The Notorious Mr. Hurst Page 7

  Mr Benson cleared his throat, her hand was released and they sat down as though nothing had happened. She had fin-alised a business arrangement—why did she feel almost as disorientated as she had when he kissed her?

  ‘I will amend the documents now.’ The attorney produced a travelling inkwell and pen and began to alter the documents before him. Maude sat silent while the nib scratched over the paper, occupying herself with removing her other glove and tucking them both into her reticule.

  ‘There.’ Mr Benson finished, pushed one set across the desk to each of them and handed his own pen to Maude. ‘If you will read them through and sign, then exchange copies.’

  Maude Augusta Edith Templeton, Maude wrote in her strong flowing hand. It was not a ladylike signature, her governess had complained, trying vainly to make her produce something smaller and altogether less assertive. She initialled the other pages as she had been taught and handed them to Eden, taking his in return.

  Eden Francesco Tancredi Hurst, it said in writing equally as black and considerably more forceful. Maude signed below it, the sudden image of a marriage register flashing through her mind. ‘Francesco Tancredi?’ she said before she remembered the rumour about his father. It must be true.

  ‘Augusta Edith?’ he retorted.

  ‘Great-aunts.’ He did not respond with any explanation of his two very Italian names.

  ‘I will call at the bank and arrange for the transfer of funds.’ Mr Benson was on his feet, pushing his papers together. ‘May I take you up, Lady Maude?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I have my carriage.’

  He bowed over her hand before clapping on his hat. ‘My lady. Mr Hurst, I bid you good day.’

  Eden stood while she sat down again. ‘Would you like to see around behind the scenes now?’

  ‘Yes, please. But first—’ But first she wanted to speak to him alone and there was the small matter of one attentive lady’s maid sitting like a watchdog in the corner. ‘I would love a cup of tea.’ Eden reached for the bell. ‘Anna can go and find that little maid—Millie, wasn’t it? Run along and ask Doggett at the stage door where to find her, Anna—and no gossiping with anyone else, mind.’

  Trained obedience had the maid on her feet and halfway out of the door before she realised the conflict in her orders. ‘But, my lady, Lord Pangbourne said—’

  ‘And you are doing very well, Anna,’ Maude praised. ‘I will be sure to tell him so.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ Beaming, she hurried out, closing the door behind her.

  ‘So, your father has set a watchdog to guard you? Not a very fierce one.’ He strolled round the desk and hitched one hip on the edge, looking down at her.

  ‘No, she is not, although she is very serious about it. I wanted to say thank you for Monday night.’

  He did not pretend to misunderstand her. ‘The counterfeit English gentleman?’

  ‘The perfectly genuine one,’ she retorted.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ He smiled down at her, the first time she had seen him really smile. His teeth were very white, very even and, like the rest of him, looked as though they would bite. Hard. ‘You expected the earring, or worse, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maude admitted. ‘Actually, I rather like it, but it might have raised eyebrows.’

  ‘I will confess I was very tempted to go completely to the other extreme and give you my version of the old-school actor-manager.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ she asked, intrigued.

  ‘Because, upon reflection, I found I did not want to scan-dalise your father to the point where he forbade you to interfere with my theatre. You are my grit, remember? I expect us to produce pearls.’

  He was being deliberately provocative. Interfere, indeed! She refused to rise to it, let alone react to being compared to a piece of grit. ‘Describe how you would have turned into the old-school actor-manager,’ she said instead.

  ‘A shirt with enough ruffles to make you a ballgown, very tight evening breeches and a wasp-waisted tail coat with exaggerated satin lapels.’ He sketched the clothes over his body with his hands. ‘I would have raided Madame’s dressing room for a large diamond ear drop and her curling tongs.’ He twirled a lock of shoulder-length hair between his fingers. ‘A touch of lamp black to line my eyes and the oil, of course.’

  ‘The oil?’

  ‘Olive oil. I would have oiled my hair and my skin. Your father would have thrown you over his shoulder and swept out of the theatre, believe me.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Maude said appreciatively. ‘I would like to see that look, one day. But oil?’

  ‘I will give you some. I import it for my own use. It hardly gets used for cooking here in England, although it should be—for both cooking and salads. But Madame bathes with it, treats her hair with it. It is excellent for dry skin in winter weather.’

  ‘But doesn’t it smell horrible?’ Maude wrinkled her nose, imagining all the sorts of cooking oil she had come across. The image of Eden, his naked body glistening, kept sliding into her imagination. Much better to think of nasty, smelly grease.

  ‘Here.’ He reached down into a wooden crate standing by his desk and produced a bottle full of greenish-golden liquid. ‘A consignment has just come in.’ The cork popped. ‘Hold out your hand.’

  As Maude hesitated he reached out and lifted her hand. The oil was cool as it trickled into her palm, forming a tiny pool no more than a gold sovereign’s width across. ‘Smell.’ He set the bottle down, glimmering in the light from the window like a bottled lake of enchantment.

  Her hand still cupped in Eden’s, Maude dipped her head and sniffed. ‘Earth and fruit and…green.’

  ‘Taste it.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head as though he had asked her to drink an enchanter’s potion.

  In response he bent and licked the little pool of oil straight from her hand. His tongue sweeping across her palm was hot, strong and utterly shocking. Maude gave a little gasp and tried to pull away, only to be held firmly. ‘Careful, you will mark your gown.’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her palm clean. ‘Are you sure you do not want to taste it?’ His mouth was so close to hers, his lips slicked with the golden oil. Of course, he could mean he would pour her a little more.

  And, yes, she wanted to taste it, warm on his lips. Summoning up reserves of willpower she had no idea she possessed, Maude said calmly, ‘This is why Papa insists upon a chaperon, Mr Hurst.’ He was looking deep into her eyes, his own amused, mocking. Hot.

  ‘Wise man, Maude.’

  She had dreamed of hearing her given name on his lips. Caution, tactics, pride made her stare at him haughtily. ‘I have not allowed you to address me so familiarly, Mr Hurst.’ She spoiled the effect somewhat by tugging at his restraining hand. ‘Will you please let me go!’

  He released her and went back to his own side of the desk. ‘But we are partners, Maude.’

  ‘Business partners,’ she said reprovingly as the door opened to admit Anna and the maid Millie with her huge tea tray. ‘Thank you, Anna. Why do you not go with Millie and find some refreshments of your own?’

  The girls had placed the tea tray in front of her, so she began to pour, trying to think of some topic of conversation that would neither be stilted nor provocative.

  ‘Your cook uses the olive oil, then?’

  ‘My cook regards it as a foreign frippery, not to be compared to good English lard.’ He took the cup and saucer, shaking his head at the proffered cream jug. ‘If I want Italian food, I must cook it myself.’

  ‘You cook?’ It was unheard of.

  ‘Country food,’ Eden said with a shrug, but he was smiling with remembered pleasure, not defensively.

  ‘Italian country food?’ How much could she ask without revealing she had heard the rumour about his parentage? ‘How very unusual.’

  ‘I lived in an Italian palazzo until I was fourteen,’ Eden said. ‘In the kitchens and the stables, I should say, because that was where I was consigned. Both my cook
ing and my Italian are on the coarse side.’

  He had grown up in his father’s house, then? But with the servants? The use of the word consigned was both unusual and bitter. But she could risk asking no more. His face as he drank the cooling tea had become shuttered.

  ‘May I take that tour behind the scenes now?’ Maude asked. ‘Or have you other business to take care of?’

  ‘I always have business.’ But Eden’s grimace as he extended a long finger to ruffle the pages of the notebook that lay on the desk was amused. This was far more than an occupation for him, she realised. He loved the work, the theatre. ‘And some of it can be done while we go round.’

  Maude set down her cup and saucer and stood up, aware of his eyes on the sweep of her almond-green skirts. This was going so much better than she had dared hope. This was the man Jessica had described as an icicle, and yet he had let her into his theatre, allowed her a glimpse of his early life and surely, unless he was a complete rake and licked olive oil from the palm of every lady he met—surely a flirtation way out of the ordinary?—he was attracted to her. Yes, he was admiring the hemline, or perhaps it was the glimpse of ankle…

  ‘I would suggest something less suitable for morning calls the next time you visit,’ Eden remarked, holding the door for her. ‘That pale colour is highly impractical here.’

  So much for him admiring the gown she had selected with such pains! But then she had somehow known it would be an uphill struggle, breaking through to the real Eden Hurst she sensed behind the façade.

  Maude followed through a maze of passageways, up and down steps, trying to keep her sense of direction.

  ‘The dressing room for the chorus.’ Eden opened a door on to a deserted rectangular room, a long bench running down the middle. It had stools on either side, a row of mirrors and everywhere there was a feminine litter of pots and jars, brushes, lopsided bunches of flowers in chipped vases, stockings hanging over looking-glass frames, pairs of slippers, scraps of paper, prints and letters stuck to the walls or under the pots. It reeked of cheap perfume and the gas lighting, greasepaint and sweat. ‘It is organised chaos an hour before curtain up,’ he commented, closing the door again. ‘The other dressing rooms are further along.

  ‘Mrs Furlow is in here,’ he added as he opened the door into the room. ‘The room used by visiting leads. Madame’s dressing room is just beyond.’

  Maude realised there was something amiss the moment she stepped into the dressing room in front of Eden and heard the sounds. It was gloomy, with the shade drawn over the high window. In the half-light the gasps were even plainer, more disturbing than if it had been broad daylight.

  Confused, Maude peered at the far side where bodies were tangled on what seemed to be a makeshift bed. Someone was being strangled—she started forward to go to their aid, then she realised that it was a couple making love, that the choking cries were a woman in the throes of ecstasy and the curved shape she could see were the naked buttocks of the man between her spread thighs.

  ‘Out!’ Eden seized her around the waist, lifted and dumped her bodily into the corridor before stalking back into the room. ‘Merrick!’ There was a feminine scream, a thump. Shaken but shamelessly curious, Maude applied her eye to the crack of the half-open door—then closed it hastily. A young man was pulling on his breeches. He was also gabbling something she could not catch. Cautiously Maude opened her eyes again.

  ‘Be quiet.’ That was Eden. ‘I will see you in my office in half an hour.’ Maude glimpsed him as he turned to face the bed, his face hard. ‘Miss Golding, you will pack your bags and be out of here at once. I will have your wages made up to yesterday and sent to your lodgings.’ There was a gasp, a girl’s voice protesting. ‘You, Miss Golding, are easy enough to replace, Merrick less so. Oh, for pity’s sake, stop cowering under that sheet, girl, and get some clothes on. I am quite unmoved by your charms, believe me.’

  He stepped back out into the passage, shutting the door behind him with a control that was as chilling as the look on his face. ‘I am sorry you had to witness that.’

  ‘So am I, but not half so sorry as I was to hear what you have just said,’ Maude snapped. ‘That poor girl you have callously dismissed—what is going to become of her now?’

  Eden’s dark eyes rested on her face with indifference. ‘She will find a place in the chorus somewhere. Or a position on her back if that fails.’

  ‘On her—’ The crudity took Maude’s breath away. Behind Eden’s back the door opened and Merrick eased out, his coat bundled in his arms, and hurried away. From the room came violent sobbing. ‘Poor thing, let me go and speak to her. He is just as much to blame as she—why does the woman have to take the blame?’

  ‘No.’ Eden reached out and shut the door, cutting off the sounds of distress. ‘Come, back to my office; it is better if you leave before I have my interview with Merrick.’

  Yes, the middle of the passageway was not the place for this conversation. Maude gathered up her skirts and stalked ahead of him in the direction he indicated. Eden Hurst was going to have an interview with her before he got anywhere near the delinquent juvenile lead.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘That was cruel and unfair.’ Maude stood with her back to the desk, her fingertips pressed to its surface behind her. It was easier to confront him standing up, with some support. ‘That young man probably coerced her.’

  Eden came in and stood in front of her, close enough to touch, close enough for her to see the coldness that turned his eyes almost black. ‘Fairness has nothing to do with it. I am running a business here. If Merrick goes, I will probably lose Susan Poole, his mistress, who is our soubrette. I can ill afford her loss at this stage in the Season, but ingénues like Harriet Golding are two a penny.’ He shrugged as though that settled the matter.

  ‘But Miss Golding is just a girl, alone. Don’t you care that she might become a prostitute as a result of this?’ She admired this man, was convinced she loved him. Surely he could not be this cruel? Could she have so misjudged him?

  ‘Her choice. Merrick was not forcing her, nor has he seduced her. I have been watching them for a few days now.’

  ‘Then you should have done something before now, she was your responsibility.’ He was close, too close. Maude resisted the instinct to bend back, put one hand firmly in the middle of his chest and pushed. ‘And don’t crowd me, you bully.’

  It was like pushing the wall. Apparently oblivious to Maude’s hand planted on his chest, Eden dug into his pocket and produced his notebook, flipped it open and turned it so she could read what was written on the page.

  Under oil lamps the definite black letters said Merrick/ Golding/Poole. ‘Oh. Well, you should have done something sooner. Will you please move!’

  ‘If I wanted to crowd you, Maude, I would get a great deal closer than this.’ Eden tossed the notebook on to the table, seized her wrist and removed her hand from his waistcoat without any apparent effort. He then took one step forward. Maude tried to retreat, came up hard against the edge of the desk and swayed back. Both big hands came down on the leather, bracketing her hips, a knee forced hers apart and then he was standing between her thighs, leaning over her. ‘Now this is crowding you.’

  Maude struggled for balance, gripped his shoulders and stared, furious, up into his face. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘When you admit you were exaggerating,’ he said calmly.

  Maude, braced to fight, blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘You accused me of crowding you, bullying you. This, I agree, is both. But before, no. You accuse me of unfairness and yet you spent an hour this morning with your attorney making certain this theatre was run as a business.

  ‘I am not running the Unicorn as a recreation, Maude. I am not a gentleman, although you appear to be having trouble grasping that. This is my life and my business and I will not be indulgent with anything that threatens it. Harriet Golding is not some little innocent I am tossing out into the cold—she knew exactly what she was doing when
she spread her legs for Merrick.’

  The fact that he was standing between her own parted thighs was not lost on Maude. Nothing was, not the heat of him, the smell of him, the tightly contained anger nor the discomfort in her back, bowed over the desk. And most of all, more mortifying than all the rest, the knowledge that she wanted to pull him down to cover her body and make love to her here and now and as wantonly as those two actors.

  ‘Very well.’ She swallowed. ‘I may have been a trifle…emotional about the situation, I admit. Will you please let me up now?’

  Eden stepped back and she came with him, pulled by her grip on his shoulders. When she found her feet Maude let go, brushed down her skirt and walked, as steadily as her aching, shaking, legs would allow her, to pick up her hat, gloves and reticule. She had something more to say to him, but she did not know how she was going to find the courage; it was far too close to her own feelings. Yet, how could she not do her best for the girl?

  She set the hat on her head, tied the ribbons beneath her chin and then drew on her gloves as she walked back to where Eden Hurst stood in front of the desk, watching her from under lowered brows.

  Maude found her mouth was dry and her throat tight. She made herself look up into his face. ‘Mr Hurst, have you considered that she may be in love with him?’

  ‘No.’ There was a flicker of surprise at the question, that was all. ‘There is no such thing as love, Maude. There is lust, there is sentimentality, there is neediness, there are the transactions people make for all kinds of reasons. But there is not love. It does not exist, it is merely a romantic fantasy.’

  ‘Of course love exists.’ She stared back, aghast. ‘Even if you do not believe in love between adult men and women, surely you acknowledge family love? Parents love their children, children love their parents—I know, I love my father and he loves me.’

  ‘Society and convention makes family units,’ he observed. ‘Nature influences mothers to tend to helpless infants. And some of them,’ he added with chilling flippancy, ‘even heed that influence. Familiarity, dependence, desire—you can call it love if you want to.’