The Notorious Mr Hurst. Louise Allen

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.

      ‘But I thought you liked me…’ And she had that wheedling tone off to perfection too. He kept his back to the bed as he fastened his shirt. Madame, cajoling over her millinery bill, actresses fluttering their eyelashes as they tried to persuade him to give them a role, those simpering Corwin girls in pursuit of a husband. Did every female in existence, he thought irritably, have to coax like that? It occurred to him that Lady Maude had been admirably direct. No simpering, pouting or wheedling from her. What, he wondered, did she want from him?

      ‘Good night.’ Eden did not look back as he went out of the door.

       Chapter Three