Her recollection of the night before was not what it ought to have been – but then, these days it never was. Dimly, she remembered being in the ballroom for the afternoon demonstrations. They were nothing without Raymond de Guise, of course, and the guests in attendance knew it. Vivienne had heard one of them, a handsome dowager wearing priceless pearls around her neck, scoffing at Frederic, one of the porters-turned-dancer who was now stepping out onto the dance floor with his arm around Hélène Marchmont. A dull porter’s boy could never compare to the refinement of a man like Raymond de Guise. But Raymond had been gone for ten nights now, and everyone in the hotel knew that the ballroom was poorer because of it.

After that, Vivienne’s recollections were hazy. She recalled a visit to Mr Simenon, who in turn had sent his errand boy Brogan out into Soho to procure some of her special powders. After that, there had been at least one cocktail in the third-floor lounge – and evidently she had made significant demands of the room service too, because a trolley laden with silver platters had been left in her suite. She was still wearing the gown of last night, one of her Vogue numbers, black satin tied with great bows at each shoulder. Somewhere along the way she’d shed the shimmering emerald capelet that ordinarily went with it – but what did that matter? Her stepfather would send her monthly allowance soon. There were always more gowns to wear.

She went to the dresser to powder her nose. Underneath the spilled Chanel and champagne flutes – two, she noticed, so perhaps she had not been alone last night – were the scrawled attempts of another letter addressed to Raymond. It was only as she stared at them that fragments of the night before finally came back to her. There was, she had decided, the faintest of chances that the reason he’d never responded to that first missive (over which she’d so delicately slaved) was because of his indispos-ition. So she had decided to write to him again. Evidently she had not got very far, for every letter petered into meaningless scribble and half-finished words. Now, in the cold light of day, she was happy she hadn’t had the faculties to compose a full missive and have it delivered. Until three days ago, Raymond had been locked up in his tower, Maynard Charles the turnkey who refused to let him out – but since then she had caught sight of him hobbling along the hotel halls, sneaking down to the studio behind the ballroom as if he might discipline his body to ignore swellings and broken bones and begin dancing again. He had even found himself a partner to practise with. The memory of it stuck in Vivienne’s throat, so she swallowed it down like a lump of particularly difficult gristle.

The chambermaid. That chambermaid . . .