The Trafalgar Suite. It had been some time since Raymond last ventured in here. Inside, Mrs Adelman took a perch at the end of the great four-poster bed. She had spared no expenses tonight. The room was one of the Buckingham’s finest, with a rolling view over Berkeley Square and the great gothic spires of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Beside an ornate French armoire sat a glass-topped table, upon which a single orchid was presented – and, beside that orchid, a perfect statue of a turtle, cast in ivory and mother-of-pearl. Room service had obviously already been summoned, for a silver bucket was filled with ice and, rising from it, was a bottle of the Buckingham’s finest champagne. Mrs Adelman gestured for Raymond and, with his heart beating fast, Raymond popped the cork and poured two glasses. A Moët et Chandon, 1921 vintage.

‘Mrs Adelman,’ he began, ‘I see you are a lady of means.’

‘Oh, means,’ she said, with a wry grin. ‘Yes, you’re a gentleman dancer, all right. You have the airs and expressions. I suppose you’ve danced with royalty. There are enough kings and queens and continentals said to stay in the Buckingham Hotel. I can quite imagine you hobnobbing with the gentry, Mr de Guise. But, no, consider this an old lady’s way of spending her late husband’s inheritance. I can’t take it with me, so I’m enjoying myself while I can.’ She hesitated. ‘You seem a little nervous, Raymond?’

It had been many years since Raymond de Guise was last ner-vous, even when taking to the dance floor in front of the world’s finest ballroom dancers at the Hammersmith Palais the previous season, but yes, he had to admit, he was nervous tonight. There had been patrons like Mrs Adelman before, ladies of an older generation, who came to dance in the ballroom and wanted a little more of Raymond’s time. Perhaps they were widowed. Perhaps they had been cast off by their philandering husbands, and given an allowance which they sought to fritter away in the ballrooms and drawing-room dances of Mayfair and beyond. Mostly what they wanted was a good-looking younger man from whose arm they could hang, and perhaps speak a little about the gilded Mayfair world. But sometimes – well, sometimes they wanted more.