It was hard not to think about Raymond. Once, she dallied by the ballroom, hopeful of hearing something – but Mr Simenon was prowling the reception hall and she dared not wait long. Another time, Hélène Marchmont floated past on the way to the Queen Mary and Nancy was a moment away from calling out and asking her for news. Every time she had heard a rumour about the absent Raymond de Guise, she had breathed not a word – and this was the hardest thing of all.

Nancy was sitting over the backgammon board, being roundly trounced by Rosa – who treated the game as if it was her moral duty to win – when Billy Brogan rapped his fingers on the door. ‘Nance,’ he said, when the girls looked up, ‘you’d better come.’

Nancy could sense the suspicion in Rosa and Ruth. She had not forgotten what Mrs Moffatt said: that the other girls had noticed. ‘Can it wait, Billy?’

‘I’m afraid it can’t, Nance.’

Rosa lifted her eyebrows and smirked. ‘Got yourself an admirer there, Nance.’

In the doorway, Billy Brogan blushed scarlet. ‘It isn’t that, Nance. But . . .’

Nancy did not know whether to stay or go. The dice were in her hands. She cast them. ‘Well, what is it, Billy?’

Billy was coiled. He tried to keep it in. He did not want to embarrass Nancy. She’d already suffered enough, after what Mr Simenon had done. And yet the eyes of the other girls were boring into him. They were laughing . . .

‘It’s Mr de Guise,’ he said, forthright. ‘He wants to see you.’

The dice clattered out of Nancy’s hands. The eyes of the other girls had turned to her, now. They were considering her closely, demanding whether she was going to go – or whether she was going to stay here with the rest of them, where she belonged.

‘I’ll be there directly, Billy,’ she said – and, hoisting her skirts, hurried out of the room.

*

Nancy knocked on the door, and had no idea what she was supposed to think as she slipped through and into his suite.

He was dressed in his full evening wear, as if he was ready to take to the floor, but the face above his collar was hardly his own. It was still yellow and distended where the thugs had laid into him; one of his eyes was swollen shut, but starting to reveal itself again – like a ripening fruit ready to burst open. His suit had been ironed and pressed, but he was not wearing his dancing shoes, and nor could he – for one of his feet was bound up so tightly in bandage it looked twice the other’s size.