‘Remember? Remember? I remember when I first met you. I was smitten, not by your beauty, you were far too dusky for that (Ho! The courtiers called you all manner of things), but by your sweet disposition. Moreover, you gave me fifteen children. I still think twenty would have been a nice round number. Were they all mine, darling? Give me a kiss, my lovely.’

‘Dislocated mandibles cracking against each other is very unbecoming, George.’

‘If you say so. What about our granddaughter, Chubby Chops Victoria? Still mourning Albert? Playing the martyr? Hanging on to the throne for dear life?’

‘As you well know, Victoria is with us down here, along with most of her nine children, who are always visiting and whom she cunningly married off into nearly all the royal houses of Europe. I like to think there’s a little bit of me spread out all over the Continent.’

‘Steady on, old girl. A little bit of me too.’

‘We rather hope not, sweetheart.’

‘So – who is running the show now?’

‘Elizabeth, of course.’

‘Good grief. She still at it? Four hundred years on the throne. Found herself a boyfriend yet?’

‘No, darling, not Elizabeth the First. Elizabeth the Second. You know, little Lizbet – horses, corgis and foxes. That one. Married that Phil bloke who keeps putting his foot in his mouth.’

‘I say, very unhygienic, what! Is she any good at the job?’ ‘Stable, respectable, iconic, stoic and dripping in obscene wealth.’ ‘Glad to hear we’re still minted and the people haven’t got their dirty little fingers on it yet. Any children?’

‘Only four, which is quite the sensible thing. All alive and often misbehaving.’

‘Am I alive, Lottie? Or have I kicked the bucket?’

‘A long time ago, George. Now to sleep. You mustn’t upset yourself.’

‘Will you tuck me in?’

‘Yes, dear. I will throw a few handfuls of dust on you if it will help you sleep.’

‘Nightie, night, my darling.’

‘Goodnight, dear.’

‘God Save the King.’

‘God help us all, George.’

The content of their conversations wavered, but never the tenor. What did they have to say to each other after two hundred and twenty-eight years of marriage?

Charlotte began to pace up and down the crypt, bristling with her favourite preoccupation. Where did she come from? It was always to George’s credit that he did not show his disappointment when they first met in 1761. He had married her by proxy and unseen, after envoys had been dispatched across Europe and Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany was chosen to marry King George III of England.