed this, Philip realises. The teasing and the reminiscences, the jokes and the laughter. Thinking about his mother usually leaves him seething with conflicting emotions but here with his sisters, he is at last able to see the funny side.

Remember how she used to bless her teacups?

What about the time she climbed out of the window with a bundle of laundry?

Don’t forget when she decided she was a saint and bride of Christ. That creepy smile she had!

‘Oh, it’s not funny really,’ Dolla says as one story follows another and they are all laughing helplessly.

No, not funny, Philip thinks, but this is the first time he has been able to listen to stories of his mother told with affection. The first time he has been able to laugh about her with people who loved her as much as he did.

He belongs here in a way he never has anywhere else, except perhaps on the deck of a warship.

‘It’s a shame Mama couldn’t be here,’ Margarita says as Theodora sends Berthold to find another bottle of the wine secreted in the cellars.

‘I did ask her,’ says Sophie. ‘But how would she have got here from Athens? It’s impossible trying to move around at the moment.’

‘Philip managed it,’ Berthold points out.

‘Philip is resourceful, and a young man. I can’t see Mama hitching a lift in an army truck, can you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Your mother has no sense of grandeur. I’ve never met anyone who behaves less like a princess. She would be quite happy in the back of a truck.’

‘That’s true,’ says Theodora with a sigh. ‘I think she is safer in Athens, in any case. Although she would probably approve of how dull we are going to look at the wedding tomorrow. Didn’t Tiny tell you?’ she asks when Philip looks enquiring.

‘Tell me what?’

Sophie’s hand flies to her mouth. ‘Can you believe I forgot? That is the good thing about you coming, Philip. We were all in shock about the jewels, but you arriving quite knocked all that out of our heads.’

‘What jewels?’ he asks.

‘All the Hesse family jewels! Diamonds, rubies, emeralds … necklaces, tiaras … even some letters from Queen Victoria … everything of value we had.’ Sophie sighs. ‘Remember I told you that we didn’t have time to take them when we left Friedrichshof? Well, we asked permission to go back and retrieve them and Dolla, Margarita, and I went there yesterday.’

‘We wanted to put on a show for the wedding,’ Margarita puts in.

‘But when we got there, they’d been stolen!’

‘Stolen?’

‘We’ve taken the matter up with the American authorities,’ Friedel says grimly. ‘It looks as if someone there has been poking around in the cellars. When it was obvious that we were going to end up at war, Christoph built a secret chamber and it made sense at the time to put all the princesses’ jewels safely together in a box which he hid under the flagstones and then bricked in. But someone must have noticed the new brickwork. They’d broken down the wall, lifted the flagstones and helped themselves to the jewels.’