As ‘A Californian Serenade’ reached its climactic finale, they fanned out among the guests, nodding heads and clasping hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Raymond saw Hélène taking the hand of a regular guest at the Buckingham – a gentleman with slick black hair; Hélène said he came to London from his native California to make movies, and every time he graced the Buckingham he requested her hand on the dance floor. He was not, Raymond knew, the only one. Hélène oozed elegance; she was a beauty so classical that, in a different age, sculptors would have lined up to recreate her in marble and bronze. As her partner took her in hold, Hélène flashed a smile at Raymond; this man would be no match for her on the dance floor, few were, but she would dance with him all the same.

The dance floor was already filling up, but Raymond had not yet met his own partner for the evening. As the Archie Adams Band struck up a Viennese waltz, he stood with his hands folded at the edge of the dance floor, awaiting his turn. Moments later, a finger tapped him on the shoulder. He glided around to see a familiar face peering back up.

‘Looks like you may have been let down, Mr de Guise.’

The girl in front of him – because, at scarcely eighteen years of age, a girl she was – had rich auburn hair, cut short as a boy’s to spite her father, and spoke with the unmistakable accent of her native New York. Her green eyes had something almost feline about them, and she had evidently spent the afternoon in the hotel cocktail lounge, for her breath smelt sweet, of exotic pineapple and rum. Her ball gown set her apart from even the wealthiest patrons of the Grand Ballroom tonight. Wherever Raymond looked there were the most magnificent gowns, but this girl’s simply screamed ostentation. The golden satin silk was textured, the capelet around her shoulders trimmed with feathers, the brooch on her belt a mountain of pearls that glittered as if set with diamonds; perhaps it was . . .

‘I’m taken, Miss Edgerton. If you’re looking for a partner, you’ll find suitors aplenty everywhere you care to look.’

‘You made me a promise. Don’t you think you should keep it?’

‘I will. One day, my dear, I’ll show you the quickstep, or the foxtrot. I’ll have you waltzing around the Grand . . . but tonight I’m at the beck and call of our guests.’

‘Your guests, Mr de Guise,’ she corrected him. ‘The way I see it, if your partner is not here, then . . .’