Devlin heaved a sigh. “Of course I’m in. You know I can never turn down a good business deal.”
“Excellent,” Simon replied with profound relief. “Perhaps one day you two could even become friends.”
“Don’t count on it,” the other two said in unison, making him grin.
“To new beginnings,” he said and held up his glass.
The other two put aside their animosity enough to echo this optimistic sentiment, and the three men clinked glasses, swallowed the last of their whisky, and stood up.
After handshakes all around and an agreement to meet three dayshence to sign the papers, Simon escorted the other two men downstairs to the hotel lobby. As Devlin went to see the doorman about a hansom cab, Simon took advantage of this private moment with the duke.
“Have you heard from Delia?” he asked.
Westbourne nodded. “I got a letter from her just before I came down. She’s in Paris.”
“Paris?” Dismay knotted his guts like a fist. “She’s decided to take up Ritz’s job offer then?”
But to his profound relief, the duke shook his head. “She’s only gone to have a look at things there. She’ll make a decision when she gets back, she said.”
Simon drew a deep, steadying breath. “And when will that be?” he asked, striving to sound as casual as possible.
“She didn’t say. Ah,” he added, glancing past Simon’s shoulder. “I believe the hansom has arrived.”
Simon walked out with him, said farewell to both men, and noted with amused chagrin that Devlin had ordered two hansoms. Despite having just formed a business partnership that included the duke, and despite the fact that both men were going to the West End, Devlin’s opinion of Westbourne hadn’t softened enough to share a cab. Ah, well. Perhaps with time, Simon could effect a more amiable truce there. After all, Devlin was his best friend, and if his hopes ever came to fruition, Westbourne would become his cousin-in-law.
But the latter would only happen, he thought, his smile fading, if he could persuade Delia to marry him. And at this point, that prospect wasn’t looking too promising.
Defying the confidentiality agreements he’d signed, he’d sent her the investigators’ reports, thinking that reading the actual documented proof would show her the extent of Ritz’s guilt. Simon hadalso hoped subjecting himself to a civil lawsuit that could financially wreck him would demonstrate to her that he was worthy of her trust, but neither of those hopes appeared likely to come true. She’d gone to Paris anyway.
During the week ahead, Ritz would be working on her, dazzling her with his grandiose plans and schemes, but as nauseating a prospect as that was, there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do was ensure that when she returned, he was in a position to make an offer of his own that might, just might, appeal to her more. If not—
“Simon?”
The sound of a feminine voice calling his name caused his heart to give a leap. But he knew it wasn’t Delia’s voice, and when he turned toward the front desk, the sight of Helen standing there confirmed the fact.
She spoke before he could do so. “Forming new alliances, I see,” she said, nodding to the door through which Max and Devlin had just departed.
“I didn’t have much choice.”
“Well, you certainly burned your bridges with the old allies,” she said with a touch of wry humor he could not share. “I’m the one who persuaded Astonby not to press charges, by the way.”
He met the amusement in her eyes with a hard look of his own. “Is that why you came? To show me what a Lady Bountiful you are? Then why are you here?” he asked when she shook her head.
“I regret things happened the way they did.”
“But you don’t regret the part you played in them?”
“No.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“You were right, you know,” she said. “When you told me that myown suffering is why I dislike Lady Stratham. I know I ought to have some sympathy for her, since she’s lost three husbands and I know I’m losing mine. But I couldn’t feel that, because I was jealous as hell. You see, despite her pain from losing three husbands, she has never lost her zest for life, and I can feel myself slowly losing mine. When Richard dies, I think I will just dry up and wither away.”
He stirred, impatient. “Is this a bid for my sympathy?”
“No, actually. I just wanted you to know that you were right. That’s why I was so vehement about her guilt. I wanted her to be guilty.”
“And yet, after you knew she wasn’t guilty, you worked to have her dismissed anyway. And you succeeded.”
