Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume 3. Louise Allen

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 cooking 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,