Alice watched Teddy’s eyes follow the young woman. She was wearing a long pale-pink gown that snagged on her hip bones, a tiara atop her blonde hair, which fell in glossy curls around her shoulders. Lordy, how Alice wished something would snag on her hip bones. Most of the debutantes looked like supermodels and Alice cursed herself again. You can’t disappear in a place like this. As Teddy’s eyes tracked the girl in pale pink around the room, Alice felt a deep ache tugging in her chest. Would anyone ever look at her that way?

‘She’s out of your league,’ she said, and smirked again. Why did she always smirk so much around Teddy?

He cocked his head as though considering this. It had been a while since Alice had last seen him. It was the previous summer at The Hurlingham Club (with the unforgettable chunky incident: she’d beaten him at tennis and he’d attributed this to her chunky thighs, making her four brothers roar with laughter). He’d spent October half term in Hong Kong with a cousin, rather than with them as sometimes happened. She suspected he was steering clear of her mother, who was keen for them to coordinate their gap year plans, but he needn’t worry; Alice had no intention of travelling with Teddy Astor. She and Lulu already had a rough itinerary, although the thought of being in a bikini next to Lulu brought her out in hives.

‘I think being at le Bal puts me exactly in her league,’ he said finally and as Alice caught his eye, she realised he too understood that his stock had recently gone up. Teddy Astor, hitherto a gangly, awkward teen, but now on the cusp of being a man, was gorgeous.

It was lucky she despised him or she’d be in serious trouble.

*

In the lobby of the hotel, perched awkwardly on a circular leather banquette, a copy of The Economist pressed against her lap, Julia Frey was doing that thing she always did after talking to a boy. Running and rerunning their exchange in her head, cringing at the things she’d said, admonishing herself for the witty, interesting things she could have said. Why was speaking – such a basic, perfunctory thing – so difficult sometimes? Julia rarely said much, even though at any given time thousands of words galloped through her mind, a fizzing backdrop of linguistic opportunity and regret.

Valentin. Even his name was French and sexy. The things she wished she could say to him. She couldn’t even blame the language barrier, since his English was excellent and that was how they mostly conversed, to her annoyance and relief. Julia was an almost straight-A student. The only subject she struggled with – the only subject that might lower her International Baccalaureate points and scupper her chance of studying maths at Cambridge – was French. So when she had to make plans for a work experience placement, she’d convinced her parents to allow her to do hers in Paris. She’d requested a ‘business’ opportunity but had wound up in a pharmacy, which seemed not so bad when she met Valentin on her first day. But that was two whole weeks ago, and today had been her last day. There’d been no signs he had even noticed her until this afternoon and then of course she’d blown it. Now he thought she was some uber-posh rich kid. Which she wasn’t. Middle-class, but not posh. Comfortable, not rich. The only reason she could attend her school was thanks to her academic scholarship and a reduction in fees because her mother taught English there. That’s how she’d wound up doing the IB, and not A Levels, as she’d have preferred. Oh, why did she tell Valentin she was coming here, to le Bal?