“You’ve clearly given the matter more thought than I. In light of that,” she added, choosing her words with care, “perhaps you are just the person to offer Calderon a bit of guidance? If you were to take a hand…” She paused delicately and took another bite of her dessert as she let her idea sink in. “You would be able to explain things to him so well. A word or two from you, and I’m sure he’ll realize that these new rules are completely unnecessary for gentlemen such as the members of the Godwyn Club.”
“Hmm… perhaps, perhaps; but dash it, one shouldn’t have to explain this sort of thing.”
“I know,” she replied with feeling. “Believe me, I know. But there it is. More coffee?”
Synby waved aside their waiter, Henri, who had paused beside the table with a silver coffeepot. “I’ve no time to idle over luncheon, LadyStratham. The banquet is less than a fortnight away, and this matter must be decided at once. Is Calderon anywhere about?”
“I believe he’s in his office. It’s just down the first corridor past the dining room. Shall we go together? That way, I can introduce you, then leave you gentlemen to talk things through. He’s an open-minded fellow,” she added, striving to keep a straight face as she put aside her napkin and stood up. “I’m sure you will easily make him see our point of view, and everything can be settled immediately, and no harm done.”
“Splendid idea, Lady Stratham,” the earl said as he rose to his feet. “Splendid.”
She ushered him out of the restaurant and led him to Calderon’s office. The viscount was in (a fact she had, of course, ascertained ahead of time), and was presently dictating letters to a short, sandy-haired young man. At the sight of her, Calderon stopped dictating and rose to his feet. “Lady Stratham.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said brightly as his secretary also stood up, “but there’s someone I felt you simply must meet.”
She pulled her companion through the doorway. “Lord Calderon, this is Lord Synby. And this is…” She paused, giving a pointed glance at the sandy-haired young man before returning her attention to his employer.
“My secretary, Mr. Ross,” Calderon supplied. “Ross, this is Lady Stratham, and… er… Lord Synby.”
“How do you do, Mr. Ross?” She beamed at him, holding out her hand. “Such a pleasure to see that the Savoy’s new policies allow the truly important people to have secretaries.”
She did not miss Calderon’s wry look as she shook hands with the young secretary, but she ignored it. “Lord Synby and I have just been discussing the upcoming banquet for the Godwyn Club. It seems there’s a bit of a muddle over the deposit requirement. Of course, I…”She paused, pressing a hand to her bosom and attempting to look the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “I, being a mere woman, know little of finance, so I felt the best thing was to bring Lord Synby to you, Lord Calderon. I’m sure you can explain the Savoy’s new policy far more effectively than I ever could. Now,” she added before Calderon could reply, “I simply must be off. I have a meeting with Lady Malvers about her widows and orphans luncheon, and the dear baroness is such a stickler for punctuality. Good afternoon, everyone.”
Giving all three men her brightest smile, she departed. Pausing in the doorway to her own office, she reached for her hat from the coat-tree, and as she put it on, the earl’s booming voice echoed from the office next door.
“Lady Stratham tells me the Savoy is requiring deposits now. Whose idiotic idea was that?”
Chuckling under her breath, Delia shoved in her hatpin, reached for her cloak, and left her office to break the bad news about deposits to Lady Malvers.
Lady Malvers was every bit as insulted by the prospect of paying money in advance as Lord Synby had been, and by the time Delia had departed from the Malverses’ sumptuous apartments in Park Lane, the baroness, like the earl, was complacently confident that a word or two in Calderon’s ear from a peer of the realm would straighten out the mess. She heartily approved Delia’s suggestion that Lord Malvers discuss the situation with Calderon directly, and she promised that the baron would be calling upon the viscount in very short order.
By the end of the following day, Lord Malvers had also expressed his displeasure with the new policies to Calderon, and had, like Lord Synby, vowed to take his business elsewhere. Delia might have beenable to persuade them not to do so, of course, but as much as she hated to lose business to a competitor, she could see no other way to make Calderon see that his method of doing things was wrongheaded. No, he needed to be hit with the painful consequences of his decisions as quickly and decisively as possible. Faced with a slew of complaints, canceled parties, and lost revenue, he’d soon be forced to change course, and she consoled herself for the business lost by imagining the delicious moment when Calderon would be forced to eat some humble pie.
Lord Synby and Lord and Lady Malvers were not the only ones to abandon the Savoy. Within a few days, three more of her clients had moved their upcoming banquets and luncheons to rival establishments, just as she had predicted. She could only hope that Calderon saw sense in time for her to repair the damage before Ritz returned. The poor man had enough to concern himself with these days, and the last thing he needed was to come back and find his beloved Savoy in shambles and all his favorite customers in a rage.
A week after Lord Synby and the Godwyn Club’s departure for the Bristol, however, Delia discovered that not everyone was as willing as she to take the long and patient approach to the situation.
She was in her office, still wading through the pile of correspondence that had accumulated during her Paris trip, when she was interrupted by a torrent of angry French.
“It is insupportable, Madame. Insupportable!”
Delia looked up as Auguste Escoffier came striding into her office, and the look of fury on his face made her grimace. “What’s the trouble?” she asked, responding in the Frenchman’s native language, though she was sure she was going to regret the question.
“That I should suffer such insults, such treatment!” He ran a hand through his thinning silver hair and puffed out his chest, actions that made him look less like the world’s greatest chef and more like anagitated banty rooster. “That he and his minions should do this to me? Tome? I am Escoffier, not some third-rate cook in an East End tavern.”
Delia had a pretty fair idea of who the man in question might be, but the mention of his “minions” piqued her curiosity. “Who are you talking about, Auguste, my darling? Lord Calderon?”
“Him and the others.”
“What others?”
“That pig of an accountant, Monsieur Deloitte. He and his clerks are with Calderon in my office as we speak, looking through my papers. What business have they to look through my private papers?”
Delia’s gaze slid to the broken lock on her splintered desk drawer. “Believe it or not, I know how you feel,” she said with a sigh. “But I hardly see what I—”
“I cannot come in, they tell me. I must stay out, they say. Keeping me out of my own office? How dare they? And not only that, Madame. They go through the wine cellars, the larders, even my kitchen. My kitchen, Madame! They go everywhere. They even talk to my suppliers about me, and about Ritz, too, and Echenard—poking, prying, asking questions. I am not supposed to know about that, but my suppliers are loyal. They tell me about this.”
“Your suppliers?” she echoed, surprised and baffled. “But why talk to them? Whatever the accountants want to know, why don’t they just ask you directly?”
