Number 12 Chester Square was a nineteenth-century, five storeys plus basement residence in one of London"s most sought-after areas. Melissa moved in the day after the Spencers had vacated Iverson Hall without once thinking of them or their plight. From an agency she engaged a cook, a housekeeper, a maid, and a chauffeur-c*m-butler-c*m-everything else she could think of. She knew nothing of London, but that would not hinder or dampen her determination to fit in and stamp her mark.
In her home town she had never made friends, nor did she at university. Not because she was diffident around people, but because they were inessential to her, an excess not to be indulged. Shy she certainly was not, nor meek, nor timid, being totally preoccupied with herself having no time to recognise peculiarit
