He gave a sigh, helpless to refute that. “Unfortunately, I could not tell you anything, at least not in detail. I am bound by confidentiality agreements not to reveal any discussions of the board. Once the board voted against you, I started back here at once, hoping to arrive before Sir Charles, so that I could be with you when he brought you the news, but I was…” He paused, cursing—not for the first time today—his loss of temper this morning and its devastating results. “I was unavoidably delayed. Be that as it may,” he rushed on, not wanting to get into the weeds with irrelevant details about how he’d ended up in jail, “though Ritz, Escoffier, and Echenard clearly committed fraud, we all know you did not. There was no evidence against you.”
“Well, that’s comforting!” she cried, her face twisting with pain. “Since I was fired just the same.”
“I’m sorry, Delia. You were fired—wrongly, in my opinion—merely because of your close friendship with Ritz. But if you’re afraid any of this will become public knowledge, it won’t. It’s best if the reasons for Ritz’s termination are never known.”
“Best for whom? The Savoy?”
“Best for everyone, including you.”
She scoffed at that. “No one who knows me would ever think I’d steal anything from anyone. It’s absurd. And the idea of Ritz stealing is equally so. Nonetheless, he doesn’t have the luxury of an aristocratic title to protect him, as I do. If the press ever hears of this, his reputation could be ruined by these scurrilous lies before he ever has the chance to prove his innocence.”
“They are not lies, and he is not innocent. And because of that,” he added as she shook her head in vehement disbelief, “you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t cry about the risks to his reputation.”
“You’ve always been against him.”
“Yes,” he shot back. “Yes, I have. Because he’s a thief.”
“Why?” she scoffed. “Because he didn’t pay for some wine?”
“So he told you he’s been taking wine and not paying for it?”
“He said that was the reason for his termination, but it’s absurd. The Savoy has always dispensed wine to favored guests at no charge.”
“There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“Like what?”
He set his jaw, frustrated by the legal and moral constraints that bound him. “I cannot say.”
“I suppose you mean Escoffier’s commissions.”
He blinked, taken aback. “You know about that?”
“Of course I do. I’ve always known.”
He felt a lurch of dismay, but he quelled it, telling himself she didn’t know the whole story. “What do you know, exactly?”
“Escoffier’s reputation is worldwide. The suppliers receive a great deal of gravitas with other hotels because he does business with them, and they are grateful.”
“I see that you share Ritz’s view of things,” he said dryly. “What else do you know? What else did he tell you about today’s events?”
Her eyes narrowed on him accusingly. “Enough to understand that he is being unfairly maligned by his enemies.”
“By enemies, you mean me?”
“I was thinking of Helen,” she said. “But now that you mention it…”
“Does it matter who his enemies are? It doesn’t alter the fact that he and Escoffier have been stealing the Ritz blind, Delia. Given that you know this, I’m amazed you can justify it.”
“It’s not theft!” she cried. “It’s for the good of the hotel. It’s part of the ambience,” she went on as he laughed in disbelief. “Having aristocrats and dignitaries come to the Savoy enhances the hotel’s image and brings in more business. I explained this to you the first day we met.”
“Ah, yes, all part of aristocratic privilege,” he said contemptuously.
“Sneer if you like, but the wine, credit in the restaurant, leeway in payment, have all enabled Ritz to build the Savoy into the greatest hotel in the world. Why should Ritz have to pay for things himself that promote the hotel?”
“And extending credit to his friends who never pay?” he shot back. “Is that promotional, too?”
“They are not friends. They are investors, possible business contacts. How do you think the Savoy got the investors for their new hotel in Rome? Ritz brought them!”
