Pip and Bernard lived as happily ever after as is possible when you're a striking lovely duke married to a handsome prince living in a beautiful palace, which, as it turns out, is pretty damn happy. Bernard did settle into managing his staff well when he had his own palace, and with Pip's encouragement, paid all his kitchen staff higher wages, giving them four weeks holiday every year.

They went riding every day, and Bernard secretly went looking for Pip's pony, Finn, to buy him back. Once he found him, there was a joyful reunion between the two old friends. It didn't matter that Pip was too big to ride Finn now – he was happy to simply walk beside Finn with his arm around him, catching up on everything they had missed in each other's lives, until their hearts were full.

Pip enjoyed painting, and his art tutor was extremely happy with his progress, but he was barred from ever becoming a famous artist. As Bernard said, it would be in the worst possible taste to charge money for his work when he was already so wealthy, and he would never know if people bought his work because he was good, or just because he was royal. He had to be content with his new role as official royal portrait artist, and being described as a "very talented amateur painter" by biographers.

Bernard and Pip didn't have to worry about not producing an heir, because Queen Dorothea gave birth to Prince Otto the spring after her honeymoon, naming him after her father. Two years later she and King Peter had Prince Sebastian, named after the king's father. Having produced the traditional heir and spare, nobody thought the king and queen would have any more children, until they welcomed Princess Lucy, and doted on her just as much as you can imagine.

Alice and Hugo were married in a ceremony of great splendour in Madrid, exactly six months after Pip and Bernard, and they soon had children too. There was Princess Sophia, Prince Ferdinand, Princess Charlotte, Prince Peter, Princess Ellen, and Princess Leonora, and how Alice and Hugo found royal spouses and kingdoms for all of them I don't know.

Lady Sybil Blessingberg didn't get married after all, saying she much preferred to be the mistress of a queen and king than the wife of a nobleman, and she became famous for her salons, where gathered the great wits and thinkers of the day. Her children were given the noble surname FitzPeters, and her son Roderick was created the Duke of Watford. His sister, Lady Clarissa FitzPeters, grew up to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, and widely known as The Fair Maid of Lindensea.

Finn was the pony that the royal children learned to ride upon, being patient and steady, and utterly trustworthy. The Amazing Sasha had retired from circus riding, as her old injury continued to bother her, and she was hired as the royal riding mistress. Under her training, all the royal children could ride bareback by the age of four, and ride standing on their hands by six.

In time, Bernard ascended the throne, and Pip became King Consort in their double coronation ceremony. Pip made Mr Robert Black the Poet Laureate, an occasion celebrated by the writing of an extremely long and gloomy epic where everybody died horribly then came back as ghosts to mourn the tragedy of it all.

In fact, Pip became an important patron of the arts, and did a lot of charity work for animal welfare. It was he who started The Watchman Foundation, which helps poor orphans by paying for their apprenticeships, while the King Philip Award is given annually to the animal who is happiest and best cared for.

King Bernard ruled with dignity and wisdom, and was greatly beloved by his people. His original regnal name had been Bernard the Explorer, but the palace chroniclers soon had to change it to Bernard the Benefactor.

Bernard was able to pass quite a few laws to make people's lives easier, such as granting pensions to the elderly, stopping child labour, and providing free education for children – three things which would have made this story quite impossible, so I feel sure it can never have happened again. He banned hunting in royal forests, closed down the bad, cruel orphanages, and tried to make lawyers more honourable, but gave it up as a lost cause.

I won't tell you who ruled after him, or what happened to all his many relatives, or I will be writing history, not fairy tale. Suffice to say that Pip and Bernard lived long lives, and loved every day of them together, which is the true essence of happy ever after. When trouble came, many years later, they were able face it together, standing shoulder to shoulder. And every spring they went to the woods so they could smell the heavenly scent of the bluebells, although those woods are long gone, the area become a vast public park.

The Evenstar Palace in Camden is a museum now, and if you visit it, which I recommend, you will find a glass case in which are displayed the original silver shoes that Pip wore to the ball. And then you will know this was all a true story, but don't bother looking through archives or reading royal biographies, because that's frightfully dull work, best suited to toiling authors, and not carefree readers.

I hesitate to assign a moral to this work, because although Pip was a good-hearted, hard-working boy who never gave up, he only got his happy ending due to luck – the luck of having a good witch as a guardian, who bestowed upon him a magician godfather. So may nature grant you the resilience, optimism, and talent necessary to make your dreams come true, and may life send the right people to help you, and then there's a good chance you too will live happily ever after.