The tears fell hard and fast, blotting the ink on the page. She had been there when Raymond stormed back into his quarters and began collecting his things. She’d pleaded with him, demanded he tell her exactly what was going on – but the look he gave her was one filled with venom, almost as if he was accusing her – though of what, Nancy could not say. She had tried to take his arm so that he might be forced to talk to her – and that was when Mr Simenon had appeared at the door, flanked by the head barman from the Candlelight Club. That Nancy was there at all was an affront to them, so she quickly exited and left them to it. Minutes later, when Raymond shoulder-barged them out of the way to march down the hallway of his own accord, she called out his name – but he didn’t break his stride, didn’t even look her way.

Oh, Frank, I wish you were here. How can a day that began so brightly end like this? If you were here I would make us cocoa and drop so many sugar cubes in it that it would turn sickly sweet. I would get out mother’s old blanket and we could wrap up in it together, to listen to the wireless or read our books.

Frank, I miss you. I haven’t said it enough. I miss you, little brother.

I have been a fool. A romantic fool! I came here to find a way to build a new life for us. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love and make a nonsense of myself in the process. But that’s, precisely what I have done.

Nancy

In the Candlelight Club, all talk was of the new king and the old. In the Queen Mary, where the cast of the Ziegfeld Follies were being hosted by Maxwell Lloyd – the West End impresario intending to bring them to London from their native New York – they whispered of the coronation to come. In the cocktail lounge and French brasserie, they talked about the sweet release that must have come for the prince, knowing, at last, that he could be with the woman he loved. But in the Grand, where Nathaniel put his arm around Hélène and tangoed in the centre of the ballroom, the whispers were different. The guests might have bemoaned the loss of a sovereign sympathetic to their cause, but in the dressing rooms the talk was of another fallen king.

Raymond de Guise was gone.