3
Delia had never been the sort to let grass grow under her feet. After her meeting with Calderon, she marched straight to the Savoy’s telegraph office and fired off a cable to Ritz in Rome. She then went in search of Ritz’s second-in-command, but Monsieur Echenard had departed that morning for a winter holiday on the Riviera with his family. A sudden impulse, she was told by the assistant manager’s secretary.
“Sudden impulse, my eye,” Delia muttered as she departed Echenard’s office. “Helen’s responsible for getting him out of the way, I’ll wager, and Ritz, too. Thereby giving that impossible man a free hand.”
With half an hour to spare before her first appointment of the day, Delia made a few discreet inquiries among the staff, and though everyone with whom she spoke was as disgruntled about the changes being made and as worried about the future as she was, no one seemed able to add any details to what she already knew.
She did, however, have one more source of information available to her. When she returned to the hotel after her last appointment of the morning and found no reply from Ritz awaiting her, she went straight to the Duke of Westbourne’s suite.
Her cousin, thankfully, was in.
“Delia? What a delightful surprise.” Max opened the door wider for her to enter. “How was Paris?”
“Cold,” she replied, giving his cheek an affectionate kiss before passing through the doorway into the sitting room of his suite. “Rainy. A lot like here. But it is January, so what else can one expect? Are you on your way out?” she added, noting his morning coat and the fresh carnation in his buttonhole.
“I’m having a late lunch with Marbury at Rules,” he explained, closing the door behind her. “I’m only waiting for my valet to bring my hat, and I’m off. The blasted thing got crushed during the train journey down here, and Stowell took it to the Savoy’s laundry to try and repair the damage. Did you come by to hear all the news from Gloucestershire?”
“I’d adore that, but I really came to talk with you about something else entirely. It’s rather important, but I don’t want to make you late.”
“The later the better, to my mind. Marbury wants to bend my ear over the new Reform Bill before the Lords vote on it tomorrow, and I couldn’t find an excuse to get out of it. Marbury’s a worthy fellow, but deadly dull. He pontificates endlessly, which I suppose is what makes him so accomplished as an MP. Either way, we have a bit of time for a chat, I think. What’s the trouble?”
Reassured, she took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Dearest Max, I need your help.”
His mouth took on a wry curve. “Knowing you, that spells trouble.”
“I don’t know how you can say that. The last time I asked you for help, you met a girl and got married.”
“Exactly.”
Delia was well aware that Max adored his wife, Evie, so she merely gave him a playful smack on the arm. “Do be serious. I’ve got a problem, and you are the perfect person to help me resolve it.”
“Given that you’ve been away, I don’t know how you even knew I was in town.”
“I hear everything that goes on in this hotel. And what’s going on now,” she added, sinking onto the settee, “is a disaster.”
“Ah,” he said with a nod of understanding. “This is about Lord Calderon, no doubt.”
She made a face at the mention of her newfound nemesis. “I’ve always admired your perspicacity, Max. It’s why you’re my favorite cousin.”
He studied her face for a moment, then walked to the liquor cabinet. “Whisky or sherry?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Whisky,” she answered at once. “Sherry is much too delicate for my present mood.”
Max laughed, shaking back his dark hair as he poured a generous measure of whisky into a tumbler. “Calderon’s giving the hotel a bit of a dustup, I imagine?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“And you’ve come to cry on my shoulder?” he asked as he brought her the drink.
She snorted, giving him an impatient glance as she took the offered glass. “I didn’t come for sympathy,” she corrected and took a generous swallow of whisky. “I already told you; I came for help. Specifically, I need information.”
His eyes, the same dark blue as hers, widened as if in surprise. “Information about Calderon? I hardly know the man.”
“He went to Harrow. Two years ahead of you.”
“Even so, I don’t believe we ever met until a few weeks ago.”
“I thought all of you knew each other. The old school tie, and all that. Either way,” she went on as he shook his head, “you’re a major investor in the hotel. You must have been there for that shareholders’ meeting a few weeks ago.”
“I came to London because two very important votes were scheduled in the House of Lords that week. I’m here again this week for the same reason.”
She waved aside politics. “Were you at that shareholders’ meeting or not? Well, then,” she added as he gave a nod, “you must know what’s going on.”
“I may be an investor, Dee, but I’m not privy to the board’s decisions regarding hotel operations. Besides, you got back from Paris last night, didn’t you? Given your uncanny ability to ferret out secrets, you probably know far more about the whole affair by this time than I do.”
She didn’t reply, but merely continued to look at him, waiting, and after a moment, Max sighed and sat in the chair opposite her with his drink, resigned to his fate. “What do you want to know that you think I can tell you?”
“What happened at that meeting?”
“We got bad news. No dividend, yet again. That’s four straight quarters with investors receiving no return on our investment. Profits are down, again, and by a very significant margin. There was a huge outcry from the shareholders, as you might expect, and we demanded that something be done.”
“That something being Calderon?”
“Mrs. Carte regaled us with his qualifications, which are impressive, and suggested he might be willing to turn things around. She brought him into the meeting—”
“What, right then and there? Helen doesn’t waste any time, does she?”
“Calderon gave us his opinion on what changes were needed, and what he felt he could do in that regard. We were keenly impressed, agreed with his contentions, and despite the scandal of his father—”
“Scandal? What scandal?”
“It hardly matters. It was ages ago, and it had nothing to do with Calderon. So the board voted him in as a member with stock shares as compensation for his efforts.”
“But why him? Couldn’t your lot have chosen someone whose diplomatic skill is not equivalent to the tread of a bull elephant? Here three weeks, and he’s already got everyone in an uproar. Chopping, changing, undermining Ritz at every turn. What’s the good of that?”
“Dee, I appreciate the loyalty that Ritz has earned from all of you, but I’m sure everyone will cooperate with Calderon.”
“Will they? The odds are long, in my opinion. I’ve heard very little about him that’s positive.”
“Perhaps you don’t want to hear anything positive.”
She ignored that. “It’s hardly surprising, since he’s high-handed, incredibly bossy, and absolutely determined to have things his own way.”
“Is he?” Max lifted his glass, giving her a meaningful glance over the rim. “He sounds a bit like a cousin of mine.”
“I’m nothing like that,” she countered, aghast at the very idea that she and that impossible man were in any way alike.
“No?” Max cocked his head to one side, studying her with one raised eyebrow. “How many nannies did you wear out before your exasperated parents sent you off to finishing school?”
Delia made a sound of impatience at this unnecessary reference to her rather turbulent childhood. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” she protested, but when Max continued to subject her to his steady, unrelenting ducal stare, she sighed and gave in. “Four,” she replied, “but I really don’t see—”
“And how many finishing schools sent you down before you finally managed to graduate?”
“Three,” she admitted and mustered her dignity, “but we’re not talking about me and my rebellious youth. We are talking about the present, and Lord Calderon. He is not a rebellious adolescent but a grown man, one who seems unable to see any point of view but his own. Max, the man has no understanding of how things are done here and refuses to care. He isn’t even bothering to consult with Ritz about the changes he wants to make. Is it any wonder the staff’s noses are put out? And how does he expect to manage the staff anyway? Why, the man doesn’t even speak proper French!”
Max’s lips twitched. “A grievous sin, indeed,” he said gravely.
“In this case, it is! Many of the hotel employees are French and are far more comfortable speaking in that language. Why, at least a third of the kitchen staff don’t speak English at all, including Escoffier. Calderon’s French is so painful to the ears that if Escoffier sees him coming, he’ll duck into the larder and lock the door! How does that happen anyway?” she added, momentarily sidetracked. “How is it that a gentleman, a peer of the realm, speaks such abysmal French?”
Max, the wretch, actually laughed.
“What?” she demanded. “What has you so amused?”
“Nothing.” He hastily stifled his laughter, but the smile at the corners of his mouth lingered, telling her it was only a token effort. “It’s just that I’m remembering a conversation from a couple of years ago, when you called me out for wondering the very same thing about a certain young lady we both know.”
Delia scowled, remembering the conversation in question. “That was different.”
“Not so very different. You severely scolded me—and quite rightly, too—for wondering such a thing about Evie. And—”
“That is not at all the same,” she cried, indignant at the comparison. “Your wife might have done work for me before she met you, but she was never in charge of any hotel staff. And besides, Evie is a delightful person, while Lord Calderon is anything but. He called me a snob. I know,” she added, giving a gratified nod as she noted her cousin’s surprise. “Can you believe it?”
“Well, if memory serves, that’s what you called me about Evie.”
“I never said such a thing.”
“Words to that effect, then.”
“Nonsense. And again, we’re not talking about me, or you, for that matter. We’re talking about him. Who does he think he is, calling me a snob? Arrogant bastard.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t trade insult for insult and call him that to his face.”
She shifted guiltily in her chair. “Might have done,” she muttered. “In the heat of the moment.”
“Oh, Dee.” He laughed, shaking his head. “You do like to make things difficult, don’t you?”
“I couldn’t help it! You should have heard him, chastising me as if I’m a child, laying down the law, refusing to accept facts, denigrating other members of the aristocracy and talking as if he’s not even one of us.”
“Well, that last bit’s understandable, I suppose. He’s probably got a chip on his shoulder about our lot.”
She frowned in confusion. “But why should he have? He’s part of the aristocracy, too. Isn’t he a viscount?”
“Yes, but it’s a newly created title.”
“Ah, that explains why I’d never heard of him.”
“Exactly. He was awarded a peerage a few months ago for his bravery fighting the Boers.”
“The Boers?” She paused to do some quick arithmetic. “He must have been very young.”
“He was. Barely eighteen. He saved a general’s life during the Battle of Majuba Hill, or Laing’s Nek, or some such, and almost lost his own life in the process, I understand.”
“That was very brave,” she murmured, impressed in spite of herself—a reaction, oddly enough, that only made her more frustrated.
“Just so,” Max replied. “The Queen finally recognized him for his action a few months ago, giving him a title and an estate somewhere in Berkshire.”
“Better late than never, I suppose. The war was ages ago. Still, it’s quite an honor.”
“Indeed. Especially considering his background. Both his mother and father worked in the hotel trade.”
“Did they?” Delia’s mind flashed back to her conversation with Calderon about going hungry. In light of Max’s information, that singular remark made more sense now. “I see. But then,” she added, struck by another thought, “how did he manage the fees for Harrow? Inherited money? Scholarship?”
“If he were scholarship class, would that surprise you?”
Delia tossed her head. “He’s intelligent enough for a scholarship, I suppose,” she said grudgingly.
“A fine concession. I begin to understand why he called you a snob.”
“What?”
“Perhaps he thinks you already know about his father’s transgressions and his lowly background and are judging him for it?”
“First of all, I don’t even know what his father’s transgressions were.”
She shot him an inquiring look, and he capitulated with a sigh. “Embezzlement.”
“What?”
“His father was a hotel clerk who got caught with his hand in the till. The man was dismissed, of course—”
“Wait—” she pleaded, holding up one hand. “His father was a petty thief? But then, why on earth would the board agree to put him in charge of the Savoy? Did they not know about it?”
“They knew. Most of the board members were already acquainted with him. He and Richard Carte are partners in several other ventures, you see. And unlike his father, his own reputation in business is one of scrupulous honesty. As for the investors, Calderon told us about his father at the meeting. He felt it wasn’t playing the game otherwise. Some of the investors weren’t too keen on him after finding out, of course, but as I said during the meeting, one can hardly blame a son for his father’s sins. Although,” he added, watching her face, “I’m not sure you agree?”
Delia drew herself up, affronted. “I would never hold the circumstances of his birth or the actions of his father against any man. And whatever my opinion of Calderon himself may be, the accusation he leveled at my head was most unwarranted. I am not a snob, and you know it.”
“True, but I’m not the one who needs to be convinced.”
“I doubt I could convince Calderon that water’s wet,” she muttered. “Honestly, I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone so strong-willed, so determined to get their own way—”
“Just so,” he murmured, cutting her off. “The pot has met the kettle, and she doesn’t like it a bit.”
“No one ever has trouble with me,” she said with dignity. “I don’t bully people into doing things I want.”
“No, you just manage to convince them that what you want is all their own idea.”
That stung, mainly because there was truth in it. But before she could reply, Max spoke again. “But here’s the thing, Dee.” He paused and leaned forward in his chair, looking uncharacteristically grave all of a sudden. “Nothing you’ve told me is relevant here. The investors—including me, by the way—will not continue to accept receiving no return on our investment. We require the board to do whatever is necessary to right the ship before it sinks.”
“It’s not sinking. Don’t exaggerate.”
“Even you must admit that the hotel has been spending an inordinate amount of money. Ritz is the worst offender, but you aren’t much better. Don’t deny it, Delia,” he added as she opened her mouth. “I’m terribly fond of you, as you know, but you are a spendthrift.”
Delia began to regret she’d paid this call. “All the decisions I make are sound, and none have been made without Ritz’s full agreement. The hotel has an image to maintain. That costs money.”
“Image is all very well, but things can’t go on as they have. When Mrs. Carte brought Calderon in, it seemed to us like the answer to a prayer. This sort of thing is right up his street. He’s taken over and turned around several other hotels. Very successfully, I might add.”
Delia sniffed, no more impressed by that fact now than she’d been this morning. “I’ve made some inquiries about that. None of those hotels are in London, and none are up to Savoy standards.”
“That’s not a snobbish view at all,” he murmured slyly.
“How does Ritz feel about what’s happening?” she asked, wisely shifting the conversation. “Does anyone know?”
“Does it matter? He, Echenard, and Escoffier will be made to understand—if they haven’t already—that there’s nothing else to be done. Besides, Ritz has been stretched terribly thin, building this new Paris hotel of his and managing the new Savoy hotel in Rome, as well as running things here. You’re his friend. Think of him. He’s overwhelmed and could do with Calderon’s help.”
“Helping Ritz is supposed to be my job.”
“Yes, I know. And I know how much the job means to you.”
He didn’t know, not really. No one could truly understand what a lifeline Ritz’s offer of employment had been to her in the wake of her third husband’s death. “Well, then,” she began.
“But you, my dear, are not enough, and the lack of profit proves it.”
“Not that horrid word again! Really, Max, you’re already one of the wealthiest men in England. How much more money do you need to make?”
“Given the disastrous slump in income from land rents and what it costs to run the estates, I need all the income from other sources I can get. And most of the other investors—the titled ones, anyway—feel the same. Some of our lot are barely staying afloat. You know that.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” she conceded, appropriately chastened. “But the man’s simply unbearable. What can I do?”
“Seems simple to me. Figure out a way to get along with him. Or,” he added as she groaned, “quit.”
“You sound like Calderon. He made that suggestion, too. Plain as a pikestaff he’d love it if I did. But I won’t. I adore what I do. And I can’t let Ritz down. And it’s not as if I could go to work for another hotel anyway. None of them would hire a woman to be part of management.”
“Would that be so bad?”
She stared at her cousin, confounded by the question. “But if I didn’t work, what would I do with myself?”
“Charities?”
“I already run seven! I can’t bear to take on any more. And what else is there? Spend my time drifting aimlessly from London in the season to country house parties in the autumn, to the Riviera or Egypt in the winter?”
“Nothing wrong with that. You might enjoy it. Or…” He paused to take a swallow of whisky. “You could marry again.”
Delia stiffened. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Why not?” He smiled faintly. “It’s not as if you abhor the institution.”
“Well, no, of course not, but—” She broke off, her chest tightening as her mind went back into the past, but the pain of those memories was too great to bear, and she veered her mind away from them at once, pasting on a smile. “Send yet another man to an early grave?” she said, her voice light. “I couldn’t possibly.”
“Darling Dee,” he said gently. “You’re not cursed, you know.”
“Do the men of London know that?”
“Are you serious? Half the single men we know, including most of the young blades, would happily take a chance on you.”
“I doubt that, but I love you for saying it. Even so, I see no reason to make a fourth venture into matrimony.”
“What about children? Isn’t that a reason? You adore babies.”
The pain in her chest came again, stronger this time, and it took all the effort she had to hide it and keep her smile in place.
“I adore other people’s babies,” she joked. But Max didn’t reply, so she added, striving to sound offhand, “The point is, I’ve been married three times, and don’t have even one child to show for it.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Having children is clearly not something my body was meant to do, and I’ve accepted that. It’s all right, truly,” she added, noting the compassion in his eyes. “After all, I have my work here at the Savoy. That’s my life now.”
“Work is all very well, but it isn’t everything.”
“It is for me,” she countered firmly. “And I love what I do here, Max. I have no intention of abandoning my duties, no matter how hard things get.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said with approval, looking relieved, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “And since you’ve asked for my advice, my first contribution in that regard would be to avoid calling Calderon a bastard. Second, accept the situation and learn to work with him.”
That prospect impelled Delia to down the rest of her whisky. “How can I?” she asked as she set her empty glass on a nearby table. “The man’s about as flexible as concrete. You should have seen him this morning, judging me, questioning my expenditures, and calling me to account for them as if I’m a young girl who’s overspent her pocket allowance.”
“I seem to remember your late father gnashing his teeth quite a bit about your lavish spending during your marriage to Armand. I feel some sympathy for Calderon.”
She grimaced at the reminder of her woeful lack of restraint during the three years of her second marriage, but she refused to allow herself to be sidetracked. “The point is, Calderon made it quite clear he sees no value in what I do. Half the Savoy policies he’s doing away with were my ideas. He has no use for me, and it’s clear he doesn’t like me.”
“A horrible feeling,” Max said amiably. “And one, I daresay, you’re not used to.”
“This is a fine state of affairs,” she muttered, glaring at him. “You’re my cousin. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
He sobered at once. “I am always on your side. But that’s irrelevant here. The deed is done. I can’t change it. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. The indifference Ritz has displayed recently toward the Savoy—”
“Indifference?” she echoed, stung on behalf of her friend.
“Yes, Delia, indifference. I know you adore the fellow, but even you must admit his attention has been fixed predominantly on his other hotels, and the Savoy is suffering for it. If Calderon’s efforts can succeed in putting Ritz’s priorities back in order, I call that a good thing.”
Having just been to Paris on Ritz’s behalf, she couldn’t really refute that point. “Even when everyone’s grumbling? And they are, Max—at least the ones he hasn’t already forced out. He dismissed Madelaine, you know.”
“Madelaine?”
“My secretary, who, so far as I can see, hadn’t done anything to deserve it.”
“Sometimes staff are let go and it has nothing to do with performance. You know that as well as I do. And choices like that are completely within Calderon’s purview. We gave him a free hand to cut any staff he deems unnecessary.”
“Does that include me?” She sat up straighter, alarmed. “Max, is my job in jeopardy?”
The door opened before he could reply, and Stowell entered the suite, forcing Delia to wait for an answer to her question.
“Ah, my hat,” Max said, standing up. “At last.”
“Sorry it took so long, Your Grace,” Stowell said as he crossed the room. “But the laundry is a bit overwhelmed just now. Short-staffed, I’m told. Lady Stratham,” he added with a nod of greeting as he placed Max’s top hat on his head.
“Tell me, Stowell,” Delia said as the valet handed his master a pair of gloves, “is the situation in the laundry due to people being let go permanently?”
“I’m not sure, my lady.” He paused to drape Max’s cloak over his shoulders. “But I have heard that staff is being pared down, and that’s very worrying for everyone. Things seem rather stressful at present.”
“See, Max?” Delia murmured, feeling vindicated. “I told you so.”
Her cousin was given no chance to reply.
“I do hope,” Stowell said as he handed Max an umbrella, “the delay hasn’t made you late to lunch, Your Grace.”
“Not to worry,” Max said cheerfully. “As I already told my cousin here, the later I arrive, the better. Walk down with me, Dee?” he added, gesturing to the door.
She’d have had to be held back by chains to do otherwise, with her question about her future at the Savoy still hanging in the air. “Well?” she asked once they had left the suite and started down the corridor toward the lift. “Is my job at risk?”
“Did Calderon say it was?”
“Not in so many words, but the implication was plain that he’d love to get rid of me. Any possible excuse will do, I’m sure.”
“Then don’t give him one.”
“But he can terminate my job just because he wants to?”
“He can. So, since you’ve asked me what you ought to do, my advice—not that I think you’ll take it—is to be as cooperative as possible.”
“Bend the knee to that man?” She groaned, hating the prospect. “I don’t know if I can. It would be so much better if you would help me find a way to get rid of him.”
“Sorry.”
She made a face at that breezy response. “No, you’re not. But if he and I are found dead one day with my hands round his throat and his letter opener through my heart like a scene from some Shakespearean tragedy, it’ll be all your fault.”
“I’ll give a beautiful eulogy at your funeral.”
“Thanks,” she countered dryly as they paused by the electric lift and he pushed the call button. “So you’re leaving me to fight my battles alone?”
“Afraid so. Those battles will be epic, I’m sure, and I’m sorry I won’t be here to see any of them.”
“I can tell you every lurid detail when you and Evie come down for the season.”
“No, you can’t. Evie and I won’t be doing the season this year.”
“What?”
Before Max could explain, the lift doors opened, revealing a boy in livery. “Your Grace,” he said, giving a respectful tip of his cap to the duke before turning his attention to her. “Lady Stratham.”
“Samuel,” she greeted him. “How’s your mother?”
“Ever so much better, my lady. That liniment you sent over for her chest did her a world of good. It was very kind of you.”
“Not at all. And I’m glad she’s on the mend. Give her my best, will you?”
“Of course, my lady.” He put his hand on the lever of the elevator mechanism. “Going down?”
“Yes,” Max answered. “Ground floor, please.” He turned, gesturing for Delia to precede him, then followed her into the elevator. As Samuel closed the doors behind them, she resumed the subject at hand.
“So why aren’t you and Evie doing the season? Something exciting, I hope? Paris, perhaps? Or Biarritz?” she added as he shook his head. “Or sailing up to the Norwegian fjords?”
“We’re not going anywhere this year, not even London. Evie doesn’t want to travel in her condition.”
“Her condition? Max!” she cried with a jolt of joy as she realized what he meant. “Evie’s pregnant?”
At his confirming nod, she flung herself into his arms, oblivious to Samuel’s presence, smothering her cousin in a hug and a slew of kisses. “That’s wonderful news. Simply wonderful. How far along is she? Did the doctor say? Is she…” Delia paused, taking a deep breath. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“Of course. She’s a little sick in the mornings,” he added as they pulled apart, “but that’s to be expected at this stage, I understand. She’s about four months gone. Doctor Treves says she’s in fine form.”
“Excellent,” she said with heartfelt relief. “And your sisters? Do they know about the baby?”
“They do. I telegraphed all of them and broke the news before I left Gloucester to come here. They were thrilled.”
“Of course they were,” she replied, laughing. “We shall all be spoiling that child senseless, I warn you.”
“I have no doubt. Anyway, I won’t be coming down to London again for ages, so I expect the next time I see you will be at Whitsuntide. You are coming up for the party?”
At this mention of the house party held every spring at Max’s estate, she could only offer a helpless shrug. “I hope so, but it depends on how smoothly things go here. Given how they’ve started, I haven’t much hope. Especially without you here to support my end,” she added woefully.
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re perfectly capable of dealing with Lord Calderon without any help from me.”
“Am I?”
“Of course. He’s a man, isn’t he?”
She thought of those imperturbable green eyes blinking at her in that cool, rather inhuman way of his. “I’m not sure. To me, he’s more like the Grim Reaper.”
Samuel choked, trying to suppress his boyish giggle, a reaction she found quite gratifying under the circumstances.
Max merely smiled. “Just be your usual charming self, and you’ll have him eating out of your hand soon enough.”
She made a face. “You talk as if I set out to charm people on purpose.”
“Well—” he began, but she cut him off.
“I’m only charming to people I like. And as I’ve already told you, I don’t like him.”
“Like him or not,” Max said as the lift jerked to a halt and Samuel opened the doors, “he’s here, and you’ll have to accept that and the changes he’s making as best you can.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she stared at her cousin, riveted, as an idea flashed into her mind—an idea so simple and so easy she was amazed she hadn’t thought of it until now.
Max turned so that she could precede him out of the lift, but she didn’t move.
Acceptance, she thought. That was the ticket. Acceptance. Things were already chaotic. Another week, perhaps two, and the consequences of his decisions would surely start coming back to bite him. All she had to do was sit back, do nothing, and watch him sail straight off the cliff.
“Delia, is something wrong?”
Faced with the inevitable consequences of his dunderheaded decisions, he might become more willing to listen to the opinions of others—the people who worked here, people who understood far better than he how a hotel like the Savoy ought to be run. And even if he was too obstinate to admit he was wrong and change course, the board would soon see the damage he was doing and stop him.
A put-down like that, she thought with a rather naughty sense of anticipation, would do that man a world of good.
“Delia?”
The sharp note of Max’s voice succeeded in garnering her attention. “Hmm?” she asked, coming out of her contemplations with a shake of her head. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re standing there as if you’ve been turned to a pillar of salt. Is something wrong?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. In fact,” she added, smiling at him as she sailed past him out of the elevator, “I think everything just came right.”
“I know that look in your eyes,” he muttered, falling in step beside her as they crossed the foyer together. “Delia, what are you scheming?”
“Nothing.”
That completely truthful reply didn’t seem to impress him. “You really are a devil, Cousin.”
“Max!” she chided. “What an odious thing to say.”
“But accurate. I know you.” He nodded to the entrance doors nearby, where the cab Stowell had ordered was waiting for him. “Can I drop you somewhere?”
“No, no.” She gestured to the nearby dining room. “I have a lunch appointment here. Lord Synby wants a dinner for his club in February, and we’re meeting to discuss the details. He’ll adore it when I tell him we now require a 20 percent deposit in advance for banqueting services.”
“I’m sure you’ll handle the situation beautifully.”
Synby was the sort of peer with whom one did not discuss such tiresome matters as money. He’d be heartily offended, she had no doubt, but if he were so put out that he canceled the affair or the members of his club went elsewhere, the consequences would be on Calderon’s head, not hers. He’d be hoisted with his own petard.
The thought made her smile.
“Why are you looking like the Cheshire cat all of a sudden?” Max asked, frowning.
“No reason,” she lied, even as her smile widened. “Goodbye, darling. Give Evie my best. I hope while the two of you are idling away your time, enjoying country life, you’ll think of me down here slaving away.”
“Delia,” he began, giving her a look of warning. “I hope you’re not going to make trouble.”
She laughed. “I shan’t dream of it. I mean what I say,” she insisted, crossing a hand over her heart and looking as innocent as possible. “I will not do anything to cause trouble. Not a single thing. I promise.”
She turned away, but Max’s voice echoed back to her as she started toward the restaurant. “Poor Calderon. I almost feel sorry for the fellow.”
“Me too,” she murmured under her breath and laughed again. “Me too.”