When I described the Ritz Hotel to Mam and Da in my next letter home, I concentrated on the vastness and opulence of the building, the uniformed bell boys, the fashionable clothes I saw and the deliciousness of the dinner David and I ate there. I did not tell them that the gin sling David ordered for me tasted like medicine, so he drank it himself while I got through three much sweeter champagne cocktails before we even sat down at the table and half a bottle of wine while I was eating. Neither did I mention that as the evening went on, the crowd around us became louder and more abandoned, the waiters busier, the music faster and the atmosphere increasingly like an enormous party.

It was as if everyone there was celebrating something, though it was not a special occasion. I saw gentlemen lay ten-shilling and even pound notes down on the tables without so much as blinking. I saw ladies with silk stockings, feathered headbands and permanently waved hair smoking cigarettes in ebony holders. I saw laughing and chattering and, later on, hand-holding and kissing across tables. But most important, I was with a charming man, who, I realized with heart-stopping excitement, was himself charmed. By me.

It was the most enjoyable evening I had ever experienced. David was at ease with the wealth surrounding him. He was known to the hotel staff and exchanged pleasantries with them and with several groups of people who greeted him as we passed. Most delightful of all, every woman who entered the dining room noticed David. Some allowed their gaze to alight on him after a few seconds, some only after they were seated and had begun to look around. They whispered to their escorts, who would then turn as unobtrusively as they could and look at David too. He took no notice, but I allowed my imagination to race away. What must they be saying? “Look, there is David Penn, the film director. And who is that lovely girl with him? What an exquisite fur she’s wearing!”

Looking back, such speculation was childish, but I was not so much a child as to betray any confidences to my parents. I told them nothing, though all I could think of as I wrote was the delicious knowledge that David had singled me out and taken me to the smartest hotel in London. When he had opened the car door for me to go home alone because he had decided to stay at his club for the night, he had put his hands on my shoulders and kissed my cheek softly, his lips barely brushing my skin. “Good night, princess,” he had said. “Thank you for a wonderful evening. Sleep well, and I’ll see you at seven o’clock.”

Dazed and happy, I had climbed into the car. And before he closed the door, he had leaned in and kissed me again, with a little more purpose.