The Notorious Mr. Hurst

by Louise Allen

  His mother’s eyes widened, and he was seized with sudden doubt. She was a great actress, but could she really counterfeit that flash of pain? Had that scandalous split with her family not been her choice after all? ‘I am fully aware of that. And what a catch! Marry the girl, for Heaven’s sake, Eden. Think about her dowry, her connections!’

  ‘Think about the Earl of Pangbourne’s response when a bastard theatrical manager turns up asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Horsewhips would feature, I imagine.’

  Marguerite shrugged. ‘Then get her with child—he won’t refuse then.’

  If we were so careless, then I suppose I would marry you, she had said. And, A child deserves to be loved by both its parents. He eyed his own parent, that uncharacteristic feeling of sympathy quite gone. ‘Debauch her, in effect, so I can marry her for her money?’

  ‘A sensible strategy.’

  ‘A despicable one!’ he said hotly. The pain of the heavy carving biting into his clenching hands cut through the wave of red anger that her suggestion provoked. ‘Lady Maude is a friend.’

  ‘She’s in love with you,’ his mother said. ‘She’ll be willing.’

  ‘There may be some physical attraction between us,’ Eden conceded through clenched teeth, ‘but she is not in love with me. And,’ he added before she could say anything else, ‘I am not in love with her.’

  May I be forgiven for that lie. Even as he denied it, he recognised the emotion that was possessing him. He loved Maude. How had that crept up on him, overwhelmed him without him realising? When had he fallen in love, so disastrously, so hopelessly? With that first kiss? The second? But she, with her gift for friendship, her passionate defence of the wounded and needy, she was simply encompassing him within the fortunate circle of those she cared for. She was not going to give her heart to someone as unworthy of it as he was. And if she did, then she needed protecting from herself. And from him.

  ‘Sentimental fool,’ his mother observed, getting to her feet in a flurry of silks. ‘I came in today because I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to visit me. Now I can see why I have been neglected. You will want to start rehearsals soon, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes.’ He had been intending to call on her that evening. Not to do so now would be childish and he was not going to add that to the list of failings that seemed to be written in letters of blood on his lids whenever he closed his eyes. And an evening doing a read-through with Madame would most certainly distract his mind from the shattering realisation that he had fallen in love.

  But I don’t believe in love, the old, hard, cynical part of his brain protested. Everything that he thought he was, was false, it seemed. ‘I will bring the script round this evening. May I see you to your carriage, Madame?’

  ‘Thank you, no. You will take supper?’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’ He opened the door for her, then went back to sit behind his desk. After a minute, he put his elbows on the green leather and dropped his head into his hands and tried to think, not to feel, not to hurt. Just to think.

  Maude did not love him, of course not. What was there to love? A cold, hard man—out of her world, out of her class. She desired him, as he did her. That physical spark between them had been unmistakable from the very first touch. She was innocent, but not a child—she was old enough, she would say, to know what she wanted. And she wanted him—as a friend and as a lover. Apparently she saw something in him that would be worthy of her friendship, worthy of her attempts to make him admit that love, in its widest sense, existed.

  Well, she had done that. He believed in love between a man and a woman now, that was for certain. And in that one sentence asserting a child’s right to be loved by its parents, she had, somehow, convinced him about maternal love too. He could imagine Maude with a child in her arms. His child. He could almost feel the love flowing from her. She had shown him how she loved her friends and what misery it plunged her into when they were at odds.

  She was every dream he had suppressed for years and the best thing he could do for her, the only way to show her his love, was to deny it and, by denying it, protect her. Honour demanded it, pride dictated it.

  Eden allowed himself to imagine calling on the Earl of Pangbourne, telling him he loved his daughter, setting out for him what he could offer her in life. The loss of her status, the loss of her friends, the loss of the brilliant marriage she would one day make. His love, the emotion he had only just discovered, was made null and void by his theatre and the stigma of trade, his bloodlines. It was not going to happen and he was going to have to learn to live with it.

  Maude found more than enough to busy herself with over the next seven days. She should have had no time to think about Eden or those moments of bliss in his arms or the sobering reality of his reaction to Madame’s assumption of their betrothal.

  There were balls and parties and soirées to go to, morning calls to make, clothes to buy, invitations to write for the Musicale and there was committee business for the charity.

  All in all, she should not have had room in her brain to think of anything else and she should have dropped exhausted into her bed every night. Instead, Maude found herself falling into a daydream about Eden’s mouth with half an address written, or worrying about the ownership of the Unicorn in the middle of thinking about a new ballgown or tossing and turning long into the small hours, her body aching for the touch of his hands.

  They exchanged notes almost every day, innocuous, practical letters about food and musicians, doormen and footmen, lighting and menus that she would not have blushed to have shown to anyone. Even so, all Eden’s notes to her ended up tied with red ribbon, at the bottom of a hat box.

  By the morning of the special committee meeting to discuss the Musicale, Maude was feeling almost light-headed with lack of sleep and distraction. When she was shown into Bel’s boudoir an hour before the meeting she sank down in her usual chair with a sigh of relief, only to be jolted upright by Bel. ‘Maude! What on earth is the matter with you?’

  ‘I’m tired, that is all.’ She sank back and closed her eyes.

  ‘You are white as a sheet and I could swear you have lost weight. I thought so at the Petries’ party the day before yesterday, but the light was so bad I thought I must be mistaken.’ Maude heard Bel move to sit next to her, then her hand was lifted and enfolded. ‘It isn’t just weariness, is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing—and everything.’ Maude opened her eyes and sat up, managing a smile. ‘I am busy, but that isn’t it. I haven’t seen Eden for a week and when we parted it was…difficult. We were celebrating because he thinks he has the chance to buy the Unicorn and Madame Marguerite came in and thought we were happy because we were betrothed. He changed, Bel. I have never seen a man change so rapidly. One moment he was laughing and warm and happy to be with me and the next—cold and distant. He was obviously appalled by her mistake. I said I wouldn’t be at the theatre for some time, that I had a lot to do, and he accepted that so easily. And yet, only the night before we…he…Oh, damn! I am not going to cry.’

  ‘You were lovers?’ Bel asked, her grip on Maude’s hand tightening. So, Jessica had not betrayed Maude’s confidence.

  ‘No, not fully. No doubt he regrets even that now.’

  ‘Will he be here this afternoon?’

  ‘He said he would be.’ Maude blew her nose briskly. ‘Do I look as awful as I feel?’

  ‘Not your best,’ Bel admitted. ‘Shall we do so something about it?’

  ‘No.’ Maude shook her head. ‘I don’t want to be powdered and pinched. I will smile a lot, no one will notice.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Bel began, then looked up as the boudoir door opened to admit Jessica, another young woman at her heels.

  Maude stared at her. There was something very familiar about the red-haired, elegant stranger. Then she smiled. ‘Elinor!’ Both Bel and Maude hugged and kissed and exclaimed over the latest Ravenhurst bride.

  ‘You look radiant
!’ Maude pulled Elinor, whom she had last seen looking the epitome of a drab bluestocking spinster, down on the sofa beside her. ‘I wasn’t expecting you yet—where is Theo?’

  ‘Talking to Ashe and Gareth downstairs. We only landed two days ago.’

  Elinor had married her cousin Theo Ravenhurst in France the previous year and they had embarked on a prolonged Continental honeymoon combined with a buying trip for Theo’s art and antiquities business.

  Someone else who managed to be in trade and remain respectable, Maude thought with an inward sigh.

  ‘Tell me all the gossip,’ Elinor demanded, waving aside Bel and Jessica’s questions about the exact state of Paris hemlines and where she had bought her bonnet. ‘Talk to Theo about fashions—he makes me buy clothes; he threatened to burn all my old ones.’

  At least, with the three others engrossed in their conversation, Maude was able to avoid any more comments about her wan complexion. She slipped out of the room while they were still talking and went downstairs to curl up on a window seat, shielded by the curtains, where she knew she could watch the comings and goings in the dining room unobserved. For some reason she felt shy about seeing Eden again; when the room was full she could emerge and mingle at a safe distance.

  As she thought it, he came in carrying a portfolio and a roll of paper, Lady Wallace at his side. His willingness to throw the resources of the Unicorn into supporting the charity seemed to have overcome her suspicions of him.

  Maude watched him, indulging in the luxury of just being able to stare unseen. He unrolled what she guessed, from the questions Lady Wallace was asking him, was a plan of the stalls and stage. Their voices just reached Maude from her hiding place at the far end of the long room, Eden’s low, rich, sending shivers down her spine, the older woman’s bright and chatty.

  He anchored the corners of the plan with piles of paper, then looked up, his head cocked to one side, as though straining to hear a distant voice. When Lady Wallace stepped out for a moment, Eden turned slowly on his heel, his eyes scanning the room, then he walked straight towards her. He could not see her, surely? Maude held her breath, dropping the edge of the curtain she had been peeping through and feeling quite ridiculously flustered.

  ‘Hello.’ Eden stood in front of her, his mouth quirking at the sight she presented, curled up like the parlour cat on the window seat. ‘Move up?’

  Obediently, Maude swung down her feet and sat up to give him room to join her, so close she could feel his body heat and inhale the achingly familiar scent of him. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I seem to be able to sense your presence when you are in a room,’ he said. ‘Maude, are you all right? You are very pale.’

  ‘I’m a little tired,’ she confessed, catching at an excuse for her behaviour. ‘Elinor Ravenhurst and her husband Theo have returned from France, so I came down for some peace and quiet before the meeting.’

  ‘And now I have disturbed you,’ he said, running the ball of his thumb gently along her cheekbone. ‘You’ve lost weight, Maude.’

  ‘Some, I think,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve been overdoing it, I expect.’ He cupped her face in both hands, looking at her with dark, fathomless eyes. ‘You…you haven’t disturbed me, Eden.’

  ‘Have I not?’ As though drawn by something he saw in her face, he leaned forward and touched his mouth softly to hers. ‘I am sure your friends would say that was a good thing. I am quite certain I should agree.’

  ‘I meant,’ Maude managed to murmur against his lips, ‘that you do disturb me, but I do not mind.’

  The lavish folds of green velvet hid them from the room. Outside, the garden was deserted. They could stay here, in their private hiding place, for hours, barely touching, speaking with their eyes—and perhaps she could learn what his were saying.

  ‘Where is Maude?’ It was Jessica, answered by Bel.

  ‘I haven’t see her since we were upstairs.’

  ‘I have lost Mr Hurst, too,’ Lady Wallace added. ‘He was here just a moment ago.’

  ‘Leave this to me,’ Eden said quietly, emerging from the curtains. ‘We are here. Lady Maude was feeling a trifle faint—the cool of the window seat has revived her, I am glad to say.’

  He offered her his hand and she stood, feeling quite shaky enough to give credence to Eden’s assertion that she was unwell. ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting,’ she apologised, taking a empty chair next to Mr Makepeace. Her friends, thank Heaven, appeared to have decided that it was best not to draw attention to her any further and the meeting began.

  As the discussion unfolded, Maude began to feel better, although whether it was the praise heaped upon Eden and herself for their work so far, or the gentleness of his caresses that seemed to linger on her skin, she did not know.

  ‘We have had over a hundred acceptances already,’ she said, when it was her turn to speak. ‘And at least a dozen offers to perform. I do think that members of the committee should each present a piece.’ She said it, part seriously, part in jest, but to her surprise everyone nodded their agreement except Eden.

  ‘I will be directing,’ he said firmly. ‘I never perform.’ And nothing could shift him from that position. Watching him from beneath her lashes, Maude had the distinct impression that the thought of performing made him nervous. Which was rather endearing, considering how confident he appeared on stage and how forcible his presence could be.

  It seemed that very little now remained to be done. Those things she had thought of and had made a note of to raise in the hope that others in the group would take on, had all been swept up already by Eden and organised with ruthless efficiency. He and Ashe had their team of carpenters, augmented by some of the handier of the soldiers, drilled with military precision to strip down and rebuild the stalls in hours, the theatre orchestra were practising interval music and the pianist was well prepared and confident of accompanying whatever the amateurs might decide to sing.

  It seemed that all Maude’s excuses to keep her mind busy had gone. Which meant, she realised, that she was going to have to think about what had just happened with Eden and decide what to do next. She was frightened, she realised, as the meeting broke up and transformed into a tea party. Frightened that she would somehow misread Eden’s intentions and feelings, might scare him away by revealing her true feelings for him to soon. Or leave it too late.

  ‘Come to the Unicorn tomorrow, Maude,’ Eden said to her as they stood to one side, sipping tea. ‘I have missed you.’

  ‘And I, you.’ She did not look up at him, content to feel him so close beside her, unwilling to confuse herself further by trying to read his expression.

  ‘And we need to talk, I think,’ he added, as much, it seemed, to himself as to her.

  Yes. Maude drew in a deep breath, down to her toes. Time for the truth. Courage, Maude. ‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ she promised.

  ‘Maude, I would like to speak with you in my study, if you have finished your breakfast.’ Lord Pangbourne folded his newspaper and fixed her with such a beady eye that her overactive conscience produced an uncomfortable twinge. Could Papa, in some way, guess what she was intending to do today?

  ‘Yes, Papa, of course.’ Another white night had produced the resolution that she was going to tell Eden she loved him and see what his reaction was. Not enthusiastic, she feared. He would see the barriers to their happiness even more clearly than she could—and that was assuming he wanted to marry her anyway and it wasn’t all just desire mixed with friendship.

  She still had not decided what words she would use. How did you propose, in cold blood, to a man?

  Still pondering, she followed her father out of the breakfast room and into his study. She loved that room, dark and full of books and smelling of bay rum, brandy and leather.

  ‘Sit down, my dear.’ He took his seat behind the desk and unlocked a drawer. ‘You recall me telling you that an old friend had died?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maude nodded, wondering what this was about.

&nb
sp; ‘And I also told you that this lady, Sarah Millington, almost became your godmother?’ Maude nodded. ‘Well, my dear. It seems she has left you a legacy and one that I think will startle you as much as it has me.’ Lord Pangbourne lifted a packet from the drawer and unfolded a sheet from the top. ‘Here. Read for yourself.’

  It was an extract from a will, copied in a heavy black hand. Maude tilted the page to catch the light from the window and read.

  To Maude Augusta Edith Templeton, only child of my beloved friend Marietta Templeton, Countess of Pangbourne, née Masters, I leave the freehold and all the curtilage, appurtenances and rents of the property known as the Unicorn Theatre, Long Acre, London…

  Maude read it again, half-convinced she was seeing things. But, no—she was the owner of the Unicorn Theatre. Eden’s theatre. Her hands shook as she refolded the paper, trying to imagine what this was going to mean.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘But how on earth did she come to own the Unicorn?’ Maude asked, emerging from her muddled thoughts.

  ‘Sarah Millington, as a young woman, left her respectable home to go on the stage. A scandalous thing, of course, but I suspect there was some sad story behind it—a seduction, perhaps.’ Lord Pangbourne settled into his chair, his expression unfocused as though he was looking back down the years. ‘Your mother, before I was courting her, was stage-struck. She wanted to act and of course, that was quite impossible. But she found ways to meet actors and actresses, Sarah amongst them.

  ‘Sarah became a great friend, but she never forgave herself that she introduced Marietta to a certain young actor and that they fell in love. Naturally, it was quite hopeless. They tried to elope, were caught at Hatfield, and to prevent a scandal her father sent her away to his aunt in Wales. The young man was killed the following year in an accident with falling scenery and Marietta was allowed back to London, where we met. I courted her and she agreed to marry me.’