Catalina let forth a torrent of Spanish and Maggie hastily seized her arm and steered her along the road, weaving in and out of the seething crowd. ‘It was supposed to be part of your English education,’ she said.

‘I am Spanish; he is Spanish. Why I need an English education?’

‘Why do I need-’ Maggie corrected her automatically.

‘Why do I need an English education?’ Catalina repeated in exasperation.

‘For the same reason you needed a French education, so that you can be a cultivated woman and host his dinner parties.’

Before her rebellious charge could answer, Maggie steered her into a teashop, found a table and said, ‘Sit!’, much as she would have done to a recalcitrant puppy. The young Spanish girl was delightful but exhausting. Soon Maggie would see her off to Spain and retire to the peace of a nervous breakdown.

For the last three months it had been Maggie’s job to perfect Catalina’s English and share chaperoning duties with Isabella, her middle-aged duenna. The two Spanish women lived in one of London’s most luxurious hotels, courtesy of Don Sebastian, who had also arranged the highlights of their schedule, and paid Maggie’s wages.

The whole thing had been arranged at a distance. It was six months since Don Sebastian had last found time to see his fiancée, and that had been on a flying visit to Paris, during which he seemed to have checked the improvement in her French, and little else.

Day-to-day decisions were in the hands of Donna Isabella, who hired teachers locally, communicated with Sebastian and relayed her employer’s wishes to her employer’s bride-to-be.

He was in America at the moment, expected to arrive in London the following week, after which Catalina would accompany him back to Spain to begin preparing for her wedding. Or possibly he wouldn’t have time to come to London at all, in which case they would travel without him. Whatever else he could be accused of, Maggie thought, it wasn’t flaming ardour.