‘This has been a delicate business. You must know, already, how rumours can spread and change in a place like our hotel. I was here for the Spanish influenza, Nancy, and not even that sickness, vile as it was, was as virulent as a rumour in our Buckingham halls. I should like it, my dear, if you were to keep Miss Edgerton’s little indiscretion between ourselves.’

She felt herself compelled to nod – the weight of expectation in the room was palpable.

Mr Charles’s eyes were on her and they seemed so exacting. ‘Of course,’ she said, floundering for words.

Then she hesitated.

‘Mr Charles, if I may . . .’ Nancy, she thought, what are you doing? But the words came out of her anyway. She noted the way Mr Charles flinched as he nodded. ‘I would never gossip about Miss Edgerton. But . . . Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Mr Charles, but what happened to Miss Edgerton, it isn’t the sort of thing you can just sweep under the carpet. I’ve seen this kind of thing once before. My father needed his medicines too. He needed them so much he could have killed himself. And that’s what Vivienne Edgerton will do, if she isn’t helped. She needs a friend. She needs a chaperone. If she doesn’t have those things, why, she’ll . . .’

Mr Charles raised a hand, and Nancy fell suddenly silent. ‘I am aware of Miss Edgerton’s predicament, Nancy. I have been managing it for some time.’

‘Managing it?’ Nancy gasped. ‘Sir, that’s allowing it. She’s . . .’ Nancy didn’t stop to think; the words were out before she even knew. ‘She’s a human being. She doesn’t need managing. She needs to be cared for. Yes, that’s it. She needs somebody to love her enough to not let her harm herself. Hasn’t anyone asked where Nathaniel White was last night?’

Mr Charles’s face was a mask. His nostrils flared and his face seemed to turn in on itself as he contained an outburst. She doesn’t understand, he told himself. Why would she? What could she possibly know about scandal and reputation? How much of our livelihood depends on us quashing the former to defend the latter. We’re already to be without a king this New Year. Must we also be a cesspit of scandal as well?

‘Your concerns are noted, Nancy. But what happens next is none of your concern. I asked you here this afternoon to make this very clear. What happened to Miss Edgerton was an accident, pure and simple. She fell. She caught a fever. She is now indisposed. Only a handful of souls know otherwise, and were it to become common knowledge in this hotel, why, I believe I would know where to look. Don’t you?’

Nancy stood, shivering. You silly girl, you shouldn’t have spoken out of turn. ‘Yes, sir,’ she whispered.