by Louise Allen
‘Oh.’ Poor little boy. He had betrayed so much hurt in those cynical words. She stood there feeling the tears start at the back of her eyes. But this was not a damaged, abandoned child in front of her. Not any more. This was a grown man with scars to cover those wounds. Scars that so obviously hurt. ‘You poor man,’ she murmured. Then she turned and walked out, knowing that if she stayed she would take his face between her palms and try to kiss away all the years of neglect and loneliness those words betrayed. Would this man ever allow her to try to do that?
Eden stood looking at the door Maude had closed so gently behind her. She pitied him because he denied the existence of love? What sort of foolish feminine fancy was that? He had so much—his independence, work he lived for, wealth, achievement and the sense not to give up his heart and his soul to be toyed with and then discarded by some damn woman. He had made all this out of the stony soil of a mother who had left him for years until it suited her to find him again, an uncaring father who refused to acknowledge his son and fourteen years of neglect in the servants’ quarters of an Italian palazzo.
It was not even as though Prince Tancredi had maltreated him physically. He could have endured that, for at least that would have been a recognition of sorts. No, the magnificent father who dazzled him with the longing for a look, a word, had simply refused to acknowledge that he was anything but a liability, like a feeble old servant that duty did not allow you to cast out. If a man who had everything—wealth, title, position, looks—could not spare a kind word for his own son, then that son had to learn a hard lesson and open his eyes to the realities of the sentimental nonsense people spoke about love.
And Lady Maude Templeton had the effrontery to pity him? Not apparently for being outside the ton or for having no family he could acknowledge, but because he did not believe in the mind-sapping dependency of a foolish emotion. Dio! What had he tied himself to? This was as bad as fighting off Corwin’s daughters. Worse.
The tap on the door sent him back to his chair behind the desk. ‘Come! Ah, Mr Merrick.’
‘Sir.’ The young actor had tidied his clothing and brushed his hair and now stood bashfully, giving a very acceptable performance of troubled penitence. Yes, he was a good actor, even if Eden would never gratify him by saying so. All the more reason to keep him. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.’
‘No, it will not because Miss Golding will be leaving us. Is Miss Poole aware of what has been going on?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You are lodging with her still?’
‘Sir.’
‘Then you had better think up an explanation for why you are not getting paid this week, Merrick.’ The young man looked up sharply, the boyish charm slipping. ‘I will add your wages to what I owe Miss Golding.’ That, at least, ought to please his sentimental new partner. If she ever came back.
‘Be very clear about this, Merrick. I am keeping you only because of Miss Poole. She’s a better actor than you’ll ever be and I doubt she’d have the lack of judgement to expose her spotty buttocks to my guests either.’ That produced a furious blush, but Merrick held his tongue.
‘Nothing to say? I need hardly add that if I find you involved with any other female in this company I will ensure that Miss Poole is fully aware of it. I’ll even hand her the blunt carving knife. Now get out of my sight.’
Methodically Eden opened his notebook, crossed out the line about the three actors and added a note about Merrick and Golding’s wages and the need to cast another ingénue, then went to open the door. ‘Millie!’
‘Yes, Guv’nor?’ She appeared round the corner, her face screwed up in her usual earnest scowl. ‘Post, Guv’nor.’ She thrust several envelopes into his hand.
‘Thank you. Go and make sure Mrs Furlow’s dressing room is in good order.’ The maid scurried off and Eden leaned back against the doorjamb, his eyes unseeing on the deserted passageway, wondering if he was coming down with something. He felt decidedly odd. After a minute he scrubbed his hair back with both hands, rubbing his eyes until he saw stars.
There was no time to be ill and no excuse for indulging himself by looking for symptoms either. Eden went back into his office and glanced at the clock. An hour to the afternoon rehearsal. Time to read his post, send Millie out for some food and decide what to do about finding a replacement for Harriet Golding.
There was, almost inevitably, an invitation from the Corwin household. This time it was for a soirée, two evenings hence. Having survived one of Mrs Corwin’s soirées before, he was not over-eager to repeat the experience. Did he still need Corwin’s money? He was reluctant, but the man had not asked for any involvement with the theatre, not like Lady Maude, and money, wherever it came from, was money.
The other invitation emerging from the pile was unexpected. Lady Standon requested the pleasure of his company, again for a soirée, again in two evenings’ time.
It had not been uncommon for him to receive invitations from members of society since his arrival in London, especially those of the faster set. His wealth, and the rapidly growing popularity of his theatre, accounted for it, he supposed, in the same way as prominent bankers or merchants would receive invitations if their manners were sufficiently refined. Such outsiders showed a hostess was daring and completely secure in her own position.
Occasionally he accepted when one of his particular friends pressed the point or when an evening’s entertainment included a celebrity singer or writer he was interested in. But he was wary, for he realised that, for some of the female guests—and on one occasion, not just the females—his person was the attraction. As a decorative exotic it seemed he was a desirable accessory on a lady’s arm and in her bed. He was not averse to a brief dalliance with charming ladies whose husbands were either tolerant or neglectful, but he liked to make his own choices. He was aware it had given him a certain reputation.
But Lady Standon did not appear to be the kind of lady who thought that slumming it with men from beyond her social circle would be amusing; in fact, he rather suspected she was unfashionably attached to her husband, a man who looked as though he would kill anyone who so much as laid a finger on his wife. Maude would doubtless say they were in love. So there was a strong possibility that, after meeting him in Maude’s box, she had simply included him on her guest list with no ulterior motives.
Eden pulled the notepaper towards him and began to write, one letter an acceptance, the other a regretful refusal due to a prior engagement. As he sealed them he smiled, amused at his own choices.
Millie poked her head round the door. ‘I’ve done the room, Guv’nor. You want me to take your letters?’
‘Yes, send one of the lads to deliver them now.’
Eden was not surprised to find Corwin waiting in the office when he came back after rehearsal. Millie had provided the merchant with tea and he sat in front of the desk, seeming, to Eden’s resentful eye, to occupy more than his reasonable share of the space.
‘Well, my boy,’ he began. Eden showed his teeth in what might be construed as a smile and sat. ‘As you can’t come to Mrs C.’s soirée, there’s a little chat I think we should have.’
‘Indeed?’ Eden injected polite boredom into his voice.
‘Mrs C. is that disappointed, I can’t tell you,’ Corwin remarked, stirring a heaped spoon of sugar into his cup. ‘Bessie, I said to her, it’s about time I settled matters right and tight with Mr Hurst, then we’ll all know where we are and he won’t be bashful about accepting invitations. Why, I said, he won’t need them!’
Eden raised an eyebrow. ‘I would regret causing Mrs Corwin disappointment, but I am afraid my refusal is due to the fact I will be at the Standons’ soirée that evening, not to any bashfulness.’
‘Lord Standon? Well, that just goes to show what I said to my Bessie was right—you’re just the man we need, sir.’
‘For what, exactly?’ Eden asked, knowing all too well what the answer would be.
‘Why, for our girls!’ C
orwin took a swig of tea.
‘All of them? I fear that is illegal in this country.’
‘Ha! You’ll have your joke, sir.’ The merchant did not look as though he found it funny. ‘No, whichever of them you choose, although Calliope is the eldest. Once one of them’s wed to you, the others will get off soon enough, I make no doubt of it, especially with the fine friends you’ve got, my boy.’
Eden toyed with the options before him, of which physically ejecting Corwin was the most tempting. Uno, due, tre, he counted silently, then smiled. ‘You flatter me with your proposal, sir, but I must decline.’
He expected anger, but Corwin’s face merely displayed indulgent understanding. ‘I know what it is, and it does you honour, my boy, but we don’t take any account of the circumstances of your birth. Why, Mrs C. herself never knew her father, let alone him being an Italian prince.’
‘You would oblige me by ceasing to discuss my parentage, Corwin. What you think of the circumstances does not interest me. I have no intention of marrying one of your daughters and that is the end of it.’
The other man’s face darkened and he set his cup down sharply. ‘Then you’ll not get a penny piece of my money for your damned theatre.’
Eden shrugged. ‘Your decision, sir.’
‘So you do not intend doing the honourable thing, despite compromising my Calliope?’ the other man blustered.
‘Ah, so you did know about that very unwise visit, did you?’ Eden relaxed against the high-carved back of his chair, aware that when he did so the soaring eagle at the top seemed to rise from his shoulders, claws outspread, threatening. A theatrical effect, but it amused him.
‘Corwin, I may be a bastard, in all the ways that word can be defined, but I am not able to compromise one young lady while she is chaperoned by her sister and, happily, by a respectable third party who happened to be having a business meeting with me at the time.’ The merchant’s face fell, ludicrously. ‘I suggest you go home, tear up whatever draft contract you have been working on and go and seek your sons-in-law elsewhere. You’ll not find one at the Unicorn.’
‘He doesn’t believe in love,’ Maude stated baldly. With complete disregard for the skirts of her evening gown she was curled up at the end of Jessica’s bed, her back against the bedpost, her eyes meeting her friend’s in the looking glass.
Jessica swivelled round on the dressing-table stool, her diamond ear drops dangling from her fingers. ‘You told him you loved him? Maude, of all the—’
‘No, of course I did no such thing. He sacked one of the actresses for having an affair with the juvenile lead actor and I said, what if they are in love? And he said, there is no such thing. He is so bitter, Jessica, no wonder he seems like an icicle. I think it all goes back to his childhood, because he seems to regard even maternal love as something nature imposes just to make sure children don’t starve. Like birds knowing they have to build nests. Although I don’t think he got much paternal love either,’ she added with a sigh.
‘He’s a grown man,’ her friend said robustly, hooking one earring into her lobe. ‘Ouch, oh, bother this thing. Ring for Mary, will you?’
‘No, I’ll do it.’ Maude slid off the bed and went to help. ‘You’ve got your hair tangled in it. There. Yes, I know he’s a grown man,’ she said, reverting to her preoccupation with Eden. ‘But how we are brought up affects who we are when we grow up, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, although some people rise above early hardship and others fall into despair or bad ways, even though they had the happiest of childhoods. If the man is bitter and cold, Maude, are you so sure you love him? I don’t know how you can really, you hardly know him.’
Troubled, Maude perched on the edge of the bed again, absently smoothing out the creases in her skirts. ‘It isn’t logical, is it? I ask myself, I truly do, whether it is just because of the way he looks. But even when he upsets me, even when I see all that bitterness, I still feel for him. And there is something, even when I disagree with him quite violently, that makes me sense our minds are linked.’
‘Just so long as he does nothing to hurt you,’ Jessica said, rising and reaching for her reticule. ‘I was in half a mind whether to invite him this evening—Gareth won’t be best pleased when he finds out—and then I thought, he won’t accept anyway…’
‘He’s coming to the soirée? Eden?’ Jerked out of her brown study, Maude scrambled to her feet and seized the hand mirror off the dressing table. ‘I knew I should have worn the pearls. I look a fright, I—’
‘You look lovely.’ Jessica removed the mirror and took Maude by the shoulders. ‘Maude, I do think there’s some hope for the two of you if Mr Hurst becomes known in respectable society more.’ She frowned as though she was trying to convince herself. ‘If we can play down the theatre and play up his wealth…And it helps that you are now so firmly on the shelf.’ She laughed at the expression on Maude’s face. ‘Only teasing, but it does make a difference that you’ve been out for so long. People might just accept a love match that seems…eccentric. Your papa is being extremely tolerant, you know.’
‘He doesn’t know I have any feelings for Eden, he just thinks I am interesting myself in the theatre,’ Maude said, leaning forward to drop a kiss on her friend’s cheek. ‘Thank you for helping.’
‘Bel will, too, and Eva when she arrives. Eva can make anyone acceptable.’
‘Even an Italian prince’s bastard son?’ Maude asked.
Jessica slipped her arm through her friend’s. ‘Come on, time to go down. I’ll have to think about this. But I warn you, Maude, if I find he has hurt you, I’ll set Gareth on him.’ She paused at the top of the stairs. ‘After I have operated upon Eden Hurst’s manhood with my embroidery scissors.’
Chapter Eight
‘He is not going to come,’ Maude said to Jessica as they met at one end of the long reception room. The party had been in full swing for over an hour, the rooms were full of people, all talking at the top of their voices and drowning out the string quartet that was playing valiantly on a dais halfway down the room.
Young ladies just making their come-out were giggling together or blushing up to their hairlines if addressed by a young man, groups of middle-aged gentlemen stood around discussing politics and sport, the chaperons were exchanging politely barbed compliments on each other’s charges and in one of the side rooms some of the older guests were playing cards.
Gareth, who took the view that there was no point in entertaining if you did not do it properly, had ordered only the best wines to be served and the guests were already anticipating one of the Standons’ famous buffet suppers.
‘Don’t give up on him,’ Jessica urged, ‘It isn’t late yet.’
Maude was already shaking her head. Then instinct sent a shiver down her spine as tangible as the trail of a cold finger running slowly over every vertebra. ‘Eden is here.’ She scanned the room, searching for his arrogant carriage and dark head. ‘There. By the door.’
He was causing a small stir, heads turned. It was not exactly disapproval, Maude realised, more surprise at his presence at such a very respectable soirée. She remembered what the others had told her about his reputation, the fact that he had been seen at some of the more dashing gatherings, the way he attracted not a little attention from the more adventurous ladies. Whether he really fell for their lures she had no idea; people did not mention such things within the hearing of unmarried girls.
Probably, for the man was hardly a saint. Bel was no doubt right. But she was curiously unmoved by the thought of Eden’s past amours. It was his future fidelity she was interested in.
‘Seeing him like this,’ Jessica murmured in her ear, ‘you can understand the rumours about his father. He’s a Renaissance portrait come to life.’ Then she added, her tone puzzled, ‘And yet, there is something about him that is familiar.’
But Maude hardly heard her. She was already moving, drifting nonchalantly down the room on the opposite side to Eden, wafting her fan, smilin
g at acquaintances. She stopped opposite where he was standing, deep in conversation with a group of men she recognised. They were all in their thirties, titled, fashionable, known for their sporting pursuits. And Eden, she realised with interest, was already familiar with them. The way they were together spoke of easy acquaintance. But she had dined at their tables, attended the parties their wives gave, and had never met Eden there.
Yet here he was, obviously comfortable in their company and dressed, just as they were, in the height of elegant male fashion, as he had been the other evening in their box at the theatre. So, he was admitted more comfortably into male society, was he?
‘We must hold another charity ball, Lady Maude.’ Maude focused her attention on Lady Wallace who had appeared at her side, the aigrette of feathers in her coiffure a danger to everyone within three feet of her. ‘Or some other fund-raising event, don’t you think so?’
‘For the soldiers? Yes, indeed. Last year’s ball and the picnic were very profitable, were they not? I was wondering whether we should not try for something a little different this year, but I confess, I have had no ideas yet.’
She had lost Lady Wallace’s attention. ‘My goodness, there’s that Mr Hurst, such a surprise to see him here. So decorative, don’t you think? And such lovely long legs. Not that I should be saying so,’ she chuckled richly, ‘Seeing that he must be young enough to be my son. And of course, there’s no family, so he’s not exactly one of us. To say nothing of that reputation.’
‘Really?’ Maude held her breath, praying that Lady Wallace would not suddenly recall that she was speaking to an unmarried woman. ‘Do tell.’
‘He is notorious for bedding married ladies.’ The aigrette dipped so low that it almost put Maude’s eye out as her companion leaned closer to whisper.
