This was a great improvement. My little talk this morning had obviously worked wonders. I bathed, came back to my room and let Queenie help me into my green satin dinner dress. I looked at myself in the mirror and somehow it hung wrongly. It had been a classic long evening gown before, smooth over the hips and flaring out to a gored skirt, but now it seemed to have a bump on one side, making my hip look as if it were deformed.

“Wait,” I said. “There’s something wrong with this skirt. It never bunched up like this before. And it seems awfully tight.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Well . . .”

I looked up at her face. “Queenie, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” she said, toying with her apron. “I had to fiddle with the skirt because it got a bit scorched when I ironed it. I’m not used to ironing nice stuff like this and the iron must have been too hot.” Then she demonstrated how she’d sewn the skirt together over a patch that had two big iron-shaped scorch marks on it. One scorch mark I could understand, but what had made her go back to repeat the mistake?

“Queenie, you are hopeless,” I said.

“I know, miss. But I do try,” she said.

“I’ll have to wear the burgundy again,” I said with a sigh, “unless Belinda’s got something she can lend me. Run down to her room, tell her what you’ve done and ask her.”

I waited impatiently, wondering how a dressmaker might be able to repair the damage in one of my few good dinner dresses. Almost immediately Queenie reappeared, her face scarlet.

“I knocked and went into her room, miss, and . . . and . . . she wasn’t alone. A man was in bed with her, miss, and he was, and they were . . . you know.”

“I can guess,” I said with a sigh. “Rule number one. Always wait until someone says ‘Come in’ in the future.”

“Yes, miss,” she said.

So it was the burgundy velvet again. I did my own hair and went down to dinner. Tonight was to be a more formal occasion, as it was originally expected that various crowned heads would have arrived. Count Dragomir had had his way and insisted on the same degree of formality because there were place cards at the table and I was told I was to be escorted into the banqueting hall by Anton.

As I waited for him to join me, I was joined instead by Lady Middlesex and in her wake Miss Deer-Harte.

“Isn’t this too exciting,” the latter said. “So kind of Her Highness to insist that we join in the festivities. I’ve never been to an occasion like this. So glittering, isn’t it? Like a storybook. You look very nice, my dear.”

“Same dress as she wore last night, I notice,” Lady Middlesex said bluntly.