‘Don’t you wear anything under your nightgown?’ he asked. She could hear the shock in his voice.

‘Well, yes, ordinarily. But tonight . . . I thought . . .’ It was too awful to have to explain. She’d wanted to make things easier. He laughed with embarrassment and disapproval; she hadn’t known that a laugh could sound so ugly. ‘I just thought—’ She broke off. She didn’t bother to explain, couldn’t possibly.

He grunted and put his hand back under the sheet. He was on his side now, oh, on top of her. She put her lips on his. Gently. His eyes were closed; she wrapped her arms around him. He wiggled, poking around a bit, until he was inside of her. She was relieved. It was so much easier than the last time. He opened his eyes now and stared at her. He was pink; there was a thin line of spittle stretching from his top lip to the bottom. His eyes went dark.

It didn’t last long. Three, four, five short thrusts. Could that be all? He disengaged swiftly and rolled back to his own bed, sat on the edge, swiftly placing his feet on the floor. He pulled his nightshirt back down over his legs. With his back still to her he offered, ‘You can have the bathroom.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t need it?’

‘No.’

‘Then I will use it.’

‘Right.’

The moment they’d shared wasn’t tremulous or tender; it was awkward and embarrassing. As with Nathaniel, Vivian wasn’t sure what it meant at all. No doubt she’d get the hang of it. She would, she supposed. She must.

When he re-emerged, he pulled the beds apart again, then walked around to her side to switch out her bedside light. She lifted her head, but he didn’t turn to catch her kiss; it landed on his lobe.

‘Good night, Mr Owens.’ She waited for him to reply, ‘Good night, Mrs Owens,’ as tradition commanded.

‘Good night, Vivian.’ He was asleep almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He hadn’t caught the joke. Could he have believed she might be so formal as to call him Mr Owens? How mortifying.

Spectacular parties had been held at this hotel. In 1905 an American millionaire, a Mr Kessler if her memory served her correctly, had hosted a gondola party. They’d flooded the central courtyard to a depth of four feet and scenery had been erected around the walls. She remembered her mother cutting out photos from the newspapers and pasting them into her scrapbook; the event was so stupendous, so surprising. The staff as well as the guests had worn costumes and Venice was created there on the Strand. The two dozen guests had dined in an enormous gondola. After dinner, Enrico Caruso had sung, and a baby elephant brought in a five-foot birthday cake. Whenever Vivian had had nightmares as a child, Nanny had always instructed her to think about something nice. She’d always thought about that party, which had earned such prominence in Mother’s scrapbook. She’d imagined the frivolity, the glitter, the daring, the laughter. So now that she was sleeping on the actual site, it should have been easy to drift into a pretty fantasy, but honestly, she found it hard to believe there had ever been a moment’s merriment in the place.