Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume 3. Louise Allen

      ‘That was cruel and unfair.’ Maude stood with her back to the desk, her fingertips pressed to its surface behind her. It was easier to confront him standing up, with some support. ‘That young man probably coerced her.’

      Eden came in and stood in front of her, close enough to touch, close enough for her to see the coldness that turned his eyes almost black. ‘Fairness has nothing to do with it. I am running a business here. If Merrick goes, I will probably lose Susan Poole, his mistress, who is our soubrette. I can ill afford her loss at this stage in the Season, but ingénues like Harriet Golding are two a penny.’ He shrugged as though that settled the matter.

      ‘But Miss Golding is just a girl, alone. Don’t you care that she might become a prostitute as a result of this?’ She admired this man, was convinced she loved him. Surely he could not be this cruel? Could she have so misjudged him?

      ‘Her choice. Merrick was not forcing her, nor has he seduced her. I have been watching them for a few days now.’

      ‘Then you should have done something before now, she was your responsibility.’ He was close, too close. Maude resisted the instinct to bend back, put one hand firmly in the middle of his chest and pushed. ‘And don’t crowd me, you bully.’

      It was like pushing the wall. Apparently oblivious to Maude’s hand planted on his chest, Eden dug into his pocket and produced his notebook, flipped it open and turned it so she could read what was written on the page.

      Under oil lamps the definite black letters said Merrick/Golding/ Poole. ‘Oh. Well, you should have done something sooner. Will you please move!’

      ‘If I wanted to crowd you, Maude, I would get a great deal closer than this.’ Eden tossed the notebook on to the table, seized her wrist and removed her hand from his waistcoat without any apparent effort. He then took one step forward. Maude tried to retreat, came up hard against the edge of the desk and swayed back. Both big hands came down on the leather, bracketing her hips, a knee forced hers apart and then he was standing between her thighs, leaning over her. ‘Now this is crowding you.’

      Maude struggled for balance, gripped his shoulders and stared, furious, up into his face. ‘Let me go.’

      ‘When you admit you were exaggerating,’ he said calmly.

      Maude, braced to fight, blinked. ‘What?’

      ‘You accused me of crowding you, bullying you. This, I agree, is both. But before, no. You accuse me of unfairness and yet you spent an hour this morning with your attorney making certain this theatre was run as a business.

      ‘I am not running the Unicorn as a recreation, Maude. I am not a gentleman, although you appear to be having trouble grasping that. This is my life and my business and I will not be indulgent with anything that threatens it. Harriet Golding is not some little innocent I am tossing out into the cold—she knew exactly what she was doing when she spread her legs for Merrick.’

      The fact that he was standing between her own parted thighs was not lost on Maude. Nothing was, not the heat of him, the smell of him, the tightly contained anger nor the discomfort in her back, bowed over the desk. And most of all, more mortifying than all the rest, the knowledge that she wanted to pull him down to cover her body and make love to her here and now and as wantonly as those two actors.

      ‘Very well.’ She swallowed. ‘I may have been a trifle… emotional about the situation, I admit. Will you please let me up now?’

      Eden stepped back and she came with him, pulled by her grip on his shoulders. When she found her feet Maude let go, brushed down her skirt and walked, as steadily as her aching, shaking, legs would allow her, to pick up her hat, gloves and reticule. She had something more to say to him, but she did not know how she was going to find the courage; it was far too close to her own feelings. Yet, how could she not do her best for the girl?

      She set the hat on her head, tied the ribbons beneath her chin and then drew on her gloves as she walked back to where Eden Hurst stood in front of the desk, watching her from under lowered brows.

      Maude found her mouth was dry and her throat tight. She made herself look up into his face. ‘Mr Hurst, have you considered that she may be in love with him?’

      ‘No.’ There was a flicker of surprise at the question, that was all. ‘There is no such thing as love, Maude. There is lust, there is sentimentality, there is neediness, there are the transactions people make for all kinds of reasons. But there is not love. It does not exist, it is merely a romantic fantasy.’

      ‘Of course love exists.’ She stared back, aghast. ‘Even if you do not believe in love between adult men and women, surely you acknowledge family love? Parents love their children, children love their parents—I know, I love my father and he loves me.’

      ‘Society and convention makes family units,’ he observed. ‘Nature influences mothers to tend to helpless infants. And some of them,’ he added with chilling flippancy, ‘even heed that influence. Familiarity, dependence, desire—you can call it love if you want to.’

      ‘Oh.’ Poor little boy. He had betrayed so much hurt in those cynical words. She stood there feeling the tears start at the back of her eyes. But this was not a damaged, abandoned child in front of her. Not any more. This was a grown man with scars to cover those wounds. Scars that so obviously hurt. ‘You poor man,’ she murmured. Then she turned and walked out, knowing that if she stayed she would take his face between her palms and try to kiss away all the years of neglect and loneliness those words betrayed. Would this man ever allow her to try to do that?

      Eden stood looking at the door Maude had closed so gently behind her. She pitied him because he denied the existence of love? What sort of foolish feminine fancy was that? He had so much—his independence, work he lived for, wealth, achievement and the sense not to give up his heart and his soul to be toyed with and then discarded by some damn woman. He had made all this out of the stony soil of a mother who had left him for years until it suited her to find him again, an uncaring father who refused to acknowledge his son and fourteen years of neglect in the servants’ quarters of an Italian palazzo.

      It was not even as though Prince Tancredi had maltreated him physically. He could have endured that, for at least that would have been a recognition of sorts. No, the magnificent father who dazzled him with the longing for a look, a word, had simply refused to acknowledge that he was anything but a liability, like a feeble old servant that duty did not allow you to cast out. If a man who had everything—wealth, title, position, looks—could not spare a kind word for his own son, then that son had to learn a hard lesson and open his eyes to the realities of the sentimental nonsense people spoke about love.

      And Lady Maude Templeton had the effrontery to pity him? Not apparently for being outside the ton or for having no family he could acknowledge, but because he did not believe in the mind-sapping dependency of a foolish emotion. Dio! What had he tied himself to? This was as bad as fighting off Corwin’s daughters. Worse.

      The tap on the door sent him back to his chair behind the desk. ‘Come! Ah, Mr Merrick.’

      ‘Sir.’ The young actor had tidied his clothing and brushed his hair and now stood bashfully, giving a very acceptable performance of troubled penitence. Yes, he was a good actor, even if Eden would never gratify him by saying so. All the more reason to keep him. ‘I’m very sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.’

      ‘No, it will not because Miss Golding will be leaving us. Is Miss Poole aware of what has been going on?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘You are lodging with her still?’

      ‘Sir.’