She used a ball of cotton wool to clear the make-up from her face, revealing the real Vivienne piece by piece. There was something special about today, she thought. Something she wasn’t properly putting her finger on.

Her eyes drifted back to the letters. Dear Raymond, read one. I told you, you would be sorry you made a fool out of me, and the day has finally come. Well, that was different. She peeled it off the page underneath, and here the letters – blurred by the spilled perfume – were harder to decipher. You think you’re a king, but the Grand is hardly a kingdom. The third page was even more smudged and difficult to make out, but the one under that was clearer. Tomorrow, when he comes, we will see how quickly the Buckingham guests forget the name ‘de Guise’ . . .

Oh, she thought. That’s what’s happening today. She watched herself in the mirror as her face opened up in a smile.

*

The car that delivered Nathaniel White to the Buckingham Hotel was a glistening Rolls Royce with cream paintwork and a square roof, open up to the clear blue skies above Berkeley Square. As it pulled to a halt, its horn tooted proudly and the doorman cantered down the stairs to open its door, revealing Nathaniel White to the world. He had arrived wearing grey checked slacks, and a sports jacket decorated with the crest of Gonville and Caius, his Cambridge alma mater. The doorman busied himself collecting cases from the trunk of the Rolls Royce and, as he accompanied Nathaniel up the stairs, Maynard Charles himself appeared from the revolving bronze door. Nathaniel almost breezed past him as he approached. It was only as the curmudgeonly hotel director extended his hand that he stopped and recognised him.

‘Mr Charles. May I say what an honour it is to be invited to dance at your fine hotel.’

Maynard Charles returned the greeting with a simple nod of the head. ‘If you’ll follow me, Mr White.’ The reception hall was buzzing this morning. A party of guests from Tanganyika – they oversaw one of the great national parks, where Mr Churchill himself was fond of going big game hunting – were checking out and the hall was piled high with their cases. Nathaniel stopped to take it all in. There was the striking obelisk, with the water coursing down its points and curves; the sweeping mahogany check-in desk, the golden cage of the guest lifts; and there, to his left, the marble arch that sloped down towards the doors of the ballroom itself. His ballroom, he had to remind himself.

It didn’t matter how you made it here. What mattered was what you did once you arrived.