“A foolish fashion,” Simon muttered, shaking his head.
“I can’t disagree with you there.”
“Couldn’t you have stopped him?” Even as he spoke, he knew what a futile question it was. “Never mind. I suppose if someone is bent on that sort of self-destruction, it’s impossible to stop them.”
“I’d have tried, though, if I’d known. But as I said, I was young and naïve. I did notice his violent changes of mood, but we’d been married almost a year and a half before I learned that the stuff in his snuffbox wasn’t snuff.”
“That must have been quite a shock.” Setting down his spoon, he pushed aside his empty dessert dish, propped one elbow on the table, and rested his chin in his hand. “What did you do?”
She shrugged. “What could I do? When I questioned his doctor, the man brushed me off. He was so damnably smug about it, too.” She looked down, toying with her dessert. “He wasn’t quite so smug at Roger’s funeral. That was a few weeks later.”
“So cocaine was the cause of your husband’s death?”
She nodded. “He died nineteen months after we were married. I just wish…” She paused, sculpting syllabub meditatively with her spoon, and she was silent so long, he thought she wasn’t going to finish what she’d started to say. “I just wish,” she said at last, “I’d had the sense to learn my lesson.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning, puzzled. “What lesson?”
She set down her spoon and lifted her head, shaking back the tendrils of hair that had fallen over her forehead. “Let’s just say I’m not a particularly good judge when it comes to men. I can be a bit blind sometimes.”
Given her faith in Ritz and her refusal to see what the man was doing right under her nose, her declaration didn’t surprise him. On the other hand, it was highly possible she did know and didn’t care or was a fully active participant. Which of those came closest to the truth, he was here to find out. But before he could think of a way to begin that process, she abruptly stood up. “It’s a bit warm in here. Do you mind if I get some air?”
He rose at once. “Of course not, but it’s quite chilly this evening. Are you sure you want to go out?”
She opened her arms, nodding to her long sleeves. “My dress is wool. Besides, I don’t mind the cold.”
“Shall I accompany you?”
“No, no, please stay and have your port.” She signaled to Hardwicke, who appeared at once with a bottle and glass. “I won’t be long.”
Following her lead, he acquiesced, remaining behind as she walked to a nearby glass door, opened it, and stepped outside, vanishing out into the night.
He found it rather ridiculous to sit here sipping port by himself, but it was clear she wanted a few moments alone. Nonetheless, when she did not reappear after a quarter of an hour, he decided to go in search.
He stepped out into the cold, crisp air. From the light of the hothouse, he was able to find her at once. She was standing by the balustrade, staring pensively beyond the streetlights into the inky blackness of Hyde Park.
“Delia, are you all right?” he asked as he started toward her.
At once, she turned, her pensive expression replaced by a smile. “Right as rain,” she said brightly as he halted beside her. “Should I not be?”
“I wondered if I might have said something to offend you.”
“No, no, of course not. I was just a bit hot in there, that’s all.”
He sensed there was more to it than that, but he didn’t press her.“The air inside the hothouse was a bit oppressive,” he said instead. “The humidity, no doubt.”
“If you agree to my plan, we shall have to conduct some experiments to get the temperature just right.”
There was a question in that statement, but he couldn’t answer it. Not until he knew more. “Do you have any idea how much it will cost to do something like this?” he asked.
She sighed, shaking her head, staring at him as if he were a hopeless business. “Really, Simon,” she said with good-natured exasperation, turning to lean against the balustrade as she looked at him, “is there no romance in your soul? Imagine for a moment how splendid it will be—the view of the river, the moon, its light on the water—”
“This is London,” he felt compelled to remind her. “All the coal soot in the air makes it impossible to see the moon.”
“Oh, don’t be so literal,” she chided. “We’ll hang an enormous paper lantern to look like a moon. And people can dine amid the trees and flowers no matter what time of year it is, and no matter what the capricious English weather decides to do. And when the weather is fine, we can open everything up and do outdoor events. Picnics, cotillions, that sort of thing. The parties there will be the talk of London.”
“That’s the heart of my problem, right there,” he countered ruefully. “Everyone at the Savoy thinks of the party, not the price.”
“Then think of it as an investment, if that helps. It will pay for itself in one London season, I promise you.”
