Raymond joined her on the dance floor. It had been three nights since he’d had to carry her out of the ballroom. Today she barely seemed the same girl. Her eyes did not have that same glazed, faraway look. She was poised and elegant and, Raymond had to admit, quite beautiful, in her own steely way. She had a dancer’s poise, that much was certain. She held herself with a certain confidence, of the kind he’d only really seen in Hélène Marchmont. So much of dance was about confidence and approach. You could learn all of the steps, all of the movements and postures perfectly, but if you didn’t have the self-assurance to carry them through, the room would dance on without you, leaving you beached and alone.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘have you danced before?’

‘A little. There was a club in the East Village, back in New York. Daddy – that’s my natural father, you understand – was not eager for me to go there, but Michael knew the doorman and he used to take me for cocktails. Michael O’Hara – he was my . . . close friend.’

A lover, thought Raymond. But why so surprised? A girl as beautiful and forward as Vivienne Edgerton would never be short of a suitor or two. Vivienne had a way about her – a way of getting what she wanted, and it seemed to have existed long before Lord Edgerton ever made her his ward.

‘There’d be an orchestra and a dance floor, but it wasn’t nearly as grand as this, Mr de Guise. When the girls had quaffed too many cocktails, they’d be up on the tables. Nobody seemed to mind. They were jiving or they were Lindy hopping or, you know, just breaking away and moving any which way they liked.’

‘We’ll be leaving the tables alone today, Miss Edgerton.’

‘Vivienne. Call me Vivienne.’

It seemed improper somehow, but if that was what she wanted, it was what Raymond would have to do.

‘Come then, Vivienne. Show me what you have.’

Just this one time, thought Raymond nervously as Vivienne stepped towards him, closing her body with his and holding out her hand. All you have to do is dance with her once, satisfy whatever curiosity she has for the ballroom and be done with it. She’ll have moved on next week. There’ll be some new fascination.