Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume 3. Louise Allen

‘Show me your lists. Lady Maude, gentlemen.’ He spread them out on the table side by side. ‘It would appear we are unanimous. There’s six for you to call back tomorrow, Howard.’

      ‘You mean I got them right?’ Delighted, Maude bent over the table, tracing the notes with her finger.

      ‘I’m impressed.’ Eden was standing close beside her, the others had walked off; in the distance she could hear Howard calling the names of the afternoon’s selection. ‘Are you tired?’

      ‘No,’ Maude said, then found she could not stifle a most unladylike yawn. ‘But I do have a thick head. All that concentrating, I suppose.’

      ‘And no fresh air. These gas lights are all very well, but it is not a good atmosphere to be in all day.’

      ‘We could go for a walk,’ Maude suggested, watching as Eden stretched like a big cat, all supple muscle and long limbs.

      ‘It will be dark. This is February, remember.’ He stood, turning his head as if to ease his neck, then sat to gather up the papers.

      ‘Is your neck stiff?’ she asked as he rotated his shoulders. His attention was on the sheets in his hand; she doubted he was even aware that he was doing it.

      ‘My neck? Yes, a little. I am usually on my feet more.’

      ‘Let me.’ Maude moved behind him, put her hands on his shoulders and dug her thumbs into the hard muscle. ‘I do this for Papa when he’s been in the House all day.’ Under her hands Eden’s shoulders stiffened. ‘Am I hurting you?’

      ‘No.’ She wasn’t sure if she believed him; his voice sounded more than a little constrained. But it was such a delight to find a perfectly innocuous excuse to touch him. No one could object to having their shoulders massaged, surely?

      ‘Thank you. That is much better.’ He moved restlessly and she lifted her hands away. ‘I will call your carriage.’

      ‘I love the streets after dark. Walk me home, Eden?’

      Eden had been turned away from her, now he swung round. ‘It is too far.’

      ‘To Mount Street? Half an hour, I should think. But I will send Anna home in the carriage, she is tired.’

      ‘You cannot walk through the streets with a man and no chaperon,’ Eden said firmly.

      ‘I have a veil on my bonnet and they are all perfectly respectable streets.’ Maude contemplated him, wondering what argument would work. ‘I have a headache. It will be much better for me to cure it with fresh air and exercise than having to dose myself with something when I get home.’

      ‘Is it a thick veil?’ Eden asked. She could almost hear the sigh.

      ‘Very,’ Maude assured him. ‘Will you ask Mr Howard to send Anna home in the carriage when she wakes up?’

      ‘Yes.’ Eden looked resigned more than cheerful at the thought of the walk. ‘Come along, then.’

      ‘I will meet you in the front lobby,’ Maude said. ‘It is after four, so I cannot go back stage, remember?’

      ‘I assume your father was attempting to safeguard your reputation when he imposed that condition.’ Eden regarded her with a jaundiced eye. ‘No doubt it never occurred to the poor man that you might want to take to the streets with me, unchaperoned?’ As he strode off stage without waiting for her answer, it appeared to be a rhetorical question.

      * * *

      The evening was cold but dry; the air, even full of the smell of horse manure and smoke, was refreshing after the close atmosphere inside. Maude slipped her hand through the crook of Eden’s left arm and breathed deeply as they made their way along Long Acre towards Leicester Square.

      The streets were crowded, bustling and, in this part of town, thoroughly vulgar. ‘I love this,’ she confided. ‘Look at how much life there is going on here.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Eden sounded less enchanted by the sight of barrow boys, ladies of dubious virtue on street corners and groups of working men noisily making their way to the nearest tavern. ‘And a couple of streets further north and we’re into the St Giles rookery, so hold on to me and don’t go wandering off or you’ll experience more life than you’ve ever dreamt of.’

      ‘As if I would,’ Maude said demurely. ‘Oh, look, Eden, hot chestnuts. May I have some?’

      Eden bought a cone of old newspaper, filled with blackened, fragrant nuts and began to peel them as they walked, hampered a little by Maude on his arm, although he gave her his gloves to hold. She laughed at his muttered comments as he struggled. ‘You’d curse if it were your fingers being burned,’ he grumbled at her when he finally freed the hot kernel. ‘I suppose you want the first one too, don’t you?’

      ‘It would be the gentlemanly thing to offer it to me,’ Maude observed, amused by the glimpse of Eden fumbling with the nut like any schoolboy. ‘And don’t tell me you aren’t one,’ she added as he opened his mouth. ‘But I am definitely a lady, so I think you deserve the first fruit of your labours.’

      ‘Thank you.’ He popped it into his mouth, then mumbled, ‘I’dths too hot!’

      ‘I know,’ she said, laughing. ‘Why do you think I let you have the first one?’

      He grinned back at her teasing and began to extract another. ‘Here, open your mouth, it will mark your gloves otherwise.’

      Eating in the street, let alone having a man popping food into her mouth, was thoroughly unladylike behaviour, Maude knew, lifting the edge of her veil just enough for Eden to deliver the chestnut between her parted lips. But as they walked down Cranburn Street into Leicester Square the people they were passing weren’t ladies and gentlemen, but people with far fewer inhibitions about enjoying themselves, and their chestnuts were not the only things being consumed. Regaining proper speech again, Eden tossed the rest of the parcel to an urchin. ‘Here, catch.’

      ‘Oh, look, Stagg and Mantle’s are still open,’ Maude said, veering sharply off to the left as soon as they got into the square, only to be brought up short by Eden digging in his heels.

      ‘Over my dead body are you dragging me into a linen draper’s,’ he stated, with more firmness than gallantry. ‘And,’ he added as Maude studied his face for any signs of yielding, ‘if you so much as flutter an eyelash at me, I will call a cab and that’s the end of our walk.’

      ‘All right.’ She tucked her hand more firmly into the crook of his elbow. ‘It is your turn anyway.’

      ‘For what? Mind that coal cart!’

      ‘For a treat.’ Maude looked up at his austere face. ‘I had the chestnuts, now it is your turn.’

      ‘I wasn’t aware that walks involved treats.’ Eden sounded amused—or was he simply bemused?

      ‘My governess started it, and then my girlfriends picked it up and it has become a tradition. So—your turn to choose.’

      ‘I can’t think of anything I want. Nothing, that is, that it is reasonable to want on a crowded street,’ he added as they walked down Coventry Street towards the bustle of Piccadilly.

      ‘Hatchard’s?’ Maude enquired hopefully. Once she had lured him into a bookshop, there was the prospect of browsing together companionably, finding out what kind of books he liked, edging him towards the poetry…

      ‘I have far too much reading waiting for me, without adding any more. Aren’t you tired yet?’

      ‘Certainly not, this is a mere stroll. At home in Hampshire I walk miles. Oh my, look at that quiz of a hat.’

      ‘It probably cost twenty guineas. The family estate in Hampshire, no doubt?’

      ‘Yes, Knight’s Fee. I love it. So does Papa—bone deep. You know, this afternoon, when I saw you looking out from the