‘Whither you repair concerns me not, madame,’ she remarked as she laid the bill upon a side table, ‘so long as you discharge your obligations and take your leave immediately.’

Without so much as another word or even a look, she turned upon her heel and disappeared down the back stairs.

I took the note into my hand and saw, much as I had dreaded, a vast reckoning of all that I owed. There were not only fees for my rooms and meals, amounting to an exorbitant sum of twenty-one livres, but costs for the laundering of my linens and sheets, the use of candles and coal, costs for the water drawn for my bath and for any other purpose, expenses for the portering of my belongings to my apartments, even for the posting of a letter. This came to a further eight livres. I shut my eyes tightly and thought hard upon those measures which I might take. I knew of no English or even Austrian bankers in Paris who might make the exchange of my various banknotes, nor could I any longer call upon Savill to assist me in locating one.

How I detested that odious villain. No, it was more than simple disgust. Never before had I truly feared a man. My dear friend Mrs Mahon had once instructed me that in order to preserve myself, I must discover the weakness in every gentleman. Until that afternoon I believed that I had poised my sword against Savill’s Achilles heel. He was as vain as a peacock, he was a braggart and a fibber. But he was far worse than this; he was also calculating and cruel.

I knew I must quit the Hôtel l’Impératrice with as much speed as I was able. I turned my mind to which of my jewels I might pawn to make up the sum I owed. I had scarcely regained my composure from that encounter when I heard the doors to my apartments open a second time. Fearing that Madame Bonet had returned to collect her debt, I charged forward to explain how I intended to satisfy it. But it was not the proprietress whom I met with, but the devil himself. My back stiffened.

But for the curious twist of his mouth, the expression he wore was entirely flat and placid. He appeared a perfect gentleman in his port-wine coat and breeches and his flawlessly pomaded curls.

‘How dare you!’ I could scarcely manage to spit the words at him. ‘How dare you intrude here!’

Savill took several slow steps towards me.

‘What do you mean by this? To have me thrown from my lodgings! To bear false witness to Madame Bonet! Leave here at once, I say!’