Tom’s idea: he knows how much I hate getting dressed up for these things. Let’s go vintage, he suggested, when he presented me with this dress, a gift to celebrate our house going under contract. It’s glam, but not obvious, and you won’t have to show too much skin.

‘Have you found your table?’ I ask Stacey, keen to change the subject.

‘We’re right at the front of the ballroom,’ she says. ‘You must have twisted a few arms to arrange that at such short notice.’

I smile. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure my husband spends far more than he should in the auction.’

Tom is good at tracking people online, even those who’re careful to minimise their digital footprint, but he didn’t manage to dig up much about Mr Stacey Porter. The man doesn’t have any social media presence at all, and apart from a few unavoidable listings – birth and marriage records, land registry details – Tom found next to nothing.

‘You remember my husband, Tom,’ I say, as he comes up behind me.

‘Of course. Good to see you again,’ she says. She glances around the hotel lobby, which is rapidly filling with barely-there dresses and too-tight dinner jackets. ‘Felix is somewhere around. I’ll introduce you in a minute.’

‘Mrs Downton!’

A woman in a scarlet dress with an elaborate up-do is bearing down on us in improbable heels, an impressively muscular man trailing in her wake. It takes me a moment to place them.

‘Mrs Conway,’ I say, as Stacey takes advantage of the distraction to slip away.

‘Call me Harper, please. Is this your lovely hubby?’

‘Tom Downton,’ he says, extending his hand.

‘We’re so excited to be buying your house,’ Harper gushes. ‘We’re doing a special Countdown to Move-In Day on our vlog. We’ve got a competition to choose the new paint colour in the lounge – not that there’s anything wrong with the one you’ve got,’ she adds quickly. ‘But our Kyper Nation fans like to feel involved, you know?’

‘Absolutely,’ Tom says.

‘And when you’re on TV, you need some colour on set to pop. Brighten things up a bit. Though our fans love your office, Mrs Downton,’ she adds. ‘It’s got loads of likes, almost as many as the terrace, hasn’t it, Kyle?’

Tom takes a couple of glasses of Prosecco from a passing waiter and hands one to the woman. Given her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes, I suspect it’s not her first. ‘What’s your connection to the hospital, Harper?’ he asks.

‘The hospital?’

‘Well, since you’re here to support its fundraising efforts I assumed you must have a connection,’ Tom says. ‘Nothing unhappy, I hope?’

Oh, my husband can be wicked sometimes.