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Back One Enchanted Evening Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. The Grand Masquerade Ball
  5. Five Months Earlier . . .
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. September 1936
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. October 1936
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-one
  29. November 1936
  30. Chapter Twenty-two
  31. December 1936
  32. Chapter Twenty-three
  33. Chapter Twenty-four
  34. Chapter Twenty-five
  35. Chapter Twenty-six
  36. Chapter Twenty-seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-nine
  39. Chapter Thirty
  40. Chapter Thirty-one
  41. Chapter Thirty-two
  42. Chapter Thirty-three
  43. Chapter Thirty-four
  44. Chapter Thirty-five
  45. Epilogue
  46. A New Year
  47. Extract from Anton Du Beke’s next novel’
  48. Acknowledgements
  49. About the Author
  50. Letter from Author

After she was gone, her footsteps echoing as she clattered up the marble walkway out of the Grand, Raymond sat back and closed his eyes. His heart was beating a panicked rhythm. Surely that wasn’t what she’d come here for? Giving Vivienne Edgerton what she wanted when she asked for tutoring was one thing; giving her what she wanted when she looked to place her lips over his was quite another. If he had kissed her and the hotel found out, well, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be dancing with the Crown Princess of Norway on the same dance floor as King Edward himself at the Masquerade Ball this New Year. He’d have been dragged into Maynard Charles’s office and summarily dismissed. No, he’d done the right thing, he was certain of that.

The look on her face as she’d fled from the ballroom was emblazoned on his eyes. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He hadn’t meant to embarrass or insult. But one thing was certain, when you danced with Vivienne Edgerton, whether you resisted her or did everything that she said, you were dancing with disaster either way.

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

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THE MAN WHO STEPPED INTO the Red Lion Hotel on High Holborn was dressed in the finest bespoke woollen overcoat, with an Austin Reed black bowler hat perched on the top of his head and a walking cane tipped in brass at his side. Minutes after he crossed the threshold, the doors opened again. The man who emerged was dressed in a jacket of brown leather – and, though the cap he wore kept hidden the same unruly black hair, it was crushed and worn and had seen better days. The polished black brogues he had been wearing were stuffed into an army-issue haversack, the same as the rest of his finery, and in their place he wore a pair of tan workman’s boots with steel caps in their toes. He kept his head down, fearful that he might be seen.

Then, slinging the uniform of one life over his shoulder, Raymond de Guise stepped aboard the omnibus heading east and watched as the porcelain palaces of Holborn and St Paul’s turned into pavements teeming with bankers and clerks – and from there into the tumbledown red terraces of the East End.