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      ‘On to Ondine’s!’ Jack shouted. He was possessed with the excitement of the hunt. Amy saw how much he needed and enjoyed the competition. Perhaps everything, even herself, was part of his need to win. She didn’t mind that. She was glad to be a prize for Jack Roper.

      At Ondine’s he left them at the club door. A moment later he was back, bearing a sequinned slipper, surprisingly large.

      ‘We’re not leading yet,’ he shouted, as they swung away again. ‘She was only wearing this one. And God knows what sort of shape her dressing room’s in. There were about a dozen people scrimmaging at the door.’

      At Covent Garden the tea stall was besieged by imploring people in evening clothes, to the astonishment of the handful of porters.

      ‘It doesn’t matter a damn what sort of sandwich,’ a man with a monocle was shouting.

      At Marble Arch tube station more people were hunting through the litter for discarded tickets. One tube ticket, and the Underground was closed for the night. It was the maddest, funniest evening Amy had ever spent.

      The chase took them down to the river, in search of a lifebuoy. From the river Jack drove like a demon to Soho where an ancient theatrical outfitter living over his shop came blinking to his door in answer to the fusillade of knocks. He took the crisp five-pound note that Jack held out and came shuffling back with a comic-opera policeman’s helmet.

      ‘It doesn’t say it has to be a real one,’ Jack beamed as they roared off into the night again. ‘Oh God, where can we get a cricket bat? Is Lord’s open after midnight?’

      ‘Chap who shares my digs plays cricket,’ said the man perched in the back of the car, and they were off again.

      At last, bearing their trophies, they shot back into Green Street. Amy glanced up and saw Caroline Carlisle in her silver dress out on the balcony waving them on.

      But from the opposite direction someone else was running, head down, like a rugger player. A policeman’s helmet was jammed on his head and the handle of a cricket bat protruded from under his arm. Jack saw him and vaulted over the side of the car. He was running too, with Amy and their friends of the evening at his heels, but not even Jack was fast enough. The boy streaked up the stairs and fell at Lady Carlisle’s feet, scattering his treasure all around her.

      When Amy caught up with him Jack was leaning against the door jamb, gasping and smiling. ‘Beaten into second place by a damned sprinter,’ he complained. ‘But what a race.’

      She put her arms around him and kissed him, laughing. ‘We should have won.’

      From outside they heard someone shouting, ‘The Betts have been arrested for assaulting a police officer.’

      ‘What is a scavenger hunt if one or two of one’s guests aren’t clapped into the cells?’ said Lady Carlisle philosophically.

      It was daylight when Jack walked Amy home again through the silent streets. The pavements were misted with the damp that clung in rainbow beads in their hair, and their breath clouded milkily ahead of them. Amy thought that she had never seen London look so polished clean, so perfect. It was the first moment, in all the hectic, sparkling hours since she had met him, that they had been alone and quiet together. She felt her happiness real enough to reach out and touch it.

      At Bruton Street Jack kissed her fingers, one by one.

      ‘I have to do some business today. Shall I come for you at eight tonight?’

      ‘Another party?’

      He smiled at her. ‘The very best kind of party.’

      For the best kind of party Amy chose to wear her most elegant, plainest black evening dress, and extravagant long black gloves. The dress left her shoulders and throat exposed and creamy-pale, and from Adeline’s wardrobe she had borrowed a cape of floating white feathers to wrap herself in.

      When Jack saw her standing like a black and white column under the huge chandelier he stopped for a moment. Then he reached almost awkwardly to touch her cheek.

      The Lagonda was waiting outside. Jack drove them to Chelsea, to a neat white house in a pretty terrace.

      ‘Who lives here?’ Amy asked curiously.

      ‘I do,’ Jack answered.

      Inside the quiet house he put his arms around her and turned her face up to his. Beside them a rococo gilt mirror reflected their stark black and white back at them, and Amy thought for a giddy instant as she saw it that they were already fused, already part of one another.

      ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked formally. ‘I could cook you some dinner, so long as it’s scrambled eggs.’

      Amy smiled at the contrast with their other nights together. She felt privileged at last, to be here with him alone.

      ‘No,’ she said clearly. ‘I’m not hungry for food.’

      The gentleness was suddenly gone. Jack took her hand and led her abruptly upstairs. In his bedroom there was a wide bed with a black silk cover. Roughly he kissed her throat and then lifted one of the damp white feathers where it clung to her skin. The feather cape dropped on to the black cover, and the drifting fronds settled lazily into stillness.

      Jack peeled off the long black gloves, first one and then the other. He knelt to kiss the blue threads inside her wrists. Looking down, Amy saw the silver glitter in his fair hair and laced her fingers through it. His mouth moved upwards to the warmth in the crook of her arm, then to her shoulder and her lips again. His tongue moved against hers and for Amy the whole world slipped a little and then dissolved beyond them. There was only Jack now, only his hands and mouth and the expanse of rippling black silk. He undid the tiny buttons at the back of her dress and it fell in folds at their feet. Amy stepped out of it in her high-heeled slippers and he unhooked her stockings and touched the soft skin inside her thighs.

      ‘Jack,’ she whispered as her hands reached out for him. She saw his blue eyes half-close as the ribbon of his black tie unwound and dropped between them.

      ‘My love. My pretty, wicked love.’

      They were both smiling as he kissed her again and her mouth opened wide to him. The last of their tangled clothes fell and he laid her back against the smooth silk. The kiss of his warm skin against hers was almost chaste in its sweetness, yet it excited her so that she moaned aloud and laced her fingers tighter, pulling him to her.

      ‘Jack,’ she whispered again, imploring now. His hand explored the heart of her so that she felt the petals already unfolding. He hung over her for a second, poised, and then with the arrogance of certainty he came inside her.

      The pain and the pleasure were simultaneous, infinite, and then the pain was gone and there was only the pleasure as they moved together, opposite parts of the whole that had eluded her and now, at last, was here in all its simpleness for her to touch and taste.

      The tide of sweetness overtook her and washed the breath and heat and anxiousness out of her, and then receded as mysteriously as it had come. It left her lying with Jack Roper in her arms, his eyes closed and his silver-fair hair darkened with sweat. The silence that wrapped around them was as warm and calm as the tropical sea. She smiled, crookedly, with her lips against his cheek, and stirred a little. He lifted his hand and found her fingers, and wrapped them in his own. Amy looked outwards, from the folds of black silk around them to the white walls, the curtained windows and the pattern of London beyond. The world knitted together and she felt whole and calm, as smooth and rounded as an egg and as powerful as a breaking wave. The world had let her into a secret at last and she was alive with it.

      So that’s what happens, Amy thought. Her virginity was gone and she was glad, as if Jack had given her the answer to a question that had nagged at her for months. The intimacy of the moment seemed so natural and so tender that she felt she understood, at last, the mystery of love. It laced the world together, and illuminated it as well. Amy understood it for herself and Jack Roper, and it made her wonder why the same happiness had

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