‘Because your papa would want us to celebrate meeting at last. There will be time to be sad later.’

Her charm was a tangible thing. It was impossible not to like her. Philip was mesmerised by the husky laugh, the humorous lilt in her voice. She was beautiful, he decided. In her fifties, perhaps, but aging so gracefully that the faint lines only added to the character of her face.

After joining them in a glass of champagne, Mike made his excuses and discreetly left them to it.

‘What a good friend he is,’ the comtesse comments before she turns back to Philip. ‘But I confess, I am glad to be alone with you so we can get to know each other properly. I have heard so much of you from Andrea. He was so very proud of you.’

Halfway through the bottle, she and Philip are getting on like the proverbial house on fire, and Philip is feeling decidedly tipsy. ‘I understand now why my father was so happy to stay here in Monte Carlo,’ he says. He has a feeling he might be looking a bit owlish but doesn’t care. ‘If he had you for company, Comtesse, he must have been a happy man.’

‘Ah, Philip …’ She pats his cheek. ‘You have his charm! But you know, your father was not a happy man.’

‘I remember him as happy,’ Philip says stubbornly. ‘He was always joking and making everyone laugh. He had a real ability to see the funny side of life.’

‘That, yes.’ The comtesse shrugs in the way only a Frenchwoman can. ‘But he wasn’t happy. He was in exile. How could he be completely happy when he could not go home?’

‘But it had been years since he was in Greece!’

‘It was still his home, and no one can be truly happy if they cannot go home.’

‘That rather depends on whether you have a home to go to, doesn’t it?’ Philip asks and she looks at him closely.

‘Where is home to you?’

‘I don’t have one,’ he says. ‘I haven’t had a home since my parents fled Crete and I was barely more than a baby.’

The Comtesse shakes her head. ‘Then you must find a home, Philip. Find a place you can belong and be happy.’

Later, she takes him to the villa where she is staying and shows him into a room where his father’s effects are laid out on a bed. ‘I will leave you alone,’ she says with a glance at his face.

Philip walks over to the bed. Andrea’s gold signet ring is there. He slides it onto his little finger where it sits, a cool, unfamiliar weight, a part of his father that is now a part of him.

There is an ivory shaving brush, some books, some pictures. Clothes, mostly motheaten and heavily darned. It is not much to show for a life, let alone for a life as the son of a king. Philip’s chest aches as he touches the items gently and remembers his father, the chuckle in his voice, the kindness and the genial charm.