Georges’ voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I told you before, Raymond. I’m here for you, whenever you need me. When you need a friend, send for de la Motte. Do you hear me?’

Raymond whispered, ‘Yes.’ Then, his voice more broken still, he added, ‘Thank you.’

‘There are no thanks needed, Raymond. It’s been too long already. Two old warriors of the ballroom like us? We should be meeting every few months to drink fine wine and relive old glories. You’re fortunate I’m in London,’ he continued, making a steeple of his fingers. ‘I received your letter, but I’m here for a precious few days.’

The truth was, Raymond hadn’t expected a reply. Two days ago, he’d sent word to the Académie des Artistes and sat back in the little Holborn flophouse where he’d been laying his head, and was surprised when, the following morning, a letter came by return, from the hand of Almira the manageress.

‘I’m en route to sunnier climes, my boy. Casablanca and El Jadida. Marrakesh and Tangier. Society extends thus far, and my presence has been requested. Well, who am I to say no?’ He opened his palms in a resigning gesture which his upbeat eyes hardly matched. ‘I’ve been in London for the early festive season. The Christmas dances. The tea parties in Kensington and Knightsbridge. Lord Crosby’s daughter came out this summer. They hosted in her honour.’

‘You didn’t stay at the Buckingham?’

Georges de la Motte did not always take a suite at the Buckingham when he was in London, for there were too many lords and ladies eager to provide him a bed for the evening – and yet to see him stepping out in the Grand on the rare times he called the Buckingham home was one of the great joys of Raymond’s life. Mentor and protégé, on the same ballroom floor; was anything ever as sweet?

‘It had been my plan. I would have put in a call to Mr Charles. But then a certain rumour started to surface that put me in a rather thorny position. Could it be, I wondered, that Raymond de Guise had truly been . . . exiled from his ballroom?’

Raymond trembled. A week had passed since he walked out of the Buckingham, his head held high in defiance of all the eyes that bored into him. Defiance, even, of Nancy Nettleton – for who else could it have been to give up his secret, to let Maynard Charles know who he truly was?

Nancy, he thought, with such great pain. Alone in that Holborn lodging, he’d thought about her so many times. In his dreams they were dancing again, just the two of them in the little studio behind the ballroom.