After dinner, the waiter set down a tray of coffee on a low table by the fireplace and left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind him. David sat on a small sofa and patted the cushion next to him. “Let us enjoy ourselves for a moment, shall we?”

I did not need such an invitation. As he spoke, I was already plumping myself down like a schoolgirl. My head felt light; my spirits were high. “Enjoy ourselves?” I repeated coquettishly. I felt as if I were acting in one of the scenes where I had to tempt Charles de Montfort with Eloise’s feminine charm. I saw other girls flirt all the time, but I was not sure if David would consider it unbecoming.

It seemed not. He grinned charmingly. His hand went to his jacket pocket and he drew out an embossed box, unmistakably a jeweller’s box. “But first, my dear,” he said, “I implore you to accept this as a token of my regard.”

My ears buzzed with wild thoughts: It will not be a ring. It cannot not be a ring. If it is a ring, what will I say? Breathless, I opened the box.

It was not a ring. It was a slim gold bracelet studded with green stones. When I looked at David his grin had become a half-doubtful smile, and in his eyes was the message, “please like my gift; I can’t bear it if you reject me!”

“Oh, David, it’s beautiful! I absolutely adore it. Thank you so much!” I took it from the box and held it up. In the artificial light, it glowed like fire. “Are these emeralds?”

His face clouded, though at the time I did not realize it was because of my lack of taste. “Of course,” he said gently. “Nothing but the most beautiful jewels for the most beautiful lady. Consider it your Christmas present, a little early.” He took it from my hand. “Here, let me put it on for you.”

When he had done so, I held my wrist up, watching the green stones twinkle in the light. “I’ve never had such a glorious thing before, you know… I am so lucky, I can’t—”

But I did not say the remainder of my sentence, because David’s hands were suddenly drawing my face towards his and his lips descended on mine. It was a longer, more insistent kiss than the ones he had given me outside the Ritz. I did not know how to respond. No one had ever kissed me like this before. Boys in Haverth plonked their mouths in roughly the right place and fumbled drunkenly with blouse buttons and petticoats, but girls just pushed them away and laughed. No one had ever spoken to me with interested courtesy, complimented me and spent money on me. No one had ever been as worldly, rich and good-looking as David either. And no one had ever placed his lips – soft, searching, electrifying – so tenderly on mine.

I felt my body stiffen, but as he put his hands on the tops of my legs, and began to caress them gently, my muscles softened and we leaned against each other, chest to chest, lips to lips, absorbed in a world of sensation. The feeling was like electricity passing through me. My heart responded to the current that crackled around it, increasing its rate and changing its rhythm. I had never listened to my heart before, or felt its movements so keenly. But David’s kiss made all the fibres and vessels and cells in my body suddenly more sensitive. Every bit of me leapt towards him, eager for more of the electric spark.

We went on kissing. I put my hands inside his jacket and held him tightly around his waist. He was a slim man, tall, though not very muscular. Under his shirt his flesh felt soft, yet not soft like my own flesh. I had never considered before what it was that made men so different from women, apart from the obvious things. But his flat, tubular body seemed the very height of masculinity. Touching him, I was aware that his hands – again, hands with fingers and thumbs like mine, yet not like mine – were touching me and giving him the same sensations as I was feeling. It was mutual attraction, and mutual desire. David and I were in love.