Page 92 of Lady Scandal

He glanced into the office next door as he came in, and his mood became even darker as he saw that it was empty. No papers untidily strewn across the desk, no piles of letters waiting to be opened, and no Delia.

“Gentlemen,” he greeted, returning his attention to the other two men as he set his dispatch case beside the packed boxes on top of his desk. “Things seemed to have changed a bit since I left this morning.”

The two other men murmured a hearty assent to that assessment of the situation.

“It’s clear we need a new place to live. The question is where.”

“Ivywild, my lord?” Ross suggested.

“Too far. I need to remain in London for now.”

“I could reserve us rooms at another hotel.”

He made a face. “I’m rather soured on living in hotels, to be honest. Find a house to lease here in town. It shouldn’t be too difficult, since it’s only March. In the meantime, put most of these things into storage and reserve us rooms at the Clarendon. Morgan, you’ll help him.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Good. Now,” he said with a sigh, “I need to find Lady Stratham. I don’t suppose she’s still in the hotel?”

“I doubt it, my lord,” Ross replied. “I heard that Ritz has gone to the Charing Cross Hotel. Escoffier and Echenard, too. But I don’t know about Lady Stratham.”

Morgan gave a cough. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but I saw Molly, the maid who’s been looking after the countess, earlier. She was in the lobby with her ladyship, helping sort the piles of luggage for the bellboys. The girl may know where the countess has gone.”

Molly, he soon discovered, did know Lady Stratham’s whereabouts, for she’d helped the Savoy footmen load the luggage into acab, and she’d overheard the countess tell the driver to take her to the Bristol.

Twenty minutes later, he was at the Bristol, giving his card to the concierge, and asking if Lady Stratham would be willing to see him. He had no idea what he’d do if she refused, but to his relief, the concierge returned with her consent.

That relief, however, evaporated the moment the door opened and he saw her face.

“You fired me,” she said. Her voice was as flat and cold as a frozen lake, her blue eyes like a northern glacier. “Me, and Ritz, and Escoffier, and Echenard.”

“I didn’t fire you, Delia. May I come in, or shall you make me explain while standing in the corridor?”

For a moment, he thought she would make him do that very thing, but after a moment, she stepped back and allowed him to enter her suite.

“I didn’t fire you,” he said again once she had closed the door behind him.

If he’d hoped to mitigate the damage done to her by repeating that little fact, the look on her face told him he’d failed. “We were dismissed for… hmm… how did the board put it?” She paused, tapping her fingertip against her chin, as if striving to remember. “For ‘forgetting we were servants, rather than masters.’ Yes, that was what they told Ritz this morning. I, however, didn’t merit Richard’s personal consideration, sadly. I got the hotel solicitor instead. Such an honor.”

“Delia,” he began.

“And what else did the board say? Oh, yes, our arrogance led us to the belief that we could ‘use the Savoy as the place from which to carry out our corrupt schemes of fraud, theft, and chicanery.’”

He grimaced. In firing Ritz this morning, Richard had apparently not minced words.

“Well?” she said when he didn’t reply. “Did I get that right?”

“Ritz told you all this, I suppose.”

“He did.” She folded her arms. “I’m curious why you were not the one to do so.”

“I was not aware of what Richard told Ritz when he dismissed him,” he said, stalling, trying to gauge from her icy demeanor how best to soften her enough so that he could explain his side. “I wasn’t there.”

“But those were the reasons discussed at the board meeting?”

“If it’s any consolation, I voted against your termination. Unfortunately, the other board members outvoted me.”

“A piece of news I had to hear about from the Savoy’s solicitor, not from you. Even though you already knew.”

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