It was there, upon the floor of Madame Bonet’s ornate dining room, that Lucy discovered me. She cried out in horror and gathered me into her arms, swearing like a Billingsgate fishwife and cursing Savill’s blood. She moved me slowly from where I leaned against the wall, but my face throbbed so feverishly that I could scarcely see where I placed my steps. She assisted me to my dressing-room sofa and there laid me upon some cushions, before muttering that she would make up a compress for my injury. As she moved from me I grabbed for her hand.

‘Lucy,’ I whispered, ‘do not trouble yourself . . . We have not the time. Madame Bonet wishes us to quit her hotel immediately. You must gather my possessions and pack them away. At once.’

My maid furrowed her brow.

‘But . . . but where are we to go, madam?’

‘I know not,’ I responded. My eyes began to well with tears. ‘I have not a friend in Paris.’

For an hour or so I lay upon the sofa. I stared at a small painting upon the opposite wall, but could see no more than a riot of pink and green and yellow. I shut my eyes and listened to Lucy’s footsteps. After a time, these were joined by those of Madame Bonet’s servants and housekeeper. I heard the billowing of sheets and linens, the brushing of clothes and rustle of papers, the rattling of keys and turning of locks, scuffling and shuffling and dragging, and the snap of orders being given. Madame Bonet’s housekeeper commanded that my belongings be removed to the stables until directions were received to send them elsewhere.

I did not move. I could not. My head was so heavy from the day’s events that I could scarcely lift it. But for the throb beating along my temple and eye, I felt nothing.

The green and gold Sèvres clock upon the mantel pinged six times. I knew the hour of our departure would be soon upon us, and so, with some discomfort, I raised myself from the sofa to make my peace with the Hôtel l’Impératrice’s dragoness. I determined that I should offer her a pair of ruby eardrops in place of my expenses. Then, Lucy and I would take our chances upon the street and begin to seek out some other suitable accommodation – but where, I had not the slightest notion.

I retrieved the jewels from my coffer, which Lucy had already locked away tight and stowed within my sturdiest of brass-studded boxes. I wrapped the dainty red starbursts in a silk handkerchief and placed them into my pocket. ‘I shall return shortly,’ I announced to my maid, before making my way solemnly from my apartments on to the landing.