Supper to morning: ten hours, one companion, one figure

How the night is actually shaped

Most begin with supper somewhere near you, because ten hours starting at nine leaves plenty of room for a restaurant and still gets everyone back at a civilised hour. Some begin later, straight at the hotel, when a guest has already been out with colleagues and wants the second half of the night to belong to him. Both are ordinary and neither needs explaining to Cordelia.

The morning, and how it ends

Breakfast is part of the booking and most companions would rather have it than skip it. She leaves at the hour written in the confirmation, not before and not vaguely later, so you can put a meeting in the diary for nine and keep it. If you want her gone earlier, say so when you book and the finishing hour is written accordingly.

What the desk asks for a day ahead

The date, the hotel or the address, the hour you want the night to begin and a name. If supper is part of it, say whether the table is yours or ours. A night booking is the one length the desk will not take on a guess, because a companion who clears a whole evening for you has to be certain it exists.

Comfort, and the small practical things

She arrives with what she needs for the morning and nothing that looks like luggage crossing a lobby. A room with a decent bathroom and somewhere to hang a dress is the whole of what makes a night easy. If the hotel is particular about visitors after a certain hour, tell the desk and Cordelia will set the arrival earlier rather than let anybody stand in a lobby explaining themselves.

Sleep is part of ten hours and nobody pretends otherwise. The women who take this length are good at the quiet end of an evening as well as the lively middle of it, which is a different skill and not every companion has both.

Weekends, and anything longer than a night

Two nights running is not two overnight bookings stacked up, and the desk will not quote it that way. Anything spanning more than one night is arranged as the long booking instead, quoted once when the dates and the shape of it are known. Ask and Cordelia will tell you which of the two your plan really is.

Four names who take a whole night

Lea lives inside the postcode and is unhurried company well past the hour most evenings give up. Patricia takes long bookings by preference and never once looks rushed. Samanta works Thursday to Saturday from eight, which fits a night booking exactly. Milena asks for four hours when there is music in the plan, and a night booking is simply that evening allowed to finish properly.

Who books a whole night, and why

Very often it is somebody who booked four hours the month before and spent the last of them wishing he had booked more. Sometimes it is a guest whose own evening finishes at eleven with colleagues and who wants the rest of the night to be his. Occasionally it is somebody arriving into London late who would simply rather not begin a stay alone in an empty room.

None of those needs explaining to the desk. Cordelia asks for the date, the hour and a name, and the reasons stay where they belong, which is with you. What she will do is tell you honestly whether the companion you have asked for takes night bookings at all, because several on this list do not and would rather that were said at the start than discovered later.

Cancelling a night booking

The same rule covers it as every other length. Three hours of notice or more costs nothing, and inside two hours half the figure applies, which matters more here because a night booking closes an entire evening rather than a corner of one. If the desk or the companion has to cancel, you are told at once and an alternative comes in the same message.

The fee is handed to the companion herself when she arrives, before the evening starts. The hour she leaves in the morning is written into the same confirmation, so neither of you has to raise it later.