Albemarle Street escorts, W1S: the street this house is named for

The street was laid out in the 1680s over the grounds of Clarendon House, which the second Duke of Albemarle bought, could not afford, and sold to builders. His title stayed behind on the corner signs. So did a certain seriousness. At number 21 the Royal Institution still holds its evening lectures behind a row of Corinthian columns, and in Michael Faraday's day the carriages outside were so thick that, in 1808, Albemarle Street became the first in London to run one way.

A few doors further up, in the drawing room of a publishing house, Lord Byron's memoirs were fed to the fire in 1824 by friends who thought them too frank to print. The street has been careful about what it says ever since. Galleries and tailors hold the upper stretch now, a private members' club occupies a handsome house halfway along, and the lower end meets Piccadilly a short step from Burlington Arcade. Nothing here raises its voice. That is precisely why guests like to be met on it.

We name hotels the way a letter names an address, so that you know where she is going. None has any arrangement with this house, none is told in advance, and none has reason to notice. She arrives as the guest of a guest.

Brown's Hotel, W1S 4BP, is the street's own. It opened in 1837, founded by a former manservant of Lord Byron, and still feels like a well kept town house: panelled, carpeted, lit low. Its bar, hung with black and white portraits, is the natural first meeting. The Westbury Mayfair, W1S 2YF, stands where Conduit Street meets New Bond Street, a few minutes north, and suits guests who want a modern room with the shopping streets at the door.

On Stratton Street, The May Fair Hotel (W1J 8LT) is the livelier neighbour, its lobby busy until late. The Ritz, W1J 9BR, is four minutes west along Piccadilly, its arcade lamps lit from dusk. Hotel Café Royal, W1B 4DY, is the outlier to the east, on the curve of Regent Street near the Circus, and the sensible choice when the evening includes a play.

The nearest station is Green Park, 2 minutes from the bottom of the street, where the Victoria, Jubilee and Piccadilly lines meet. Piccadilly Circus, 6 minutes east, adds the Bakerloo line. Bond Street is roughly 9 minutes north through the back streets; the Central and Jubilee stop there, and so does the Elizabeth line, which runs straight out to Heathrow.

Those minutes are yours, not hers. Companions arrive by car, and within Zones 1 and 2 the fare is ours, which covers every address in W1S without exception.

Write to Octavia. Give her the evening, its length and the hotel you are in. She answers herself, naming a companion who is free, her fee and the minute she will arrive, all in writing. For a same evening request on this street, allow about an hour from that reply. For anything settled a day ahead, the minute agreed is the minute kept.

One exchange establishes who you are: your first name, then either the hotel and its room number or a residence's street and door. It is asked once and never repeated. You hand your companion her fee yourself when she arrives, before the evening begins, and nothing about it appears on any hotel bill. The booking page sets the sequence out in full.

Guests on this street are usually in London for a reason: a sale at one of the auction houses, a week of meetings, a lecture at the Institution they waited a year to attend. They are staying at Brown's or within a short walk of it. They ask for conversation that keeps pace, a companion who looks entirely at home in a panelled room, and discretion that never needs explaining. Some write for a single hour's drink before a dinner they must attend alone. Others write for the dinner itself.

Six o'clock. A guest at Brown's asks for three hours from seven and a companion who knows the street. Octavia suggests Samanta, who counts the hotel's bar among her favourite rooms anywhere. She arrives at seven exactly, in dark tailoring, and they take one drink beneath the photographs.

Eight o'clock. A short walk up the street, past the lit columns of the Royal Institution, to a table booked for a quarter past. The talk moves from lecture theatres to hotel staircases, on which she holds unusually precise views. Ten o'clock. Back down to Piccadilly for a nightcap, the arcade gates shut and the traffic thinned. Three hours, £1,500, arranged in two messages.

Nobody on our list lives on Albemarle Street itself; it is not that kind of street. The closest live a few minutes away in Mayfair. Angelika spends the last hour before closing in the Royal Academy's galleries and disputes most of the wall labels. Luna would rather see a new play than a new painting, and chooses her wine blind. Samanta, the tallest of the three, is the one to ask for at Brown's.

From Marylebone, Liana will steer you into Hatchards before supper, and Rosa towards afternoon tea at Fortnum's. From Soho, Tiffany, Jasmin and Molly are a short ride away, each with her own favourite corner of this quarter.

Dover Street runs parallel one block west, quieter by day and later by night. At the southern end, the Piccadilly page follows the avenue east to the theatres, and the Ritz corner of Green Park lies four minutes west. Berkeley Square, a few minutes north west, and Old Bond Street, one block east, belong to the wider Mayfair page, and St James's begins directly across Piccadilly, down St James's Street. Each is covered on identical terms.