Georges called Almira with his eyes, and she sashayed over to take his empty plate. Once she was gone, his blue eyes took in all of Raymond. ‘I know your problem, Raymond. I can see which way you’re pinned. The fact of the matter is you still haven’t decided who you are. Raymond de Guise or that irascible young Ray Cohen I picked up off the barroom floor, so many years ago.’

Raymond drained his glass. Beads of red clung in the stubble which had grown freely, without care, in the days since he’d been banished. ‘My heart says one thing, but sometimes my head says another. There are two worlds inside me. They’re . . . getting closer.’

‘If that is truly the case, Raymond,’ de la Motte said, and for the first time there was a great sadness in his voice, ‘then you’re not a dancer at all – and all my work with you has been wasted. A dancer is in perfect alignment: head, heart, body and mind – it’s all the same to the dancer. The dancer is whole. If you’re not giving your entire being to it, you’re not giving a thing. I know this more than any.’

‘They have one of Edgerton’s connections dancing the demonstrations now. He can’t put one foot in front of another.’

‘If that’s the case, then the Grand is yours for the taking. Christmas is nearly upon you, Raymond. The masquerade at New Year. Without King Edward in the ballroom, well, Maynard Charles will need all the glamour he can find. He can’t rely on somebody untested. He’ll need the hotel in the society pages. He’ll need to make the ball everything it was going to be and more. For that he’ll need you. Why should the crown princess dance with anybody less?’

The King, thought Raymond. I’d thought so little about the King. But Maynard Charles wouldn’t have me in his ballroom, not after everything I said. Without the King, what is New Year at the Buckingham to be?

Raymond pictured the ballroom at New Year, the dancers moving in formation, hidden behind their lavish masks. He imagined himself there on the dance floor, the starlight chandeliers glittering all around. There, on the balconies and tables around, stood the supposed great and good: the Queen of Norway, the crown princess, standing abreast with her benefactors and hosts. Lord Edgerton. Graf and Gräfin Schecht. Oliver White. Astors and Londonderrys and Sir Oswald Mosley himself.

How could you just stand by and let all that continue? How could you be a part of it? How could you care so wholeheartedly about dancing and not about any of this?

Under the table, Raymond’s hands had turned into fists.

No. Whatever happens, whatever the fate of the Buckingham Hotel, no matter even what Georges believes, I cannot sit idly by . . . I am going to make them pay.