What sickness now began to fill my belly. How much this extravagance would cost me, I could not fathom. There would be all manner of bills. The expense of the lodgings would be but one of them. No traveller resides at such an establishment without paying the most exorbitant amounts for victuals, laundry, candles, etc. While I possessed the funds to discharge these obligations, I recognized that my purse could not sustain such an assault for long. What then? Once my coffers were empty, what measures might I be made to take – or manner of life might I be forced to resume?

I rose early the following morning and was startled to find my Irish knight errant already in attendance and awaiting me in my dressing room. He leaped to his feet at my appearance, nearly splashing his buff silk coat with the coffee he had been sipping.

‘My Lady Allenham’ – he attempted a laugh – ‘I would not wish you to think me remiss in escorting you upon this most pressing errand.’ It was only as he led me to his coach that I learned he had taken rooms directly above me, so that I would ‘never suffer inconvenience by his inattention’. I was not certain how to take this news, whether I should welcome his proximity or learn to abhor it. La, but it mattered not, I told myself, for I was about to meet with Allenham and bring this episode to a close.

We passed beneath the archway of the Hôtel l’Impératrice and out on to the streets, which by day seemed less daunting. This is not to suggest the roads were any more passable than they had been by night. Our progress was slow and laboured: a cabriolet driver argued upon the street with two fearsome women, riders wove their horses perilously in between carts and coaches, children ran into the road, while a lazy-eyed cow obstructed the thoroughfare. I gazed up at the high gates of hôtels particuliers and out at the dusty windows of shops, filled with gaudy-coloured goods. There was something of the carnival about this place: both gruesome and delightful, mysterious and threatening. I soon discovered that the Parisians had written the names of their streets upon corner buildings, and then began an anxious search for the rue Saint-Dominique, our destination.

When at last we arrived there, at the Hôtel de Monaco, I could scarcely contain my nerves. Savill assisted me from his vehicle and our names were given to an attendant who showed us up a pair of stairs to a vast mirrored salon thronged with waiting gentlemen. There I sat, attempting to compose myself, imagining with each moment that the curtain was about to fall upon this unfortunate piece of theatre. How would Allenham receive me? What awkwardness might I encounter with Mr Savill as my audience? An hour passed in this manner before a footman appeared.