Samanta, companion in Mayfair

Conduit Street to Grosvenor Square is a seven minute walk and Samanta has made it in heels more times than she can count. She is 174 cm and slim, dark brown hair worn long, brown eyes, and at 27 she has the kind of elegance that reads as expensive without a single obvious label anywhere on her.

Her English is fluent and lightly ironic. She is good in company and better alone with one person, which is the useful way round for this sort of evening. She collects perfume seriously, goes to the cinema alone on her nights off, and is the most likely woman here to have already read the book you are about to recommend and to have an opinion about the ending. She is discreet without making any show of discretion, and she has the useful habit of never asking a question she would not want to answer herself.

Sketch on Conduit Street is her suggestion, the quieter dining room if the evening warrants it and the gallery room if it does not. Afterwards the Bond Street hotels are four minutes on foot and Park Lane about nine by car at that hour. Samanta lives in Mayfair, which means the desk can often confirm her for the same evening, and she will say so plainly when it cannot be done. The hotels between Bond Street and Berkeley Square are a short walk and she prefers to arrive on foot, composed rather than shaken out of a car.

She belongs to the Mayfair page. Figures for every duration appear under rates. Write once to booking and Romilly will tell you whether tonight is actually possible.

Samanta lives a few streets from most W1K and W1S hotels, so same evening requests are realistic. Give Romilly the hotel, the hour and the length.

Every figure she works to is on the board of rates, and the rest is one message away.

Samanta is at her best across a table for two. She arrives exactly on time, orders without deliberating, and then gives you the sort of attention that makes the rest of the dining room irrelevant. Her conversation is dry, well informed and never competitive, and she has a particular talent for making a guest feel interesting rather than interrogated.

Later the evening goes quiet in a way she prefers. She likes Mayfair at midnight, when the windows are lit and the streets are empty, and she likes an hour afterwards with a single lamp on and no particular subject. She keeps to the booked hours precisely and never makes the end of an evening awkward, which is a small courtesy that guests remember.