He could feel Vivienne relenting somehow, softening in his arms. Yes, this is it, he thought, there’s a chance she might even understand. His arm slipped around her waist and his palm pressed against hers, so that they might suddenly be ready to dance again. ‘The best dancers come from low and from high. When you dance, the rest of the world can be forgotten. You know how the rest of the world works. The high stay on high and the low get on with things as best they can. But here? Here, where there’s music and there’s dance. Vivienne, don’t ever let another soul make you think otherwise. Here you get to be what you want to be – no matter what your father might say.’

Slowly, they danced. Raymond stepped forward, so that his leg was between hers again, and she pivoted around him. Perhaps her body and mind were finally aligned, because for the first time she was able to sail around him without stumbling.

‘You see,’ he whispered, and there was a very real sense of pride flurrying through him, ‘you can do it.’

Finally, her cheeks flushed red and she whispered, ‘It’s those chambermaids and concierges and . . . It’s all of them, looking at me, knowing who I am. I didn’t ask to be his daughter. I barely asked to come to the Buckingham Hotel. And . . .’ She paused. ‘Can’t we dance in private, Raymond? I want to dance where no one else can see.’ She held him tighter. He was surprised to find her fingers were threaded through his. ‘We could dance in my suite. It’s big enough, if we clear a space. Would you . . . want to come to my suite, Raymond?’

Her words had begun running together, and now they petered into silence. They stopped mid-pivot and she hung, frozen in time, in front of him. She looked up. Her green eyes were wide and open. Raymond could smell the scent she was wearing. Chanel, he thought. Her eyes glittered. Her ruby lips opened . . .

No, thought Raymond. No. She was looking at him expectantly, as if a man had never said no to her before.

Raymond stepped back.

The music went on, but the dance was over.

Soon the silence had become uncomfortable. When she was hanging in his arms, Vivienne Edgerton had seemed . . . human, he wanted to say. Fragile. Exposed. But now her lips had closed, her eyes were sharp, her arms were folded. She looked at him with her jaw clenched and every muscle in her body taut and rigid.

‘Perhaps that’s enough for today, Miss Edgerton?’

Vivienne swallowed a sob. Then suddenly she was off, marching across the dance floor to snatch up her ball gown from where it was draped on the balustrade.