The Notorious Mr Hurst

Chapter Two

‘Lady Maude, your ladyship.’ Jordan, the Standon’s butler, managed not to appear shocked by her unannounced arrival on the doorstep at almost midnight without so much as a valise about her person.

‘Maude darling, I thought you said you couldn’t come tonight.’ Jessica put down her book, removed her stockinged feet from the fender and regarded her with mild surprise.

‘I was trying not to tell an untruth to anyone,’ Maude explained. ‘Thank you, Jordan, a cup of tea would be perfect. And one of the special ginger biscuits if Cook has made any,’ she added hopefully.

‘You intrigue me vastly.’ Jessica curled up in her chair and waved Maude towards the one opposite. ‘You have been exploring at the Unicorn, I surmise?’

‘How did you guess?’ Maude kicked off her slippers and tucked herself up in the depths of the chair.

‘Where else would you have slipped off to? Reveal all,’ she commanded, reminding Maude that her friend had once been a governess.

‘I told Papa that you had invited me and let him think I was coming back here with you directly after the performance. And I told you he was expecting me to go home with him, without actually saying that I did not intend to.’

‘There is a word for that sort of thing. Devious.’

‘I prefer to think of it as considerate. No one was worried.’

‘Go on—’ Jessica broke off as Jordan entered with a tray loaded with tea things, bread and butter, some tiny cakes and the famous ginger biscuits. ‘Thank you, Jordan, that will be all for tonight. His lordship will let himself in.’

Maude waited patiently while Jessica poured two cups of tea and then pounced on a biscuit. ‘I’m famished. Well, my intention was to visit Madame Marguerite in her dressing room and congratulate her upon her performance and while I was at it, just happen to encounter Mr Hurst and make an appointment to discuss a business matter.’

‘And?’ Jessica nibbled a triangle of bread and butter.

‘I, er…encountered Mr Hurst first.’

‘And he threw you out? You do look somewhat flustered.’

‘He kissed me. Ruthlessly, indecently. Without mercy. Until I almost lost the use of my legs. The man is a complete rake.’

‘Oh, my dear! How frightful, you must be devastated—’ Her face full of concern, Jessica put down her cup and began to scramble to her feet.

‘It was wonderful,’ Maude finished. It was beginning to feel unreal, like an incredible dream. Only, her mouth still felt swollen and all those alarmingly wonderful sensations kept rippling through her whenever she thought about Eden’s body pressed intimately to hers.

Jessica sat down again with a thump. ‘Is that all he did?’ she demanded. ‘Kiss you?’

‘Yes, although I don’t think all is quite the word. But he thought I was someone else. He was extremely courteous afterwards and sent me home in a hackney. He followed in another one to see I arrived safely,’ she added in an effort to reassure.

That a number of questions were fighting for priority in Jessica’s head was obvious from her expression. ‘Who did he think you were?’ she asked eventually.

‘One of the Misses Corwin, apparently. I’ve never heard of them, but their father is a merchant and he is about to invest in the Unicorn. The daughters are determined that one of them is going to marry Mr Hurst. Two of them arrived moments after he let me go, apparently hell-bent on getting the elder one compromised. I was able to foil that and escort them home, adding a warning about their behaviour while I was about it.’

‘The pot calling the kettle black?’ Jessica enquired.

‘Not at all.’ Maude frowned. She had been worrying about that as she drove back. ‘I have no intention of entrapping Eden Hurst,’ she reassured Jessica, and herself into the bargain. ‘Only of giving him every opportunity to fall in love with me.’

‘How can he resist?’ teased Jessica, relaxing somewhat.

‘Well, your darling Gareth could, very easily,’ Maude pointed out.

‘It was mutual, was it not? And I won’t lecture you, I promise. How can I, given what I got up to disentangling you and Gareth?’

‘You made a perfectly captivating loose woman,’ Maude said, deciding she could, after all her adventures, manage a third ginger biscuit. ‘Whereas I have no intention of doing anything more forward than making sure I am very much in Mr Hurst’s life from now on. Sooner or later he will come to realise he cannot exist without me.’

‘It did not strike him like a thunderbolt at your first encounter,’ Jessica pointed out. ‘I might have been heavily veiled at the time, but I could see quite clearly and I have never observed a less struck man in my life. I described him to Gareth as an icicle, but an iceberg would have been more accurate. And he appears to have survived kissing you without falling at your feet either,’ she added cruelly.

‘He is probably racked with desire, the more he thinks about it,’ Maude asserted. ‘Another cup of tea?’

They drank in silence, the plate of biscuits mysteriously diminishing until Jessica said, ‘You are sure, aren’t you, that it isn’t just his looks? I know I described him as an icicle, but he is also the most exotically beautiful man I have ever seen. It would not be at all surprising if you fell for that.’

‘You mean, am I being extremely superficial?’ Unoffended by the question, Maude brushed crumbs off her skirt and got up to place some more coals on the fire. ‘You forget, I have grown up surrounded by men of character. Dearest Papa, Gareth, to name but two. I could not possibly love or marry a man without intelligence, drive, fine qualities. Yes, I was attracted to Eden Hurst because of his looks. But it was also his presence, his strength.

‘And then the more I found out about him, the more I admired him. He has revived the Unicorn’s fortunes in mere months in the face of the Patent theatres’ opposition, created a vehicle in England for Madame Marguerite when she was known only by reputation. And everyone says he managed one of the most successful theatre companies on the Continent—and that cannot have been easy under the circumstances of the past years.’

‘How old is he?’ Jessica asked. ‘Thirty, at least, I would have thought.’

‘I do not know.’ Maude frowned into the hot centre of the fire. ‘I can’t find out anything like that about him, who his parents are, where he was born, when.’ She was not going to mention the rumour about his father. Time enough to cross that bridge when she had to.

‘You don’t think he and Madame are, er, involved…?’ Jessica asked tentatively.

‘Surely not?’ Maude stared back, aghast. That had never occurred to her. ‘She’s years older than he is, surely?’

‘Well, I have no doubt she’s a creature of unrestrained passions, if her acting is anything to go by, and he is a very handsome man. Tell me…’ Jessica leaned forward ‘…what was it like?’

Maude felt herself colouring up. ‘Amazing,’ she said finally. ‘I have been kissed before, but this was quite unlike anything else. Is it supposed to make you feel odd all over?’

‘The odder the better,’ her friend said with a grin, uncurling from the depths of the chair. ‘Time for bed, although I doubt you are going to get a wink of sleep after that.’

‘Don’t you think so?’ Maude took the proffered candle. ‘I was rather hoping I was going to dream.’

Eden waved the tired dresser out of the door and closed it behind him. ‘I have called your carriage, Madame.’

‘Call me Marguerite, darling. How many times do I have to ask you?’ The actress fluffed at her hair petulantly.

‘It does not feel right. Here, let me help you with your cloak.’ He settled it around her shoulders as she stood, enveloping them both in a cloud of Attar of Roses, drowning the faint remembered fragrance of gardenias in his nostrils.

‘Foolish boy.’ She twisted round, her head on one side, and smiled. Always the coquette, always practising her charms. ‘Are they all gone?’

She meant the swarm of admirers who had infested the Green Room and queued, petulant if they were not given instant admission, at the stage door. ‘All gone. I got rid of them at last.’

‘They adore me.’ It was a statement, but underneath he heard the need for reassurance. Always the need for reassurance.

‘They worship you,’ Eden agreed with a smile, his watchful dark eyes cataloguing the faint betraying lines beside her eyes, the slackening of the skin over the exquisite jaw line, the harshness of the dark hair tint. He knew he must begin to edge her towards the more mature roles. And how was that to be achieved without her throwing a tantrum to rival Mount Etna? He had witnessed the eruption in 1810, and the fiery image came to mind with increasing frequency whenever Madame was thwarted.

There had been a time, when she had first taken him from the palazzo, before he had learned to harness his emotions and not to entertain foolish fantasies about love, when he had hated her. Now, he thought he understood her, had come to accept her total lack of empathy for anyone else and to admire her talent, her sheer determination. But when he was tired it was still an act of conscious will to humour her.

‘You must be exhausted after that performance,’ he suggested, edging her towards the door. ‘So much emotion.’

She lifted a daintily manicured hand and patted his cheek. ‘Darling, you are cold.’

‘I have been out, a small matter of business to take care of.’ And if Lady Maude had not been there he would still have been dealing with it. The consequences of Corwin discovering that two of his daughters had been found, unchaperoned, in his office late at night would be the most almighty row and the loss of his most promising investor.

Eden smiled grimly, then caught sight of his saturnine expression in the big glass. Why the devil would a woman want to marry him in any case? Used to scrutinising the faces of actors at close quarters, all he could read in his own features was cold, hard ruthlessness wedded to the theatrical tricks of a mountebank—the earring, the hair. His profession and his birth made him ineligible to all but the merchant classes and below, and his character was surely something a woman would take on only in return for his money.

Which brought him back neatly to Corwin. ‘What are you scowling about, darling?’ Marguerite allowed herself to be guided out and towards the Green Room. The square chamber with its green velvet curtains, Turkey rug and motley collection of chairs, sofas and side tables was both the common room for the company and the reception salon after a performance.

Now, in the wake of Marguerite’s admirers’ departure, the room resembled the aftermath of a drunken party. Bottles were upended into ice buckets, flowers were strewn everywhere, empty glasses stood around and most of the company were sitting or reclining in various combinations of stage costume, street clothes and undress.

They struggled to their feet, or, in the case of George Peterson, the heavy who was already well in his cups, vaguely upright, as their leading lady swept through. ‘Good night, darlings,’ she trilled, blowing a kiss to the three walking gentlemen, the bit-part players, who swept her bows as she went.

Eden noted in passing that Miss Harriet Golding, the ingénue, was sitting almost on the lap of Will Merrick, the juvenile lead. That could spell trouble—Merrick was living with Miss Susan Poole, the lively soubrette who had apparently already left. He could well do without a love triangle in the middle of the cast, especially with a visiting leading lady next week. Madame would sail blithely through any amount of emotional turmoil provided it was not her own emotions at stake. Mrs Furlow could well find it most disagreeable. He dug out the notebook and added Merrick/Golding/Poole below the note on oil lamps. If this was serious, then Miss Golding would have to go; ingénues were two a penny.

‘I am utterly drained,’ Marguerite announced, draping herself across the gold plush of her carriage seats. ‘Drained. I have given my all for a month.’

‘Well, you have two weeks when you need only rest and get up your lines for the next part, then rehearsals,’ Eden soothed, the words forming themselves without any conscious work on his part. Then some demon prompted him to add, ‘And I have an idea for the piece after that.’

‘And what is that to be?’ she demanded.

Eden knew he had been hedging round breaking this to her, seeking the right moment. Oh well, now, with no audience of dresser and sycophants to fan her tantrums, might be as good a time as any. ‘Lady Macbeth.’

‘Lady Macbeth? Lady Macbeth?’ Her voice rose alarmingly. ‘That Scottish hag? A mad woman? A tragedy? Are you insane?’ She subsided. Eden braced himself; she was not finished yet. ‘In any case, we cannot perform it. The Patent theatres have the monopoly on legitimate drama.’ Her voice dripped scorn.

‘Not if we introduce music, have a ballet in the background in some of the scenes. I have been working on it and we can scrape past the licence issues.’

‘Why should we want to?’ she demanded. Even in the dim light he could see the alarming rise and fall of her bosom.

‘You do not want to do it?’ Eden injected amazement into his voice. ‘One of the great Shakespearian roles? The woman who is so seductive, so powerful that she can drive a great king to murder? Imagine the dagger scene. Every man in the theatre would take the knife from your hands and do the act if you commanded it. The sleepwalking scene—you, magnificent yet so feminine in your night rail…’ He fell silent. She was already rapt, eyes closed, lost in her imagination.

Eden offered up silent thanks to whichever minor deity looked after theatre managers and sat back against the soft squabs. Finally, he could contemplate those hectic few moments in the corridor with Maude Templeton in his arms.

Thinking about it had the inevitable physical effect. He crossed his legs and tried to pin down the nagging feeling he had seen her somewhere before. It would not come and concentrating was virtually impossible while the memory of the feel and the scent and the yielding of her filled his brain and agitated his body.

What business had she with him? he wondered. She was quick witted as well as beautiful, with a sense of humour that matched his own, he rather suspected, recalling her stated reasons for allowing him to kiss her. He did not believe for a moment that she had been subdued by his superior strength. Which left the flattering probability that she had enjoyed the experience.

And the not very flattering recollection that a second later she had been all business. Not that there was any legitimate business an unmarried lady, with the emphasis on lady, could possibly be transacting with him, which was puzzling. Eden found himself intrigued, aroused and curious, a combination of emotions that he could not recall experiencing before.

He indulged himself with the memory of her slender waist, spanned by his hands, of the slither of silk under his palms, the erotic hint of tight corseting as his thumbs had brushed the underside of her breast…

‘I need a new carriage.’

Back to reality. ‘This one is only eighteen months old, Madame. I bought it in Paris, you recall. I cannot afford a new one.’

‘Why not? You are a rich man, Eden.’

‘Yes. And very little of that is liquid just now. I invested heavily in the gas lights, as you know, to say nothing of all the rest of the renovations, the costumes, the props. Then the foreign tour while the work was being done was not all profit.’ And just maintaining Madame Marguerite in gowns and millinery was a serious drain. His investments stayed where they were until the time was ripe for each to be liquidated. The bedrock of his hard-won fortune was not to be frittered to sate Madame’s urge for novelty.

‘Oh, fiddle! Cash some gilts or whatever those things are called. Or sell out of those tiresome Funds or something.’ He could hear the pout in her voice. ‘My public image is important, darling. I need to cut a dash.’

‘You would do that from the back of a coal-heaver’s cart,’ he said drily. ‘I am not touching the investments until I can get the owner of the Unicorn to talk to me about selling it. I need to invest in the place, but I am not spending any more now until it is mine.’

‘Darling, I thought you were getting money from that vulgar little cit.’

‘Corwin? Yes, I hope to. I just have to be sure I can keep him from interfering in the running as part of the deal.’ Never mind the detail that Corwin would insist on making Eden his son-in-law.

‘You are so stuffy, Eden.’ She subsided into a sulk, leaving him once more free to contemplate Lady Maude and the inconvenient fact that, if he was going to have any hope of sleep tonight, a visit to Mrs Cornwallis’s hospitable establishment was probably the simplest way of achieving it. Surely all he needed was the scent of another woman’s skin, the heat of another smiling mouth under his, the skills of a professional, to rout the memory of innocently sensual beauty.

‘Are you coming in?’ They were already at the Henrietta Street house, pretty as a jewel box with the white porcelain flowers filling the window boxes and the shiny green front door flanked by clipped evergreens.

‘No, Madame.’ Despite the footman, he helped her down himself, up the steps to the front door, dropping a dutiful salute on her cheek. ‘Sleep well.’

‘Blackstone Mews,’ he said to the coachman, climbing back in. Mrs Cornwallis would have some new girls by now. It was six weeks since he had last called.

Two hours later Eden lay back on the purple silk covers, his eyes closed. If he kept them closed, the girl probably wouldn’t talk until he was ready to get up and go. He had already forgotten her name.

A fingertip trailed down his chest, circled his navel, drifted hopefully lower. His imagination made it Lady Maude’s finger, with predictable results.

‘Ooh!’ she said with admiration that was not all professional. ‘Why not stay all night?’

‘I never sleep here.’ Her voice chased away the image in his mind. Eyes open, Eden rolled off the bed and reached for his breeches.

‘Oh.’ Another woman who could manage an audible pout. ‘But you’ll ask for me next time?’

‘No. I never ask for the same girl twice.’ No entanglements, no expectations. No messy emotions on her part. Certainly no night spent with her in his arms, waking up off guard and vulnerable.