A handsome young man paused in the doorway and looked in on them.
A coat was draped across one arm, and a crushed-looking beaver was gripped in his other hand. His cravat was askew. Whiskers darkened his jaw and chin, completing the air of rakish dissolution.
His person was liberally sprinkled with little bits of straw.
“Well, good afternoon, St. John,” his father said pleasantly and ironically.
“Good afternoon, Father. Mrs. Durand. Mrs. Hardy.”
The ladies nodded to him, coolly.
There was a silence as they inspected him with varying degrees of pity, humor, and sympathy, but absolutely no remorse.
He was too tired, apparently, to do anything but stand there and submit to inspection.
“You’ve bits of straw all over your person, St. John,” the earl mused.
“I spent the night in the livery stable,” he said.
“Ah.”
“It was not too uncomfortable,” he added, after another long pause, with a certain admirable attempt at defiance. The shadowy crescents beneath his eyes and the fine red lines across their whites suggested that “comfortable” wasn’t a word he’d use, either.
He didn’t apologize for missing curfew. Nobody expected him to. Nobody apologized for locking him out, either. It wasn’t personal. Those were the rules.
To his credit, he wasn’t wasting any of his obviously currently scant emotional resources on raising a complaint.
“Well. I think I shall go up now,” he said.
“It’s good to have you back,” Delilah said kindly. “Would you like some tea? And would you perhaps like a warm bath prepared?”
“Yes, please, thank you,” he said meekly, and turned to go share the good news of his return with his mother and sisters.
“You do recall that baths cost a little more, of course,” Angelique said to the earl, quietly. “They require significant staff time to prepare. We’ll add it to your account.”
“Of course.”
Briskly, they returned to the business at hand.
“Well. What do you say, ladies?” He offered them a charming smile. “Will you allow us to stay, and accept my abject apologies?”
Angelique and Delilah exchanged a long look.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to take a minute or two to discuss it privately between us, Lord Vaughn,” Delilah said. “For you see, it’s not just that we consider Helga family. It’s that she’s part of the very lifeblood of our business, and we can attribute a good deal of our success to her talents.” Every word of this was just alittlebit of an exaggeration, but at its core was truth. “When people become our guests they find comfort in every way, and that includes the food. She also manages our kitchen and the maids, and this is no small skill. As a man of business, you likely understand that the loss of her would strike a blow at the very foundation of our livelihood.”
He blanched a little and looked deflated. “I see.”
It was rather sweet to see that he was truly suffering, the traitor.
And it wasn’t as though the Earl of Vaughn and his family didn’t have other equally or more attractive options. Perhaps another hotel in London could find a way to accommodate them; at the time of their arrival, nothing had been available for them at the precise moment they’d been compelled to hastily vacate their home. But both Delilah and Angelique believed in the quality of their service and they also knew the profound value of perceived exclusivity.
“If you would be so kind to wait here while we discuss it?” Angelique said to him, on a nearly funereal hush. Together she and Delilah gracefully rose and crossed the foyer underneath their beloved crystal chandelier, to the opposite parlor, lately the scene of such merriment. It was empty now.
“‘Strike a blow at the foundation of our livelihood.’ That was very good, Delilah,” Angelique whispered.
“Thank you. It just came to me.”
“How long do you think we ought to let him marinate in guilt and remorse?”
