by Louise Allen
‘Mr Hurst, might I have a word with you? In your office?’
Ah, so here came the recriminations for last night. Knowing perfectly well he had no grounds on which to defend himself, Eden followed Maude’s straight back down the corridor. He did not want her to leave, he realised. If he had driven her away, it was going to leave something perilously like a gap in his life. Which was ridiculous. It implied a weakness, an unfulfilled need, and he had neither of those things.
‘Maude.’ He waited until she was seated, then went round to take his own chair. It felt as though he was taking refuge behind a barrier.
‘I was thinking about the charity event I have volunteered to organise for the committee,’ she said, extracting even more notes from the bundle of sheets in her hands. ‘Eden?’
‘I’m sorry, a moment’s inattention.’ A charity event? Not tearful distress, not angry recriminations?
‘We’ve had a ball, and a garden party, but I wanted to do something different this year. And I thought we could hold it here, in the theatre.’
‘A charity performance, you mean?’ Eden pulled himself together and reached for a pen and paper.
‘Not exactly. I wanted to rearrange the stalls and the galleries, set tables out for dining and the acts would all be amateur ones, from members of the audience. I would encourage people to dress up as their favourite characters as well. We’d need a string band and a pianist to accompany those people who wanted to sing and to provide interval music, of course…’
‘How many guests?’ Eden asked, suppressing his instinctive refusal. Turn his theatre into a cross between country-house theatricals, Astley’s Amphitheatre and a vast dinner party?
‘Two hundred invitations?’ Maude ventured. ‘We must make it exclusive.’
‘Rip out the stalls?’ He was losing this before he’d even begun to object, he knew it. But somehow she was mesmer-ising him and all he wanted to do was please her.
‘Take them out, carefully. We’ve got some carpenters amongst the men, they’ll help your team. The theatre won’t need to be closed to the public for more than one night.’
He ought to say no. That was the sensible, prudent thing. He did not support charities, yet somehow she had inveigled him on to her damn committee. He did nothing to compromise the commercial success of the Unicorn and here he was, contemplating an exercise that would cost him goodness knows what. He had a reputation as a hard man and yet he was yielding to a woman who did not even try to wheedle concessions out of him. This was dangerous insanity and he was going to refuse.
‘Yes, all right. When?’
Maude jumped to her feet and for one, breathless moment, he thought she was going to come round the desk and kiss him. ‘Oh, thank you!’ She sat right back in her chair again, Eden told himself he was a fool, and Maude drew out her memorandum book. ‘Is three weeks too soon?’
Eden studied his own diary. It would give them a break in the run of Her Precious Honour, but that was no bad thing—it would give the cast a rest. ‘No, that is fine. But can you do it in time?’
‘Making things happen is my forte,’ Maude said with a smile that became, he thought, a touch wry. ‘I nearly always achieve what I set out to do.’
‘Only nearly?’
‘I—’ She broke off and the sadness he had seen in her face that morning came back, touching her beauty with a haunting shadow.
‘Maude.’ Eden reached out a hand, not knowing why and she put out hers to meet it. Their fingers clasped across the stacks of paper on his desk, curled into each other, held. ‘Maude, I—’
‘Darling!’ The door banged back on its hinges and in she swept, Madame Marguerite, scarves flying, gems glittering, her timing, as always, perfect. ‘Eden, you absolutely must—oh. And who is this?’ She produced one of her carefully graded smiles, this one for lovely young women who might be a threat, but on the other hand, might simply be admirers.
‘Lady Maude, may I introduce Madame Marguerite? Madame, this is Lady Maude Templeton. I told you she is investing in the Unicorn.’
‘Lady Maude, I’m so pleased to meet you.’ One of her less haughty greetings, thank goodness. Apparently she was moved to be pleased. Eden helped her to a chair and resumed his.
‘Lady Maude has asked me to join the committee of her charity, if you recall, Madame.’
‘But of course. So worthy—you must add my name to the donations list,’ she said airily.
‘Thank you so much, Madame.’ Maude whipped out a notebook and pencil. ‘For how much?’
To Eden’s vast amusement she sat there, pencil poised, smiling at Madame, who, he knew full well, had intended to forget all about it the moment she was out of the door. He was sorely tempted to sit there and see what happened, but for the sake of peace and quiet suggested, ‘Twenty guineas? I’ll arrange it, Madame.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ She smiled at him, her famous blue eyes wide and glorious. ‘I can always rely on darling Eden,’ she added as an aside to Maude.
‘I am sure you can, ma’am. May I say how very much both my father, the Earl of Pangbourne, and I, admire your performances?’
‘I am charmed to hear it. I must, however, be on my way. Eden—’
He got up to open the door. ‘You came in to say there was something I must do?’
‘Oh? Did I?’ she said vaguely. ‘Never mind, darling, I am sure I’ll remember.’ She swept out on a cloud of Attar of Roses and a rustling of silk.
Eden went back to his place behind the desk. ‘That,’ he said superfluously, ‘was Madame Marguerite.’
‘I was very pleased to meet her,’ Maude said. ‘She’s your mother, isn’t she?’
Chapter Thirteen
‘My mother?’ There did not seem to be any point in lying about it. It was not as though he was ashamed of it, exactly, more that he found it much easier not to think of Marguerite as his mother. There were no expectations then. ‘Yes.’
‘It is not widely known?’ Maude did not appear shocked. But then, she was a lady, and ladies were bred to disguise their feelings.
‘Not known at all. How did you guess?’
‘I can glimpse a resemblance. Not in colouring, of course. Your presence, perhaps. And yet you both remind me of someone else—I do wish I could think who.’
‘She prefers it not to be known,’ Eden said, his voice as neutral as he could make it. ‘I am somewhat old to be comfortably acknowledged as her son. People would do the arithmetic, you see.’
‘But in private—’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Outside the theatre we lead separate lives.’
‘Oh. I am so sorry.’ That was the second time she had expressed pity for him, and pity was not something his pride would accept from anyone, even if, for some reason, he wanted to pour the whole story of his childhood out to Maude and have her, in some way he could not imagine, make it better.
Eden shrugged. ‘She is exhausting enough as it is.’
‘Yes, but—’ She must have seen something in his face, for she broke off, hesitated, then asked, ‘Your father—she married him in Italy?’
‘La Belle Marguerite,’ he said, inserting the shield of irony into his tone, ‘has never found any man worthy of marriage.’
Maude frowned, as though she was untangling a puzzle, not, oddly, as if she found herself disgusted to be having this conversation with a bastard. ‘So your father—’ She tried again. ‘You said he would not speak to you, but did he not even—?’
‘He refused to acknowledge me.’ She might as well have the lot, see just who her business partner was. Or, more to the point, was not.
‘Bastard,’ Maude commented. ‘Him, I mean. Is it true he is a prince?’
‘So you had heard the rumours? He was. He died last year. When I was fourteen, Madame decided I might be of some use to her. She descended on the palazzo, swept me up against very little opposition—as you may imagine, his wife was happy to see the back of me, even if I was relegated to the stables along with t
he rest of his by-blows—and set me to learn about the theatre.’
‘She had just left you with him?’ Maude looked more appalled at that than anything else.
‘She was sure I would be much better looked after there rather than being dragged around Europe in the wake of her career. And I learned fluent Italian—so useful.’
‘And a baby and then a small child would be such an inconvenience with her career and her lovers, I suppose,’ Maude said savagely, startling him. ‘How she could!’ She sat in silence for a moment, staring down at her tightly locked hands. ‘I beg your pardon, I should not speak so about your mother.’
‘Don’t apologise. I do not love her, she does not love me. I am her business manager, she is my leading actress. It is business. I understand her very well; she, I think, understands me not at all.’ Maude simply stared at him, her face appalled. ‘What?’ he flung at her. ‘Are you shocked? Do you think I should have loved her, so that she had the power to break my heart?’
‘Of course she broke your heart,’ Maude said fiercely. ‘Of course she did. Do not tell me you do not believe in love, just because it hurts too much. It hurts because it is important. It hurts because it is all there is. Don’t pretend to me you are not capable of love.’
Eden stared at her, furious, confused, disorientated by her attack. He had told her the sordid truth about his birth and somehow he was at fault for dealing with it well? Then he saw her eyes, the sparkle of unshed tears, and something inside, something cold and hard that he had thought impregnable, cracked. What did she want from him? What was hurting inside him? Something trying to get out, or the pain of emptiness? Her heart seemed big enough to grieve for him—didn’t she realise that he had built a wall around his? That he had nothing to give her? Only more pain, he thought as he went to her.
‘Maude. Maude, don’t cry.’ He crouched down beside her chair and put his arm around her shoulders. Hell, she was so determined, so positive, she seemed sturdier than she was. Under the weight of his arm her shoulders were fragile. ‘Don’t cry. I won’t know what to do if you cry.’
Tantrums, scenes, furious tears, manipulative tears, crocodile tears. He knew what to do with those, he had enough practice. But these unshed tears, tears she was fighting not to let spill, these almost unmanned him.
‘You…you could give me a handkerchief,’ she suggested shakily. He pulled a large one from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Thank you.’ She blew her nose like a boy and scrubbed at her eyes. No, these tears weren’t for show, weren’t to manipulate. Her nose had gone pink and her eyes were bleary and she was not sparing a thought for how she looked. ‘Sorry. I don’t cry, you know.’
‘No, of course not.’ He did not know whether to get up and leave her to compose herself or not. He wanted to stay, he ought to go. Eden remained where he was on his knees beside the chair.
‘It upset me,’ she explained, looking at him directly at last. ‘I hate it when people are cruel to anyone who is helpless—children, animals, our soldiers when they were too sick to fend for themselves.’
‘I’m not helpless,’ he said.
‘Not now. Our soldiers have scars, limbs missing, eyes gone. We can see their scars, do something with them. Where are yours, Eden?’
‘I am not one of your charity cases,’ he said, not answering her, rocking back on his heels because otherwise he would kiss those tear-filled eyes, stop her looking at him like that.
‘No.’ Maude nodded. ‘No, you are not. You have done all this, all by yourself. You do not need charity. But don’t tell me not to pity the child that you were, or feel anger for him, because I do. And don’t tell me not to try to convince you about love, because I will not stop trying.’
‘Are you going to get out your Bible and preach to me, then?’ he asked bitterly. The priest at the palazzo had done that often enough.
‘No.’ Maude folded up the handkerchief and regarded him solemnly. ‘It is up to you what you do with your love, and you can put some of it into religion if you want to. I simply intend to convince you it exists.’
‘Why?’ Eden got to his feet and stood looking down at her. This was dangerous, this could tear him apart.
‘Because you are right in front of me, and we are friends and partners, so it behoves me to do something about you,’ she said firmly, getting to her feet too and beginning to shuffle her papers together.
‘Just like that?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, tapping the edges of the pages on the desk to align them. ‘When I see something that needs to be done, I do it.’
‘And I have no say in the matter?’ Eden found he was smiling at her. He received a watery smile back.
‘Of course you do. You get to have free choice what to do with your love when you find where you have buried it.’ I know where it is, I have walled it up where it cannot hurt me. Or you, Maude. Oh God, I could hurt you so much.
She picked up her memorandum book. ‘Are you going to the Hethersetts’ ball in three days’ time?’
Conversation with Maude was like fencing lessons, you never knew where she was going to attack next. ‘No,’ Eden said baldly, a wary eye out for the next feint.
‘But you have been invited?’
‘Yes.’
‘Excellent. We have a committee meeting tomorrow afternoon—I did tell you, didn’t I? We need to discuss our plans for the theatre event and also tactics for taking advantage of the ball. It is very useful having another handsome man on the committee; you can woo all the rich widows, they are impervious to Jessica, Bel and me.’
‘Our theatre event?’
‘Ours. The others are going to be so pleased with us. Now, don’t forget, the Standons’ house at half past two. Goodbye.’ He was still standing regarding the door panels when she popped her head round again. ‘And don’t forget to accept Lady Hethersett’s invitation.’
‘Mr Hurst is attending today’s meeting,’ Maude remarked, standing in the Standons’ hall while Jessica supervised the footmen hanging a portrait.
‘Excellent,’ Jessica responded, her attention on what the men were doing with the heavy frame. ‘Careful! Don’t let the cloth slip off until it is up there, I don’t want to risk damaging it. It is Gareth’s papa,’ she added to Maude. ‘There’s his mother, behind you. They were in the country house, but not well displayed, and absolutely filthy. I had them cleaned and I think they will look good here.’
Maude turned to study the portrait of the late countess, severely lovely in piled white wig and sky blue satin. ‘Beautiful.’ She turned back as the footmen pulled at the swathing cloths on the matching portrait. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘What?’ Jessica blinked at her, puzzled. ‘I think it is a very handsome portrait.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Maude agreed. ‘But don’t you see the likeness?’
‘To Gareth? Well, of course, he’s much more like his mother at first glance, but there’s something about the way he stands.’
‘Have you got a Peerage?’ Maude asked urgently. Why on earth hadn’t she seen it before?
‘Yes, of course. Here, I’ll show you.’ Still looking bemused, Jessica led the way to Gareth’s study. ‘There, several editions, in fact.’
Maude pulled out the one that looked the oldest and flicked through her pages. ‘Ravenhurst, Dukes of Allington…here we are, marriage of Francis, second duke, to Francesca. Son Francis 1750, that’s Bel and Sebastian’s father, then a big gap up to Sophia, 1761.’
‘That’s Gareth’s mother,’ Jessica said. ‘Apparently Francesca was quite ill after the birth of the heir.’
‘Then Augustus, that’s Theo’s father the bishop, then…Aha! Margery, 1767.’
‘Why, Aha? I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Exactly. Let’s see what happens to her.’ Maude began to pull out volumes, opening them in date order. Finally, when she checked the final one she said triumphantly, ‘See? Nothing happens to Margery. No marriage, she isn’t dead. So where is she?’
‘I have no
idea.’ Jessica perched on the corner of Gareth’s desk, apparently set on humouring her friend.
‘She’s La Belle Marguerite and she’s Eden’s mother.’
‘What?’
‘He told me yesterday she was his mother. His father is, as the rumours say, an Italian prince. Marguerite—or Margery—abandoned the child with his father, who left him to the servants to bring up. She only claimed him years later.’
‘How awful, poor child,’ Jessica said compassionately. ‘But that doesn’t make her Margery.’
‘One, she gave him the surname Hurst—half of Ravenhurst.’ Maude ticked off points on her fingers. ‘Two, he’s been reminding me of someone, I just couldn’t put a finger on it. Three, when he came into the box that evening you were all there, Papa mistook him for Gareth, when he saw him in silhouette in the doorway, and, four, look at the portrait of Lord Standon in the hall.’
‘There is a scandalous aunt in the family, I know that,’ Jessica said. ‘Gareth is mildly curious, but apparently even Sebastian doesn’t know the story—the older generation just refuse to speak of it. Do you think Eden knows?’
‘He is very unruffled about associating with Bel and Gareth, who are his first cousins, if he does,’ Maude said. ‘But then, Eden is unruffled about most things, except attacks on his control of the Unicorn. I will ask him.’
‘Maude, you can’t, not just like that! If he knows, he hasn’t said anything, so he wants it kept secret; if he doesn’t, think what a shock it would be.’
‘Yes, I can. And, Jessica, don’t you see, Papa can hardly object on the grounds of breeding—an Italian prince for a father and a duke for a grandfather, for goodness’ sake.’
‘You are overlooking the minor detail of a lack of a marriage certificate to link the two,’ Jessica said wryly. ‘It doesn’t make it better; in some ways, it makes it worse.’
‘True.’ Maude swallowed, feeling as though she had been punched in the stomach. For one moment she had thought it would all be fine now. Of course it wouldn’t. ‘It has been such a big secret, what happened to Margery. Bel and Gareth’s parents—all that generation—are going to be furious.’ She began to put the books back on the shelf. ‘I’ve got to find some way to make Eden acceptable to Papa.’