Page 89 of Lady Scandal

He tucked her note into his card case, then picked up his dressing robe from the floor and put it on. He stretched out one hand toward the bell, but before he could press it to summon Morgan, the valet walked in with a cart containing early tea.

“Ah,” the valet said, “I was coming to wake you, my lord, as you instructed, but I see you’re already awake.”

“It must be eight o’clock, then?”

Morgan nodded as he poured tea for him. “Would you care for breakfast?”

He shook his head at once. “No, I’ve no time. I have a meeting at nine. I’ll eat afterward, if I can.”

As his valet shaved his face and helped him dress, Simon considered how the timing of today’s events might play out.

The board was meeting at the Adelphi Terrace residence of the Cartes for the formal vote, but given the evidence, it was a foregone conclusion that Ritz, Escoffier, Echenard, Agostini, DuPont, and Mrs. Henderson would be fired. Delia’s fate was much less certain.

Like DuPont, Agostini, and Mrs. Henderson, Delia was not officially part of management, and therefore had no legal employment contract with the hotel. Unlike the other three, however, there was no evidence against her. If the board voted to keep her in her present position, all well and good. But if the worst happened, if despite all his efforts of the past two days the board voted to terminate her job, he would resign in protest.

After the vote, Ritz, Escoffier, and Echenard, who did have employment contracts, would be summoned immediately to Adelphi Terrace to be given their official termination—a process that would take probably no more than fifteen minutes—then theywould walk the few short blocks back to the Savoy to clean out their desks before exiting the premises for good, which gave Simon perhaps twenty minutes to break the news to Delia before all hell broke loose.

He could only hope those twenty minutes gave him enough time to explain the situation to her properly before Ritz arrived to give her lies and excuses.

Simon was shaved and dressed by half past eight. Stopping by his office, he called for Delia’s maid. While waiting for the girl, he dashed off a note to Delia requesting breakfast rather than lunch, stressing that he had something vitally important to discuss with her as soon as possible, and suggesting a time of ten o’clock in the restaurant. When Molly arrived, he instructed her to awaken Lady Stratham at half past nine and give her the note, stressing that it was urgent; then he departed the hotel.

He arrived at the Carte residence fifteen minutes early, but being a familiar acquaintance at Adelphi Terrace, he knew neither Richard nor Helen would be offended. When he entered their drawing room, however, he saw that he was not the only one to arrive early. In fact, as he glanced around, he realized he was the last board member to arrive. And when he looked at Helen, he realized that she’d planned things just that way.

The vote, therefore, when it came, was no surprise. What did come as a shock to him was the sadness that mingled with his anger as he looked from Helen to Richard and back again. His vote came last, and he was glad of it, for it gave him the blessed opportunity not only to be the one dissenting voice, but also to have the last word.

“I cannot associate myself with those who would punish the innocent along with the guilty,” he said. “I resign my position and relinquish my stock in the Savoy. My attorneys will provide written confirmation of it by the end of the week. As for all of you…”

He paused, glancing around the room, registering only a few expressions in the sea of faces—Richard, staring listlessly back at him… the smirking Lord Astonby… the disapproving Lord Melville… stoic Sir Charles… and Helen, her dark eyes unhappy rather than triumphant. “As for all of you,” he said, staring straight back at her, “every single one of you can rot in hell.”

He turned and walked out, but to his surprise, he was halfway down to the foyer when he heard Helen call his name from the top of the stairs.

“Simon, wait.”

He turned on the landing and kept going, but she caught up with him as the footman was handing him his coat and hat.

“Simon, please,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Wait one moment. There’s something I need to tell you before you go.”

Voices were heard at the top of the stairs, indicating that the other members were coming down to depart, and she pulled him into the nearby study. “First,” she said as she shut the door behind them, “I want you to know I bear you no ill will. And—”

His sound of disdain interrupted her. “That’s big of you,” he ground out.

“And,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I hope that one day you will feel the same.”

“I won’t.”

She sighed, having the gall to look unhappy. “I did what I felt was right.”

“Right?” he echoed, giving a humorless laugh. “There is nothing right about what you did. Condemning an innocent woman, and to some of the people in her very own circle? Firing her when she’s done nothing wrong because of your own jealousy and spite—”

“That’s not why I did it!” she cried. “I did it for the good of thehotel. And besides,” she added, looking away as he made a scoffing sound of utter contempt, “it’s not as if I were alone in my opinion. Everyone but you agreed with me that she has to go.”

“Persuaded by you, no doubt.”

She didn’t deny it. “Lady Stratham may or may not be innocent of any wrongdoing herself,” she said, meeting his gaze again, “but either way, she simply cannot be trusted. Ritz,” she added as he opened his mouth to reply, “will open a London hotel one day, and we cannot risk that she remains at the Savoy, when she could be his spy within the gates. Everyone here today understood that. Everyone except you.”

“Which is why you went behind my back.”

“Given your obvious feelings for her, I felt you could not be trusted, either.”

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