“Your Royal Highness, welcome to Crockford’s.” The manager, looking rather regal himself, came forward to meet us. “And Lady Georgiana. Such an honor.” He gave us a warm smile and a bow before he ushered us across that grand foyer with its red carpet and chandeliers. “If you will be good enough to sign our book, please.” He stopped at a table with the open book and pen on it. When it was my turn to sign I noticed that people signed with their name and address. And I remembered Belinda telling me that Bobo had been seen looking distressed as she spoke with an American at Crockford’s.

“Someone told me that they had seen an American friend of mine here a few days ago,” I said. “I didn’t even know he was in the country. May I look and see if it really was he, and where he’s staying?”

“I’m afraid not, my lady.” The manager sounded shocked. “Our guest book is completely confidential. It wouldn’t do to let wives check on wayward husbands, would it?” And he gave a little chuckle.

“You wouldn’t happen to remember if an American gentleman was here, probably last week?”

“Again our rules of confidentiality don’t allow me to reveal that, even if I knew,” he said. “We get American visitors all the time, of course. Crockford’s is one of the places one has to go when one is a visitor to London.”

“Of course,” I said and retreated with my most gracious smile.

He turned his attention to Princess Marina. “Let me give you a tour of what we have to offer and then I have arranged for some jetons to start you off, with our compliments.”

We entered the main gambling salon, with its sparkling chandeliers overhead and knots of men and women clustered around roulette and card tables. We were then taken to the cashier’s booth and handed a nice little stack of tokens, called in casinos by their French name of jetons—because one throws them onto the table, presumably.

“Now, feel free to try your hand at any table you choose,” the manager said. “May I have a bottle of champagne opened for you?”

“Most kind,” Marina said again. Actually she looked as much out of her depth as I felt as I gazed at the impossibly elegant and sophisticated men and women languidly placing piles of jetons on the roulette table. These were people to whom the loss of a hundred pounds meant nothing. I supposed my father must have been just like them. I never really got to know him well, because he spent his time in Nice and Monte Carlo and lost most of the family fortune at the tables. Luckily I had inherited the sensible side of my ancestors and was determined to make my free tokens last all evening. I was also determined to get a look at that guest book.