13
Simon was town bred. Though he’d spent most of his military service in Africa and trekked through the bush with Devlin a time or two when he was on leave, in all the thirty-six years of his life, he’d never lived in the English countryside. But he knew it was considered a peaceful, serene sort of life, and peace and serenity were things he badly needed just now.
Delia’s kiss had left him a hot, hard, unholy mess, and walking away from her had felt like ripping himself in half, but thankfully, there was little cause at Ivywild to think of her, though he did take her advice. He paid calls upon his neighbors, and just as she had predicted, the county returned the favor, ensuring that Cassandra would have the pleasure of company and amusements whenever he could not be with her. When she suggested a dinner party for their newfound friends in the county, he gladly agreed, his only qualification being that he did not have to plan the menu.
Since receiving the estate along with his title eight months ago, he’d spent very little time here—an occasional weekend to see his sister, a week at Christmas, and that was all. But to keep his mind away from thoughts of Delia, he threw himself into estate business and country life, and as the last days of February slipped away and March began, he found that tramping muddy lanes in the rain, visiting the cottages, and touring the farms with his land agent, Mr. Beecher, cooled his blood more effectively than all the willpower he possessed ever could. And much to his own surprise, he discovered that he liked country life.
Two weeks after his arrival, he and Beecher decided to tour Lowe’s Farm and see how his pigs were getting on. When they arrived, they found that six of the pigs had gotten out and were happily rolling around in the mud of the field beyond. Both of them were roped in to help by Lowe and his two sons, and by the time all the recalcitrant animals were safely back in the pen, all five men were covered in muck. It was nearly dark by the time Beecher’s wagon pulled back into the drive at Ivywild.
To his surprise, Cassandra was on the front steps as his boots hit the gravel, and she came running down to greet them.
“At last!” she cried, stopping beside the wagon. “I thought you’d never return. You were supposed to be back ages ago. Heavens,” she added, looking them over in dismay. “You two look as if you’ve been rolling in the sty with the pigs.”
“Perhaps because we have been. After a fashion.” Simon glanced down over his muddy trousers and boots and those of Mr. Beecher, and he laughed, shaking back his wet hair. “God, we do look a sight, don’t we?”
“One of the hazards of country life, my lord,” his land agent replied. “If we’re finished for the day, I’ll be off home.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Beecher. Perhaps we should have a look at the warrens tomorrow?”
“If you like.” Beecher tipped his cap to Cassandra. “Miss Hayden.”
The land agent departed, and Simon turned to his sister. “I’m going up to bathe and change before dinner.”
“Excellent idea,” she approved, her nose wrinkling up. “But, Simon, I have something to tell you before you go up.”
“Walk with me, then.”
He gestured to the house, but to his surprise, she hung back, shaking her head.
“I can’t,” she said, glancing past him down the drive. “It’s best if I tell you right here. We don’t have much time, you see.”
Puzzled, he studied her, and when he saw her lift her hand to her neck and begin twirling a loose tendril of her hair around her finger, he felt a hint of misgiving. Cassie only twirled her hair when she was nervous.
“Time for what?” he asked, bracing himself.
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, the sound of wheels on gravel and the rattle of horses’ traces told him a visitor was coming up the drive. But when he turned, he was surprised to see the vehicle approaching was his own carriage, with his own driver on the box.
“What the devil?” he muttered in surprise.
He glanced at his sister, who was looking decidedly guilty, then back at his approaching carriage, which was now circling around the fountain in the drive, and when he saw the face of the passenger inside, a delicate face of dark blue eyes, finely arched black brows, and a dazzling, dimpled smile, all the composure he’d spent the past two weeks striving to achieve went sailing straight off into the wind.
The carriage pulled to a stop, his driver rolled out the steps, and Delia exited the vehicle, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of her filmy petticoats, dainty foot, and stocking-clad ankle beneath the hem of her dark green traveling suit, and Simon was caught between wanting to haul her into his arms and kiss her senseless and shoving her into the carriage to send her straight back to London. It wasn’t until she stopped in front of him and her gaze traveled down over his body did he remember the state he was in, and when she pressed her lips together against a smile, he felt as foolish and painfully embarrassed as a schoolboy caught writing a love letter to the girl next door.
She lifted her gaze to his face, the corners of her almond-shaped eyes crinkling with unmistakable laughter. “I take it you were not expecting me.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned to his sister. “Cassandra, my dear,” she said, holding out her hands to give Cassie’s a squeeze. “Lovely to see you again.”
“I was so glad to get your telegram,” Cassie said with a profound and obvious relief he did not understand. “And I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Why is she here?” Simon asked his sister. “And what telegram?”
He was ignored.
“I was happy to come,” Delia replied. “I just hope I can help.”
“Help with what?” he asked, but he was again ignored as Delia turned expectantly toward the handful of servants who had now joined them in the drive.
“This is Mr. Filbert, our butler,” Cassandra supplied, “and Mrs. Knight, our housekeeper. And Mrs. Morrisey, my governess-companion.”
“How do you do?” Delia murmured. “Mrs. Knight, I’m afraid my maid was obliged to remain in town. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you perhaps have one of the housemaids do for me while I’m here?”
“I will see to you myself, my lady,” the woman replied.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t dream of causing you any inconvenience of that sort. No, no, a housemaid will do quite well. As you can see,” she added, gesturing to the pile of luggage footmen were now removing from the boot of the carriage, “I didn’t bring much with me. I won’t be wearing anything too elaborate.”
To Simon’s decidedly middle-class eyes, a trunk, two hatboxes, and three valises seemed like an alarming amount of luggage, and he wondered in consternation not only what she was doing here, but also just how long she intended to stay. When she moved toward the house with Cassie beside her, he decided he was going to find out that information right now.
He reached out, putting a hand on her elbow before she could move out of reach. “We need to talk, Countess,” he said in a voice that brooked no opposition. “If you will excuse us, Cassandra?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but immediately began steering Delia across the drive to get her out of Cassie’s earshot.
“We don’t really have time for a conversation just now, do we?” Delia said as he turned the corner of the house with her in tow. “It’s half past six already, and I need a bath before dinner. So do you, obviously—”
“Later,” he cut her off, and as he pulled her along a moss-covered flagstone path, just the contact of his hand on her arm was enough to start arousal flickering to life inside him. “We are going to have a little chat first.”
He led her under the arch of an arbor, where he finally stopped amid the bare canes, iron pillars, and wooden trellises of the rose garden. Letting her go, he faced her, plunked his hands on his mud-encrusted hips, and launched into speech.
“My God, woman, do you never take no for an answer? I begin to see why you’ve had three husbands. The poor devils couldn’t run fast enough to get away.”
She made a sound of outrage. “You think I came down here chasing after you? What unbelievable conceit!”
“Is it?” he shot back, feeling trapped and frustrated, not by her, but by his own traitorous, ungovernable feelings where she was concerned. “After what happened a fortnight ago?”
“You mean when you kissed me?”
“I didn’t kiss you,” he took great satisfaction in pointing out. “You kissed me.”
She tossed her head, a gesture he was coming to know well, one that told him his shot had gone home. “Well, you weren’t exactly pushing me away.”
“I did push you away!”
“After you practically kissed my mouth off.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, and any satisfaction he felt dissolved in the wake of that undeniable point. He decided it was time to change tack. “Either way, what are you doing here?”
“I’m not here for you, so you needn’t worry I’ll fling myself into your arms. I made that mistake once, and believe me, once was enough. It will not happen again, I assure you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To help Cassie, of course. Didn’t she tell you I was coming? Well,” she added as he shook his head, “she probably hasn’t had time. After all, I only telegraphed her from the station two hours ago. Still, I had assumed she would—”
“Wait,” he cut in, his frustration deepening, “you sent her a telegram from the train station inviting yourself down here on the spur of the moment?”
“I didn’t invite myself! Good heavens, pushing in like that would be the height of bad manners.”
“Somehow,” he muttered, glaring at her, “I doubt if that fact has ever stopped you before.”
“Cassie asked me to come, you impossible man!”
He blinked, startled, his frustration faltering a notch in the wake of that information. “What? She didn’t discuss it with me.”
There must have still been some skepticism in his voice, and she heaved a sigh. Reaching for the handbag hooked over her arm, she opened it and pulled out a letter. “Your sister wrote to me,” she said, waving the slip of paper under his nose, “and asked for my help. I got her letter in this morning’s post.”
“Help with what?”
“Her dinner party tomorrow night. She invited three of the most prominent families in the county to dinner, I understand, but once the deed was done, she must have panicked. It’s a perfectly understandable feeling, of course, for it’s her first time hosting such an affair. She wrote to me, confessed she felt in over her head, and begged me to come and assist her. I was delighted to do so.”
He stared at her, the last of his ire fading away in the wake of that information. What was it about this woman, he wondered in utter bafflement, that made him so often act like a prize idiot? And more importantly, why did her talent there only make him want her more? He was a sensible man, rational and even-keeled. He wasn’t the sort to lose his temper or reason with emotion rather that facts. Never had a woman made him feel so off-balance, so out of control, so absurdly vulnerable.
Delia reached out, breaking into these grim ruminations as she shoved the letter into the front pocket of his filthy tweed jacket, crumpling it in the process. “Read her letter for yourself, if you don’t believe me. Now, since it is less than ninety minutes to dinner, I’m going to go find my room, bathe, and change. Then I’m going to see Cassie and determine what I can do to help make her party a smashing success.”
She turned and stalked away, hips swaying and skirts churning, reminding him of their very first meeting when he’d likened her to a tornado.
Under the arbor, the tornado paused to level his defenses one last time. “As for you,” she said, her blue eyes glinting like steel in the evening twilight, “you can go hang.”
There was nothing for it, of course. He had to apologize.
“Lift your chin, my lord, if you would.”
Morgan’s voice intruded, and Simon complied, tilting his head back so that his valet could shave his neck.
How many times, he wondered, thoroughly aggravated with himself, was he going to act like a fool in front of Delia and be obliged to apologize for it? Too many to count, he suspected, if he remained near her much longer. Worse, he’d have to get her alone to offer said apology, and that, he was already appreciating, would be a serious test of his hard-won willpower and restraint.
Morgan set aside the razor. “There we are, my lord,” he said, wiping away the traces of shaving soap from Simon’s face and neck. “I’ve laid out white-tie for you this evening, of course,” he added, nodding to the clothes that had been placed carefully on the bed. “Which studs and links would you like?”
“White-tie?” Simon echoed as he untied the sash of his dressing robe. “Is formal dress really necessary?”
The valet looked at him with patient gravity, reminding him—not for the first time in the six months of their acquaintance—that when it came to the wardrobe of a gentleman, he knew far more than Simon on the subject. “An ordinary evening suit might be considered tolerable when dining only with one’s own sister,” he said, expressing again his disapproval of Simon’s usual attire for the dinner table. A viscount, Morgan felt, was above the standards of ordinary, middle-class mortals. “But you are dining with a countess.”
“Don’t I know it?” he acknowledged with a sigh. “And when one has a countess to dinner, white-tie is de rigueur.”
Morgan, accustomed to Simon’s awful French accent and fully aware he was winning the battle over his master’s wardrobe, gave him an indulgent smile. “Just so, my lord.”
Dressed at last to his valet’s satisfaction in the formal dress of tails, high collar, a white tie, black onyx studs and links ornamenting his shirt, he journeyed down to the drawing room.
He had hoped to pull Delia aside and offer his mea culpa straightaway, but he was given no opportunity. The ladies had joined him for less than a minute before Filbert came in to announce dinner, and Simon was obliged to wait.
Delia was seated beside him at dinner, which he initially thought was a blessing, for it kept her stunning face and low-cut evening gown out of his direct line of vision unless he turned his head. But he soon found that fact wasn’t enough to keep desire for her at bay, because even if he kept his eyes fixed firmly on his plate or on his sister across the table, the faint traces of Delia’s perfume drifted under his nose, and the delicate scent was enough to trigger every sensual memory and erotic dream of her that he’d ever had.
Dinner was a tantalizing torment, but afterward, much to his surprise and relief, Cassie suggested that she and Delia go through so that he could enjoy his port. Though he usually found the idea of sipping port alone in his enormous drawing room both unappealing and downright silly, particularly since he wasn’t wont to drink much anyway, he was glad of it tonight, and by the time he rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, his baser desires were firmly relegated to the back of his mind, and he felt quite capable of offering Delia his apology without yanking her into his arms and kissing her senseless.
When he entered the drawing room, she was sitting with Cassandra on the sofa, and the two of them had their heads together, bent over a sheet of paper in Cassie’s lap.
“Lady Bassington has no sense of time at all,” Delia was saying as he came in. “She’ll be a quarter of an hour late, at least.”
“Isn’t that considered rude?” Cassie asked.
“Well, she’s quite elderly, you know, and one must make allowances. Because of that, I should advise against soufflés for the first course. And Lord Nasby can’t abide goose liver—it’s terribly hard on his gout. So paté might not be a wise alternative.”
“Going over tomorrow night’s menu, I take it?” Simon said, settling into a chair opposite.
“We are,” Cassie replied. “And, oh, Simon, I can’t tell you what a help it is to have Lady Stratham here to advise me.”
He noted his young sister’s expression and heard the relief in her voice, and he knew that, although Delia’s presence might be causing him any amount of personal frustration, it was a small price to pay for Cassandra’s sake.
“I’m glad,” he said. “You’ll have to tell Mrs. Melrose as soon as you’ve decided things, though, for you’re not giving her much time.”
“No,” Cassie agreed, “and I fear she will be absolutely wild with us. We are changing nearly everything.”
Delia patted her arm. “She may try to bully you about it, but you can’t let her.”
“Won’t you come down to the kitchens with me and talk to her?”
Delia shook her head. “That won’t do. You are the mistress here. You must take charge. The trick with servants,” she added as Cassie groaned, “is to listen, acknowledge their concerns, consider their opinions, and then, if you still disagree, express your gratitude for their advice, and politely but firmly reiterate what you want. And keep doing that until they give in. Sometimes it takes a while. You just have to be more stubborn than they are.”
Cassie, he noted, cast a nervous glance at Filbert and Thomas, but the butler and the footman both remained impassive, clearly accustomed to being discussed as if they weren’t in the room.
“So, no soufflé and no paté,” she said. “But then, what shall I serve as the first course?”
“Oysters,” Simon and Delia said together, and when she smiled at him, he felt the earth shift again, settling into something new and curiously right, and he decided this was the moment he’d been looking for.
“Are the two of you finished discussing the menu?” he asked. “Because if so, I’m thinking our guest might like to see more of the garden. I’m happy to give her a tour,” he added before either of them could reply, offering Cassie a pointed glance.
His sister’s eyes widened a fraction, making him appreciate what she was thinking, but that couldn’t be helped, and he turned his attention to Delia, who was looking equally surprised. “Shall we, Lady Stratham? There’s plenty of moon tonight.”
She hesitated, a wary, puzzled look in her eyes. “If Cassie doesn’t mind?”
“Heavens, no, I am glad, quite glad, to stay here,” the girl replied with perhaps overdone enthusiasm. “I shall…” She paused, casting a frantic glance around, then she reached for the book on the table beside her. “I shall read my book. It’s such a fascinating story, and I’ve been dying to get back to it all evening. I’m so glad you’ve given me the perfect excuse.”
He didn’t point out that the book was his, not hers, but once he and Delia had donned warm coats and were walking a path lined by lilac trees, she spoke, making him realize that she, too, had seen through Cassie’s excuse to stay behind.
“I didn’t realize Cassandra was so interested in the workings of the internal combustion engine.”
“You saw that, too?” He turned his head, giving Delia a rueful smile. “I fear she’s thinking to do a bit of matchmaking.”
“Well, we both know that’s a lost cause.”
Her voice was light and humorous, but he heard the tartness beneath it, reminding him forcibly of his obligation. “Do you mind if we stop a moment?” he asked.
He suited the action to the word, and she stopped as well, facing him on the path. Her face was pale, luminous in the moonlight, and the cold breeze stirred the loose wisps of hair that curled at her neck, stirring his arousal as well.
He snuffed it out and clasped his hands firmly behind his back. “I wanted this moment to offer you my apologies,” he said, stiff, embarrassed, and keenly aware of his own vulnerabilities where she was concerned. “My accusations earlier were uncalled for and most ungentlemanly. I seem to always assume the worst about you,” he added with a sigh, “and though I can’t explain quite why that is so, I appreciate that apologizing for it is becoming a habit with me, one I daresay you are coming to find quite tiresome.”
“On the contrary.” She smiled, a wide, winsome smile that was so unexpected, he could only stare. “I actually rather like this habit of yours.”
“Like it?” he repeated, dazed as usual by the power of that smile and completely bewildered by the words of her reply. “Why?” he added wryly. “Because it gives you the upper hand?”
“As agreeable as that sounds, no, since I never feel like I have the upper hand with you.”
Another surprising bit of news. “Oh” was all he could think to say.
“I like this habit of yours,” she went on, “because it then allows me to ask you for something in return.”
He laughed at that. She was so outrageous, he couldn’t help it. “Fair enough. So what am I to do to make up for my insufferable conduct earlier? Hire you a secretary? No, that can’t be. You seem to have already appropriated mine.”
She pulled a twig of lilac, still bare, from the nearest tree and rewarded his teasing jibe by tossing it at his head. He ducked, it sailed past him, and he guessed again. “My consent to the hothouse? Another dinner?” he added when she shook her head. “Or perhaps an extravagant party for a hundred guests that’s going to cost the hotel a thousand pounds?”
Something flickered across her face, a hint of surprise that indicated his guess might have been right, but when she spoke, her words told him he was wrong again.
“Not a party, no. Nothing like that.” She paused, then said, “Ritz came to see me this morning.”
“Ah,” he said with instant comprehension. Undermining him, after all, was Ritz’s favorite pastime. “Came to cry on your shoulder, did he?”
“In a way. He is worried about the hotel.”
“The hotel? You mean me.”
She didn’t deny it, and he sighed, bracing himself. “What did he say? That I’m a tyrant of epic proportions I suppose?”
“Can you blame him for feeling a bit like that? I did at first.”
He opened his mouth to say there was a world of difference, because Ritz was crooked. But then, he remembered, much to his chagrin, that he still wasn’t certain about the extent of her involvement in Ritz’s schemes. All his instincts warred against her guilt, but given his passion for her, he knew his instincts could not be trusted. He took a deep breath and tried to speak impartially. “We’ve talked about this, Delia. We cannot afford to do things Ritz’s way anymore, and he simply has to accept that.”
“With as much grace as he can muster,” she said, offering back to him the suggestion he’d made regarding her in their first meeting.
“Yes.”
“Can’t the two of you just make peace?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, keeping his voice light. “Send him some hyacinths?”
She didn’t seem to take his teasing in the proper spirit. “I’m sure,” she said earnestly, “that the two of you could learn to work together.”
He shook his head, staring at her. “I just do not understand your loyalty to that man,” he said, both envious of Ritz’s appeal to her and baffled by it.
“He said much the same about you. He thinks I’m taking your side against him.”
“I wish you would,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “It would make my life so much easier.”
“But if the two of you could work together, wouldn’t that benefit everyone? Couldn’t you try?”
He lifted his head to study her face. Her hopeful expression was unmistakable, and he appreciated that this was why everyone at the Savoy loved her. Liniment for the lift boy’s mother, baby gifts for the laundress, her desperate attempts to make everything right and help anyone who needed it, and once again, his instincts whispered to him that she had no clue what Ritz was doing. His head, however, told him there was no way she could be that blind.
“Delia, listen to me.” He put his hands on her arms. “I appreciate that you want to help, but you can’t. Your concern for the hotel and the staff does you credit, and your loyalty to your friend is laudable, but let me handle Ritz. I’m asking this as a favor: please don’t meddle.”
She sighed and looked away, but after a moment she nodded, and he let his hands fall away.
Suddenly, in the silence, he remembered they were quite alone, making him appreciate again his vulnerability where she was concerned, but before he could suggest that they rejoin Cassandra, she spoke again.
“You said you don’t understand my loyalty to Ritz. Shall I tell you how he earned it?”
Her voice was musing, almost detached, its very softness impelling him to stay where he was.
“If you wish to tell me, Delia,” he said, “I’m happy to listen.”
She stopped and gave a laugh, but he sensed there was no humor in it. “It’s not an easy story to tell.” With an abrupt move, she turned to face him again, looking not at him, but into the lilac trees and the darkness, and she was silent so long, he thought she’d decided against telling him anything at all.
“When Lord Stratham died,” she said at last, “I was with child.”
A blunt statement like that, especially on such a delicate subject as pregnancy, made him blink. But he knew she had no child living, and when she looked at him again, the pain in her face hit him like a blow to the chest as he realized what she hadn’t said.
When he spoke, however, he was careful to keep his voice neutral. “Indeed?”
She nodded. “I was about six months gone. It was quite astonishing that I conceived at all. I’d never been with child before, and this time, it was only because I—”
She stopped and gave a laugh. “This isn’t the sort of thing a lady is supposed to talk about, but Hamish’s state of health had made him impotent. In the first six months of our marriage, we were only…” She paused and gave a little cough. “We were only together a few times, and on all three occasions, things ended in epic failure for him and frustration for me. He stopped coming to my room after that.”
He studied her profile in the moonlight, the pensive curve of her mouth. “Some women might have been quite relieved by such an arrangement.”
She turned her head, her smile a quick, impudent flash of white teeth in the moonlight. “I wasn’t.”
The naughty implications behind those words and that smile were plain, but it was clear she wasn’t flirting with him. She often used impudence, he realized, as a shield, to hide her true feelings, to avoid inconvenient questions—or, in this case, to ward off pity. “I see.”
She laughed. “Such a polite reply, but I fear you’re thinking I’m a completely depraved female—”
“That’s not what I was thinking at all,” he cut in. “And in any case, depraved is both an inaccurate and cruel way to describe it, Delia. A young wife with an impotent husband is bound to have some degree of frustration. Only natural.”
She turned, tilting her head to study him. “You’re an incredibly easy person to talk to, do you know that?” she said after a moment. “I’ve never discussed this with anyone before.”
Yes, he thought, I’m an excellent father confessor. “Not anyone?”
She didn’t seem to hear the wry note in his voice, and she shook her head in reply. “I think it’s because I just… trust you. You’re so upright and honorable.”
Simon grimaced, feeling like an utter hypocrite, but thankfully, she didn’t notice.
“Anyway,” she went on, “my… ahem… frustrations weren’t my only consideration.”
“No?”
“I wanted a baby,” she said simply. “So much, I’d have done anything. I had come into my first marriage with precious little knowledge of male-female relations, but my second marriage had proved to be quite an explicit education in that regard.”
How explicit? he wondered, and his muscles tightened, desire flickering to life. Reminding himself how inappropriate that was at such a moment, he set his jaw and said nothing.
“Hamish knew before we married that people called me the black widow. He knew how much the nickname hurt me and how worried I was that it might be true. He also knew how badly I wanted children. If he had told me of all his health difficulties before the wedding, I would not have married him.”
“He deceived you?”
“It might be more accurate to say he was deceiving both of us. I think he hoped a young wife might turn the tide. Obviously, he was mistaken.”
“Such a condition might be grounds for divorce.”
“Perhaps, but even I’m not outrageous enough to try something so scandalous. Instead, I employed a different approach. Two years after we were married, I decided I’d had enough of kisses at the door and a pat on the cheek, so I seduced my husband shamelessly. I used every trick I could think of. And it worked. By some miracle, I conceived. Not that any of it did much good in the end,” she added softly. “Three days after Hamish died, I lost the baby.”
A shaft of pain hit him, obliterating the desire inside him like a candle flame snuffed out. He had no idea what to say, but he could not bear to offer the trite, conventional replies most people were wont to utter at moments like this. “Ah” was all he said.
That simple reply seemed to act on her like a cork popping off a bottle of champagne, and more words came spilling out of her mouth. “I know that all three of my husbands had in some way deceived me, but I loved each of them passionately and I grieved each of them when they died. In their deceptions and their deaths, I thought I’d felt all the pain a woman could feel, but I was wrong. When I miscarried, when my beautiful little boy followed Hamish to his grave, I wanted to die, too.”
He pressed a fist to his mouth, his heart hurting for her. She may have been born into privilege and wealth, but none of that could keep away misfortune, pain, and loss.
“I wandered around inside Stratham House for months,” she went on, “hiding from the world, drowning in grief, unable to get past my pain. Hamish’s son and his wife wanted to move into the house,” she went on, “as was their right. He’d become the earl, so it was now his house, but I went into absolute hysterics. I would not let them in. I stayed in the house alone, refusing to see anyone for over six months. I stopped eating. I reached a point where I could barely find the will to get out of bed. My family was terribly worried about me, but I couldn’t seem to care about that. Or about anything else for that matter. I couldn’t see any point in living. There were times when I…” She paused and swallowed hard. “When I even contemplated killing myself.”
He studied her face, twisted with pain, and her eyes, haunted and dark, and his own emotions—dismay, sadness, and a deep, profound compassion—almost overcame him, but he knew she wouldn’t welcome expressions of pity, so he offered none. “Now I understand what you meant that night at dinner when I told you about my father. But,” he added when she nodded, “nothing stopped him. Something stopped you. What was it?”
She smiled, but it wasn’t one of the winsome or impudent or downright naughty smiles he was used to. Instead, it was a sad smile—sad and unexpectedly sweet. “It was Ritz.”
Suddenly, it felt as if a fissure in the earth had opened under his feet, sending him hurtling down, down, into a dark abyss. “How so?” he asked, his voice a tight rasp to his own ears.
“He came to see me. I refused to see him, but when it comes to not taking no for an answer, Ritz puts me to shame. He talked and wheedled and bullied his way past my butler, burst right into my bedroom, and told me this tale of woe—how he was in desperate need of help with the hotel, how he was just too overwhelmed to handle it all by himself, he didn’t know what to do, and how much he needed my help.”
As much animosity as Simon had for Ritz, he couldn’t help admiring the other man for finding the one tactic guaranteed to work with Delia. “So,” he murmured, “that’s how you came to work for the hotel?”
“Yes. He offered me a job. I made all sorts of excuses, but he countered them all, insisting again and again that I was the only person he could hire who understood him, who could truly see his vision. I accepted—which raised quite a few eyebrows in society, let me tell you, but I didn’t care. It was as if he’d tossed me a lifeline in a stormy sea. To this day, I’m still not sure if he did it for himself, or for the hotel, or for me, but—”
She broke off and gave a shrug. “Whatever his motives,” she went on, “he gave me purpose, a reason to get out of bed. At the most vulnerable moment of my life, Ritz gave me the courage to hang on until things could get better, and for that, he will always have my gratitude and my loyalty. Had your father had someone like Ritz, someone of boundless optimism and possibility, he might not have done what he did.”
Simon didn’t know how to reply. After all, what was there to say? Ritz had given her a purpose in life, but Simon knew that if Helen had her way, that purpose would be destroyed. And what, he wondered, would happen to her then?
“Goodness,” she said, her voice changing with mercurial suddenness to an airy tone. “Listen to us. How on earth did this conversation become so maudlin?”
She moved, stepping around him, adding, “We should rejoin your sister before she thinks you’ve spirited me off to Gretna Green. A girl of that age is so terribly romantic.”
She walked away, but he didn’t follow her immediately. Instead, he watched her for a long moment, and before her figure had vanished around the corner of the house, he realized what had been baffling him from the first moment they’d met. He realized why she set off sparks of both temper and arousal in him, and why, no matter what she knew or what she’d done, he could never treat her with the indifference and impartiality of a mere employee.
Because he was falling in love with her.
Simon groaned. Turning his back, he stared out into the night, wondering what the hell he was going to do now. But even as he asked himself that question, he knew the answer. No matter her innocence or the level of her guilt, there was only one course of action open to him, and he could only hope that when this was all over, his heart wouldn’t be in shattered pieces on the ground.