He’d felt like this only twice in his life before: the first, his boarding school days, and those long, empty hours sitting outside the headmaster’s office, waiting for a thrashing; and the second, the battlefields of Flanders and France, waiting with his bayonet in hand for the whistles to start sounding and the boys to start pouring over the top.

Outside, the snow kept falling.

*

‘Hurry up, de Guise, the entourage is already here!’

Raymond sat in the dressing rooms behind the ballroom, wrapping the bandages more tightly around his chest. The ribs had healed, he was fairly certain of that – but the hours he’d put in, practising in the ballroom, had shown up in new bruises along the lines of each rib. Last night Nancy had run her fingers along each one. A mid-morning vermouth had dulled the ache for an hour, but there were less than ten hours between now and the moment the Archie Adams Band would strike up their first song, announcing the beginning of the great Masquerade Ball. It was not long enough, but it was all that he had. He wrapped the bandages tighter. All they had to do was sustain him for one more night. His foot had healed but that didn’t mean it had stopped aching. He would worry about the ruin he was making of his body tomorrow.

Nathaniel White turned on his heel and marched to the dressing-room door. ‘It’s your funeral, de Guise. It’s not you who’s dancing for their pleasure tonight.’

Raymond took a deep breath. Nathaniel could say what he wanted; on the dance floor, it was not words that mattered. Raymond fastened the remaining buttons on his shirt. He would dance more stiffly trussed up like this – but the irony was he would still dance more elegantly than Nathaniel. The crowd would see that, even if White did not.

In the reception hall, the Buckingham gathered. As Raymond made his way up from the ballroom, he could see the kitchen staff turned out in their perfect whites, standing like a phal-anx with the Queen Mary’s head chef at the front. The other hotel departments were arranged in similar military fashion. Mr Simenon had his concierges drilled and standing to attention. Mrs Moffatt had organised her chambermaids in pristine uniforms. Raymond caught Nancy’s eye as he marched past, giving her an almost imperceptible wink. I’m going to be OK, Nancy. You made it that way. The truth was, he felt the pain in his ribs like a needle being worked around under his skin. But New Year was only one night. He would survive it and put on a show, even if it was the last thing he did.