She would never again be referred to as ‘Maggie’s spinster daughter’.

Now her mother had a different refrain: ‘You have left it very late to make me a grandmother.’

Marion wanted to slap her. But she didn’t. With a smile she answered, ‘Mother, I am only thirty-eight and there is nothing you can say to suffocate my happiness.’

‘I am only just saying it for your own good. I don’t want you to be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.’

‘Mother! For goodness’ sake – I am a grown women who has lived in London these past fifteen years. I have lived through the war and kept the Princesses safe from the bombings that tore London apart.’

‘You are not the only person to have seen the bombs, you know. We had two nights of it. Your father and I saw the bombers coming in – we heard them drop fifty miles away on Clydebank. The sky was scarlet. Don’t think we don’t know about the horrors of war.’

‘Mother, that’s not what I am saying – you know that.’

Maggie went into one of her sulks, bottom lip sticking out.

Marion ignored it. She shut her eyes. Soon she’d be snug in her own little home.

She got up. ‘Shall I make you a tea?’

The King and Queen had offered her a grace-and-favour house, a red-brick cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace called Nottingham Cottage. She had been to look at it on her own and reported back to George. It was such a dear little place – and designed by Sir Christopher Wren! It needed some attention, but it had a small garden, with a little white fence and roses round the door. Inside there was a tiny but dear little kitchen, a dining room and sitting room and two bedrooms. Marion had agreed to sleep Monday to Thursday nights at the Palace until Lilibet was married, and to spend her weekends with George. His bank had finally agreed to transfer him to the London branch.

She couldn’t wait to have her own front door.

She could have a cat if she wanted. Or a little dog. Pets are good for young children.

A baby of her own.

She longed for a baby.

Or two.

A boy first, followed by a baby girl.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the men, back from their day of golf. George came straight to the kitchen to kiss her. ‘Mmm. Something smells good.’

‘Shepherd’s pie.’ Marion smiled.

‘I mean you. You smell good.’

Marion’s heart melted. ‘Don’t be so silly.’

‘I can’t wait to be married.’ He slipped his hand from her hip to her bottom.

‘George, don’t. Mother and Dad might come in.’

‘I can’t wait for our wedding night,’ he murmured, squeezing her buttock a little harder.

She wriggled away from him, and began mashing the boiled potatoes for the shepherd’s pie topping. Marion was completely unversed in the physical side of love and had never had a close enough female friend to share the essential information. The only thing her mother had ever told her was, ‘Men can get overexcited. You have to be careful.’ Well George had been very excited on several occasions but she had never seen him naked and she had always, very definitely, kept all her clothes on. Her only preparation for her wedding night was to buy a pretty cotton nightdress with small buttons down the back which the saleslady had told her would be ‘tantalizing’. Marion’s word for it was ‘terrifying’.