A job would be a terrific idea, but I had pretty much given up all hope of that. Some of those unemployed men standing on street corners held all kinds of degrees and qualifications. My education at a frightfully posh finishing school in Switzerland had only equipped me to walk around with a book on my head, speak good French and know where to seat a bishop at a dinner party. I had been trained for marriage, nothing else. Besides, most forms of employment would be frowned upon for someone in my position. It would be letting down the family firm to be seen behind the counter in Woolworths or pulling a pint at a local pub.

An invitation to somewhere far away—that’s what I needed. Preferably an invitation to Timbuktu or at least a villa on the Mediterranean. That would also get me out of any of the queen’s little suggestions for me. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I’d love to spy on Mrs. Simpson for you, but I’m expected in Monte Carlo at the end of the week.”

There was only one person in London I could run to in such dire circumstances—my old school chum Belinda Warburton-Stoke. Belinda is one of those people who always manage to fall on their feet—or rather flat on her back, in her case. She was always being invited to house parties and to cruises on yachts—because she’s awfully naughty and sexy, you see, unlike me, who hasn’t had a chance to be either naughty or sexy.

I’d paid a visit to Belinda’s little mews cottage in Knightsbridge when I returned to London from Castle Rannoch in Scotland a couple of weeks ago, only to find the place shut up and no sign of Belinda. I supposed that she had gone to Italy with her latest beau, a gorgeous Italian count, who was unfortunately engaged to someone else. There was a possibility that she had returned, and the situation was urgent enough to warrant my venturing out into the worst sort of fog. If anyone knew how to rescue me from an impending Fig, it would be Belinda. So I wrapped myself in layers of scarves and stepped out into the pea-souper. Goodness but it was unearthly out there. All sounds were muffled and the air was permeated with the smoke of thousands of coal fires, leaving a disgusting metallic taste in my mouth. The houses around Belgrave Square had been swallowed up into the murk and I could just make out the railings around the gardens in the middle. Nobody else seemed to be out as I made my way carefully around the square.