Nancy was caught off-guard. ‘You don’t have to say it again. You already said it. I know you’re sorry, Raymond. I know what you were going through. You don’t have to—’

‘It’s not that.’

Nancy froze. Something’s happened, she thought. Maynard Charles or Vivienne Edgerton . . . Something’s wrong. ‘Raymond, what is it?’

Raymond leaned forward, clasping Nancy’s hands. ‘Nancy, the last few months – I think they’ve taught me more about life than any before. The world’s changing. There’s something coming – something . . . dreadful, or magnificent, something that’s going to change everything. It’s happening about us now . . .  But Nancy, my eyes have been opened—’

‘Raymond,’ she said with a tremble in her voice, ‘you’re frightening me. What is it?’

Raymond drew her to him and kissed her, long and hard.

‘It’s that I love you. Here and now I love you, and that’s never going to change.’

*

There were two separate Christmas mornings in the Buckingham Hotel. Across the hotel the guests would rise before eight and make their way to the dining rooms, where Christmas breakfast – a spectacular continental affair of extravagant pastries, succulent cheeses and cured meats – was waiting to be served. But for all those who worked at the Buckingham, Christmas morning began in the pitch hours of night. Outside, London slept on – but here in the Buckingham, ranges were being warmed, tables were being laid, boilers were being stoked and a flock of turkeys pre-basted with butter and sage. For the guests, Christmas was a luxury; for the staff, it could feel like a forced march through the snow.

The alarm clock trilled and Raymond reached out to silence it. As he rolled back into place, he realised that the space beside him was empty. He squinted up. Nancy must have been so in tune with the rhythms of the Buckingham that she had stirred moments before the alarm. She was already sitting on the bedside, pulling her apron over her pinafore.

Raymond picked himself up, draped his arms around Nancy’s shoulders. ‘Not yet,’ he said teasingly. ‘A little longer?’

‘Raymond, I can’t. Mrs Moffatt will be waiting. It’s Christmas . . .’

‘Well, quite,’ said Raymond. ‘But if you can’t rest on Christmas Day, when can you?’