‘It’s a world away from the convent,’ she said. Daisy, brought up in poverty in the East End of London, could never get over marvelling at the vast gulf between rich and poor.

Rose was at that moment allowing the duchess’s lady’s maid, Benton, to strap her into the long corset which was considered necessary to produce the fashionable S-figure. She was still upset with Harry. She felt sure he had enjoyed a liaison with Dolores Duval. ‘What would my lady like to wear tonight?’ asked Benton.

‘You choose something,’ said Rose.

Benton went to the tall wardrobe and selected a blue chiffon gown embroidered with tiny rosebuds. It was low-cut and the layered chiffon sleeves covered the tops of her arms. All Rose’s jewels had been brought over from the town house. ‘I think the rope of pearls. my lady,’ said Benson, ‘Now, the hair.’

Rose’s long brown hair was piled up on top of her head, pouffed out, and ornamented with little silk rosebuds.

‘You look like another girl,’ said Daisy, who was already dressed and was watching the toilette. ‘Sister Agnes wouldn’t recognize you now.’

Rose normally detested wearing a long corset, but for once she did not mind. She felt she needed to be armoured in fashion before she saw Harry again.

‘This is a very beautiful gown,’ said Benton. ‘Is it one of Mr Worth’s?’

‘No, my seamstress, Miss Friendly, designed it and made it for me.’

‘Then this lady is more than a seamstress!’

Daisy scowled. She was still furious at Becket for having turned down her idea of setting up a salon with Miss Friendly.

At last Rose was ready. She and Daisy descended to the dining room to join the others. Daisy thought it was a shame that Becket could not join them, but in the duchess’s eyes he was nothing more than a gentleman’s gentleman.

The duchess, already seated at a dining table, flashed and glittered under the weight of diamonds. She had a large diamond tiara on her head, a collar of diamonds around her neck, and diamond brooches pinned haphazardly on her dark blue velvet gown.

‘My dear Rose,’ she said, ‘how beautiful you look. Don’t you think so, Captain?’

‘Very fine,’ said Harry.

‘We will have you married off to some dashing French comte, you’ll see. Can’t you just see our dear Rose on the arm of some handsome Frenchman, Captain?’ The duchess’s eyes twinkled like her diamonds.

‘Alas,’ said Harry, ‘I have no imagination.’

Had it been left to Harry and Rose, it would have been a silent dinner, but various aristocrats kept interrupting their meal to chat to the duchess.

At last, when the duchess was engaged in another animated conversation with an old friend, Harry whispered to Rose, ‘Truce.’

‘What truce?’

‘Between us. We cannot go to Paris glaring and staring silently at each other. If it makes you feel any better, I did not have an affair with Miss Duval.’

‘That means nothing to me!’