“Only on the phone, Madam. He likes to talk dirty on the phone.”

“Well, don’t,” said Fleur from the bath, evidently an important feature in her life judging from its position in the middle of the room; the wall-to-wall carpet ran up its sides as if to prevent it getting a chill. Years ago Fleur had tried to decide between comfort and taste and, born with her ascendant in the sign of procrastination, came down somewhere in the middle.

“He was rubbing himself against me as if I was a bitch in heat,” said Fleur absently.

Vanella, who was as delicious as her name, smiled and kept her own counsel.

“Will you be wanting me any more today, Madam?” the maid asked, filling a Hadden Hall cup with coffee from a small stainless-steel flask. She had found herself a tousle-headed Scotsman who had introduced a little bondage into her young life, fashioning her a velvet blindfold and binding her with a silk skipping rope. Vanella had been looking forward to her day off all week.

“Has the curry been put on?” enquired Madam.

“Yes’m. All fixed and bubbling smoothly Since six this morning,” Vanella said as she entered the bathroom and balanced the flowered cup on the end of the tub.

“In that case you can take the rest of the day off. Oh, and Vanella—if you come back early, use your own door, please.”

The maid who had her modest quarters in the basement, popped her head back around the door, and with a delightful enamelled grin said, “Yes’m, have a wonderful salty time, Madam.” And she was gone before Fleur could think of anything else she needed doing.

“I’d kill for a smile like that,” she said to herself. “I wonder who’s going to be looking down at that face tonight?”

As she rough-gloved her back, she had second thoughts about letting her maid go, yet she reassured herself that it was never a good policy to have anyone as young and tasty as Vanella around when entertaining a new man. At least not until he was familiar with Fleur’s special feature.

She finished her coffee, which had been made just right—Blue Mountain on Fridays, ground fine for that extra zing when you sniffed it. She had taken Ian Fleming’s word on it when as a young girl she’d met him in Jamaica. Stepping out of the bath. she spent a moment admiring her breasts, breasts that the two great conveniences of the twentieth century—the pill and cosmetic surgery—had improved. Mirrors played a big part in Fleur’s life. A camp decorator (who wasn’t so camp in bed) had told her that marble, mirrors and fur created an air of luxury in a home—‘horny luxury’ were the words he used—and Fleur had taken him at his word. Fleur was not a great one for original thought, but, like her walls, she reflected a great deal; a sympathetic screen on which to project almost anything. As one taxi driver, with a Leslie Howard forehead, once exclaimed after an enervating night: “You’re not a great fuck, darlin’, but you’re great to fuck.”