Across the hall, by the grand bronze doors, Hélène Marchmont was waiting. Even dressed down, Miss Marchmont looked as elegant as a Russian princess. Her fair hair was tied up in a bun, and it nestled upon the collar of her rich fur coat. Simple pearl earrings adorned her ears but, on Hélène Marchmont, they looked like exquisite treasures.

Hélène, she thought, remembering the girls in the kitchenette high above and all they had said. It can’t really be true, can it?

What if it is? she asked herself. What does it matter to you? You’re a chambermaid. He’s an aristocrat. A dancer, but still an aristocrat . . .

It could never be, Nancy Nettleton. You’ve changed enough sheets to realise that life isn’t a fairy tale.

But I have to know, thought Nancy. It was a need, hot and burning in her stomach. She thought of the way he had held her, down there in the studio, when she’d told him about her father. I deserve to know.

Louis Kildare, in his brown felt coat and pinstriped hat, was already leading Hélène and Raymond through the revolving brass door. Nancy made as if she might go the same way. Then she remembered who she was. She saw Maynard Charles in deep conversation with a gentleman in a Savile Row evening suit. She heard the hawing of two tipsy guests as they asked Mr Simenon, the head concierge, to summon them a hansom cab for the journey home. Tomorrow morning, she would be changing these peoples’ bedsheets. She’d be scrubbing the bowls of their toilets and laying out freshly laundered towels for them to dab dry their delicate skins. Those brass doors were not for her and they never would be. So she made haste for the staff entrance instead.

*

Moments later, Nancy quickly made her way up Michaelmas Mews. Above her the autumn night was empty and open, the London skyline splattered with stars.

She had almost lost sight of the silhouettes of Hélène Marchmont, Louis Kildare and Raymond de Guise when she heard a shrill whistling behind her. Whoever it was must have been keeping his head down because, rather than squeeze past her and out onto the square, he promptly barrelled into her. When she looked around, to be met with a flurry of apologies, she saw Billy Brogan standing there, mouth wide open.

‘Nance! What the devil are you standing there for – and without a coat!’

In a moment, Billy was stepping out of his own coat and putting it around Nancy’s shoulders.