She eyed me critically, just as the queen had done. “You’re tall. You could be a model. I have connections.”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. Not a model. Not walking up and down in front of people. Remember the debutante fiasco.”

She giggled. “Oh, yes. Maybe not a model then. But you’ll find something. Secretary to a film star?”

“I can’t take shorthand or type.”

She leaned across and patted my knee. “We’ll find something for you. What about Harrods? It’s on the doorstep and it would be a good place to start.”

“Working behind the counter at a department store?” I sounded shocked.

“Darling, I’m not suggesting you work as a belly dancer in the casbah. It’s a perfectly respectable department store. I shop there all the time.”

“I suppose it might be fun. But they wouldn’t take me on with no experience, would they?”

“They would if someone who was a well-known society figure and woman-about-town wrote you a fabulous letter of recommendation.”

“Who are you suggesting?”

“Me, you idiot.” Belinda laughed. “When I’ve finished my letter, nobody would dare turn you down.”

She took out pen and writing paper and started to write. “What name will you use?” she asked.

“Florence Kincaid,” I said after a moment’s thought.

“Who on earth is Florence Kincaid?”

“She was a doll my mother brought me back from Paris when I was little. Mother wanted me to call her Fifi La Rue, but I decided that Florence Kincaid sounded nicer.”

“You’d probably be offered more interesting jobs if you called yourself Fifi La Rue,” Belinda said with a wicked smile. She sucked on the end of her pen. “Now, let me see. Miss Florence Kincaid has been in my employ for two years as my assistant in the organization of charity fashion shows. She is of impeccable character and breeding, shows great initiative, poise, charm, and business sense, and has been a joy to work with. I release her with profound reluctance, realizing that I can no longer offer the scope that her kind of talent and ambition needs to blossom. How does that sound?”

“Fabulous,” I said. “You are wasted as a fashion designer. You should become a writer.”

“Now, I’ll write it out neatly and you can take it round to Harrods in the morning,” she said. “And now that I know you’re living on my doorstep, we must get together more often. I’ll introduce you to some naughty men-about-town. They’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

That sounded like an interesting proposition. I had yet to meet any really naughty young men. The only ones who had verged on the naughty were the ski instructors who frequented the inn across the street from Les Oiseaux and our interaction with them was limited to throwing notes out of the windows or, on a couple of occasions, drinking a glass of mulled wine with their arms around our shoulders. The young Englishmen were revoltingly proper, maybe because our chaperons lurked in the background. If they took one outside for a stroll and tried a quick and hopeful grope, one stern rebuke would make them gush out apologies. “So sorry. Damned bad form. Can’t think what came over me. Won’t happen again, I promise.”