“You went through my expense diaries?” she cut in, her voice rising. “The ones I keep in my desk? Mylockeddesk?”
“Well, yes.” He assumed an expression of mock regret. “Your desk will need a new lock, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t suppose you could have bothered to cable me in Paris and ask my permission before destroying my desk and going through my things?”
That would have put her on her guard were she guilty of any wrongdoing. “Not really,” he said with a shrug. “Why?” Tensing, he leaned forward, watching her closely. “Was there something in your desk that wouldn’t bear public scrutiny?”
“Of course not,” she answered at once, “since I keep the letters from all my lovers in my suite upstairs.”
If she was hoping to shock him, she was disappointed. Married three times, she was no innocent miss, after all. And even Simon could not deny that she was remarkably beautiful. Scanning her face, with its delicate features and thickly lashed dark blue eyes, he could well believe she had dozens of lovers.
“A very wise proceeding,” he said gravely. “But while we are on the subject of your suite upstairs, it’s paid for by the hotel, I understand?”
“Yes.” Her face took on a wary expression. “The hotel allots me a room as part of my compensation. Why?”
“Your employment contract specifies a room, but not a suite. You’ll have to move.”
“You’re such a harbinger of joy, aren’t you, Calderon? Rather like cholera.”
“Suites are a valuable commodity to the hotel,” he went on, ignoring her comparison of him to a fatal disease. “We can’t have a member of staff staying for free in one of the hotel’s most desired rooms when those rooms can be let to the public for profit.”
“Then I’ll have the difference subtracted from my salary. With your permission, of course?” she added, her voice dripping with sweetness.
“That would be an acceptable alternative,” he said. “By the way, I understand from Mrs. Bates that you have requested a hotel maid to act as your lady’s maid? If so,” he added as she nodded, “the hotel will be required to bill you for that service.”
“I’m now paying to have a suite, but I don’t suppose it would do me any good to remind you that suite guests are allowed maid and valet services at no charge?”
“No good whatsoever,” he agreed with cheer, “since guests pay for those services now. All hotel maids and footmen are now required to report any and all tasks they do for suite guests to bookkeeping, just as they do for all the other guests who stay here. All tips, of course, will remain in place.”
“How generous.”
He ignored the sarcasm and returned his attention to his notes. “We’ve been far too generous, to my mind. Free valets, free maids, complimentary bottles of champagne to suite guests upon checking in, more free champagne to the tables—” He broke off, biting back any disparagement of Ritz’s generosity in dispensing free wine from theSavoy’s cellars to the hotel’s aristocratic clientele and began again. “As I was saying, the expenses for your department have been… lavish, to say the least. Thousands of pounds on flowers alone.”
“I take it you are not one of those who believes in the axiom about flowers being as important to one’s table as the bread?”
“Anyone who subscribes to that particular axiom has never been hungry,” he countered without looking up. “Now—”
“Have you?” she interrupted. “Ever been hungry, I mean?”
He tensed, casting his mind back to the days of his childhood when his parents’ meager wages had not stretched far enough, the periods when he had been pulled out of school to run errands for wealthy hotel guests in exchange for tips so his parents could make the rent on their lodgings. “Yes,” he said brusquely. “I have. Now, might we return to the subject at hand?”
She made an exaggerated gesture of acquiescence in reply, and he continued. “I see that last year you acquired new paintings for the foyer, ordered new livery for the bellboys, and redecorated all the suites?”
“My dear man, those things had to be done. Bellboysgrow, you know. Do you want them walking around in trousers that make them look like powder monkeys in the British navy? Or perhaps we should just sack them when they outgrow their uniforms and hire a fresh lot of smaller boys? As for the suites, the drapes were silk, which rots in the sunlight. They had to be replaced. The sheets were beginning to yellow, the mattresses were lumpy, and some of the settees still had the same hideously ugly upholstery from the hotel’s opening. And the paintings?” She shuddered. “Ghastly.”
The question of her honesty aside, he began to appreciate other reasons why Helen—who had chosen the upholstery, drapes, and paintings in question—didn’t like her.
“Surely,” she went on, her enormous eyes widening even further, “you wouldn’t want the guests who stay in those precious suites ofours to sleep on lumpy mattresses with yellowing sheets and rotting drapes, would you?”
“Of course not. But expenses such as the ones you mention cannot be made on the spur of the moment. They need to be projected before the fiscal year begins. That is why a budget is necessary, particularly for you, since your department is not bringing in enough revenue to offset what you’ve been spending.”
“That’s not true!” she cried, bounding in her chair. “I bring in heaps of revenue. I am responsible for planning the banquets, the parties, and all the other events we hold here. People pay 25 percent above cost for those events, you know.”
“Do they pay?” he countered, referring again to his notes. “The Marquess of Ravenlea held a dinner party last autumn for forty guests. The bill came to nearly six hundred pounds, a bill that—if the accountant’s audits can be trusted—the good marquess never paid.”
She grimaced. “Well, yes, that does sometimes happen, I’m afraid.”
“It happens with nauseating regularity—so often, in fact, that because of it, your department has not made a profit in over two years. But,” he added, attempting to soften the blow, “if it makes you feel better, you are not alone. Every department brings in too little and spends too much, hence my request for a budget from every member of management. I realize that you were not here to comply with my request, but time is of the essence if we are to pay a dividend at the end of March. So…”
