‘It’s a lovely ring,’ Ruby says, without looking at it. ‘Marquise cut, surrounded by twelve smaller diamonds – am I right? Worth a lot.’

Harriet stands taller. She will not be intimidated.

‘I pity you,’ she says, as crisply as she can, her voice shaking only a little. ‘You could never afford anything like this, nor will you, I suppose, find a man to give you one. You could only ever steal it – so it would never be yours.’

Ruby’s eyes narrow at this. ‘I can have whatever I’d like. If I see a thing I want, I just take it.’

‘You look, most of all, to be in want of a bath,’ says Harriet, in a tone that reminds her of her mother. The sound of it gives her confidence. She breathes deeply again. ‘Perhaps you might take one – and use some soap.’

‘I will be sure to do that,’ says Ruby, without blinking. ‘When I am next at home.’

Ruby leans in, just a fraction of an inch, so that Harriet catches a hint of scent that she half-recognises: like sweet jasmine on a warm summer evening.

‘You should cut your hair, you know. It would suit you shorter. And emeralds. You should wear emerald earrings.’ She steps back and winks. ‘Perhaps I’ll find you some before your dear Ralph does.’

Harriet lets out a gasping breath and puts a hand to one of her ears, almost dropping her pink box, as Ruby turns away, click-clacking across the marble floor towards the door, chuckling to herself.

Her heart pounds to the beat of Ruby’s heels; the blush rises from her collarbone to her brows.

Four hours later, Ruby looks around the flat she’s rented. No, not a flat – an apartment. She lets the middle syllable roll around her mouth like a gobstopper as she says the word out loud in her plummiest voice. Her Harriet Littlemore voice, as she has decided to call it, now that she has a model and a manner to copy. She’s handed over one month’s payment plus the deposit, as instructed. She’s never been in a place so enormous, except Selfridges.

She trails her fingertips over a lacquered drinks cabinet. Everything has worked like clockwork. She can hardly believe how easy it was. The further liberal dabbing of French perfume in Selfridges, along with the exchange of what was left of Peter Lazenby’s cash – and the dropping of his name – secured her the apartment from the letting agent. She had walked confidently towards the youngest man in Mortimer’s Agency, having chosen him carefully from the array of men behind desks. He had a sharp and hungry look about him, like a man who sought his boss’s position and would be keen to secure a lease.