She had seen so much already. The dancers here had been holding each other in classic ballroom poses, and yet they skipped more frenetically across the dance floor than they would ever have done in the ballroom. Now they clasped each other more tightly, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek. If the tighter frames made the girls in the Midnight Rooms nervous, they did nothing to show it. In fact, thought Hélène, they appeared to positively love the opportunity to entwine themselves with the gentlemen at their sides.

Hélène and Raymond held on to each other, and launched into the rhumba with glee.

The box stepping was fast, much faster than anything with which they were familiar, but they had no problem keeping up. But the box step was where the similarity to the waltzes of the ballroom ended. The rhythm quickened and slowed. Across the dance floor, hips moved sensually, along with the music. Ankles flashed. Bare arms caught the candle lights. Then, the couple dancing alongside Raymond and Hélène seemed to separate from the rest. The girl threw her head back, and a moment later she had leaped up, locking her legs around her partner’s waist as he turned. A rapturous cheer went up from the sides of the room. Then, as they came out of their spin, the girl was set back down again and the dance continued, as seamlessly as if her feet had never left the ground.

Hélène thought she had never seen a more incredible thing. Dancers in the gilded world to which Hélène Marchmont belonged did not do this.

There’s a different world down here. It isn’t all men in frilly evening shirts holding you stiffly as you let them lead you across the ballroom. It isn’t all having to be prim and proper and demure to men who know less than half what you know about dance. Down here, I can be myself.

She looked at Raymond. His eyes had the devil in them. Temptation . . .

There was no need for words. Both knew what the other wanted to do. A move like this would have been sacrilegious in the Grand, but after so many years dancing for the rich and the powerful, it was a relief – no, more than that, a need – to dance without a care in the world. To remember what had drawn them both to dancing. Hélène nodded. They danced on. And then – without quite knowing she was going to do it – Hélène too was up, with her legs wrapped around Raymond’s waist as he turned and turned and turned again.

Some of the other dancers had stopped to watch. The crowd parted around them as they moved together, lost in a world of their own.

But then, suddenly there was the sound of glass smashing and everything changed.

*