About Berkeley Square Society, a private companion agency in W1

Most of the Society's evenings begin within a few minutes' walk of the square, and the square has long understood a particular kind of manners: people meet there, dine nearby, and nobody writes it down. The name was borrowed for that reason. It is a borrowing, not a claim. The Society has no premises on the square, no connection with its clubs or its hotels, and no history it would care to invent.

The Berkeley Square page describes the square itself, and the Mayfair page the district that surrounds it. Companions travel well beyond both, wherever in central London a guest happens to be staying, on identical terms.

Cressida is the Society's membership secretary. Every message is read by her and answered by her, in writing, on WhatsApp or Telegram, whether it arrives at teatime or long after the last taxi. She has met each woman on the roster, and it shows in the way she matches them: a guest who mentions a board dinner and a weakness for old films will be offered one name, with a sentence explaining the choice.

If the roster cannot supply the evening you have described, Cressida will tell you so. The Society would rather lose a booking than fill it badly.

No one is ever sought out for the roster. A companion writes to the Society of her own accord, with no agent, manager or third party involved, and their first meeting is over coffee. Cressida reads her identification, establishes her age and that she may lawfully work in Britain, and compares every photograph she has brought with the woman across the table.

After that the diary is hers. She tells Cressida which evenings she wants and which she does not; every fee goes to her directly; and her page stays up only for as long as she wants it there, with no reason needed to take it down. The roster is therefore never long, and it changes quietly.

The Society holds on to what a booking requires only until the evening is over, and keeps no guest list at all. Guests' notes appear only when real and moderated, dated by month and signed with a first name alone. The photographs, glamour and lifestyle work with some faces softened and no nudity, follow the photo policy.

Nor does the Society decorate itself. You will find no founding date on these pages, no awards and no count of guests served, and nobody is shown as available unless she has said so herself. What is written here can be checked against what happens.

The site is written on a single understanding, that what a guest pays for is time and companionship only; hence no lists of services, nothing priced as an extra and not a word that is explicit. The Society asks three things of a guest, good manners, an honest address and a clear head, and asks of its companions punctuality and a sense of occasion. Should a companion ever feel unsafe or pushed, she may leave at once, and she has the Society's backing when she does.

If anything you see, in the Society's company or elsewhere in London, suggests that someone is not working freely, tell the Modern Slavery Helpline, which listens in confidence at any hour; the link sits beneath every page.

An evening starts at £600 for its first hour, and the rates page lists every length beyond it. The booking page walks through what happens once you have written. Or simply write to Cressida now, with a night in mind and the name of your hotel.