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‘Thank you, no. You will take supper?’
‘Of course. Thank you.’ He opened the door for her, then went back to sit behind his desk. After a minute, he put his elbows on the green leather and dropped his head into his hands and tried to think, not to feel, not to hurt. Just to think.
Maude did not love him, of course not. What was there to love? A cold, hard man—out of her world, out of her class. She desired him, as he did her. That physical spark between them had been unmistakable from the very first touch. She was innocent, but not a child—she was old enough, she would say, to know what she wanted. And she wanted him—as a friend and as a lover. Apparently she saw something in him that would be worthy of her friendship, worthy of her attempts to make him admit that love, in its widest sense, existed.
Well, she had done that. He believed in love between a man and a woman now, that was for certain. And in that one sentence asserting a child’s right to be loved by its parents, she had, somehow, convinced him about maternal love too. He could imagine Maude with a child in her arms. His child. He could almost feel the love flowing from her. She had shown him how she loved her friends and what misery it plunged her into when they were at odds.
She was every dream he had suppressed for years and the best thing he could do for her, the only way to show her his love, was to deny it and, by denying it, protect her. Honour demanded it, pride dictated it.
Eden allowed himself to imagine calling on the Earl of Pangbourne, telling him he loved his daughter, setting out for him what he could offer her in life. The loss of her status, the loss of her friends, the loss of the brilliant marriage she would one day make. His love, the emotion he had only just discovered, was made null and void by his theatre and the stigma of trade, his bloodlines. It was not going to happen and he was going to have to learn to live with it.
Maude found more than enough to busy herself with over the next seven days. She should have had no time to think about Eden or those moments of bliss in his arms or the sobering reality of his reaction to Madame’s assumption of their betrothal.
There were balls and parties and soirées to go to, morning calls to make, clothes to buy, invitations to write for the Musicale and there was committee business for the charity.
All in all, she should not have had room in her brain to think of anything else and she should have dropped exhausted into her bed every night. Instead, Maude found herself falling into a daydream about Eden’s mouth with half an address written, or worrying about the ownership of the Unicorn in the middle of thinking about a new ballgown or tossing and turning long into the small hours, her body aching for the touch of his hands.
They exchanged notes almost every day, innocuous, practical letters about food and musicians, doormen and footmen, lighting and menus that she would not have blushed to have shown to anyone. Even so, all Eden’s notes to her ended up tied with red ribbon, at the bottom of a hat box.
By the morning of the special committee meeting to discuss the Musicale, Maude was feeling almost light-headed with lack of sleep and distraction. When she was shown into Bel’s boudoir an hour before the meeting she sank down in her usual chair with a sigh of relief, only to be jolted upright by Bel. ‘Maude! What on earth is the matter with you?’
‘I’m tired, that is all.’ She sank back and closed her eyes.
‘You are white as a sheet and I could swear you have lost weight. I thought so at the Petries’ party the day before yesterday, but the light was so bad I thought I must be mistaken.’ Maude heard Bel move to sit next to her, then her hand was lifted and enfolded. ‘It isn’t just weariness, is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing—and everything.’ Maude opened her eyes and sat up, managing a smile. ‘I am busy, but that isn’t it. I haven’t seen Eden for a week and when we parted it was…difficult. We were celebrating because he thinks he has the chance to buy the Unicorn and Madame Marguerite came in and thought we were happy because we were betrothed. He changed, Bel. I have never seen a man change so rapidly. One moment he was laughing and warm and happy to be with me and the next—cold and distant. He was obviously appalled by her mistake. I said I wouldn’t be at the theatre for some time, that I had a lot to do, and he accepted that so easily. And yet, only the night before we…he…Oh, damn! I am not going to cry.’
‘You were lovers?’ Bel asked, her grip on Maude’s hand tightening. So, Jessica had not betrayed Maude’s confidence.
‘No, not fully. No doubt he regrets even that now.’
‘Will he be here this afternoon?’
‘He said he would be.’ Maude blew her nose briskly. ‘Do I look as awful as I feel?’
‘Not your best,’ Bel admitted. ‘Shall we do so something about it?’
‘No.’ Maude shook her head. ‘I don’t want to be powdered and pinched. I will smile a lot, no one will notice.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Bel began, then looked up as the boudoir door opened to admit Jessica, another young woman at her heels.
Maude stared at her. There was something very familiar about the red-haired, elegant stranger. Then she smiled. ‘Elinor!’ Both Bel and Maude hugged and kissed and exclaimed over the latest Ravenhurst bride.
‘You look radiant
!’ Maude pulled Elinor, whom she had last seen looking the epitome of a drab bluestocking spinster, down on the sofa beside her. ‘I wasn’t expecting you yet—where is Theo?’
‘Talking to Ashe and Gareth downstairs. We only landed two days ago.’
Elinor had married her cousin Theo Ravenhurst in France the previous year and they had embarked on a prolonged Continental honeymoon combined with a buying trip for Theo’s art and antiquities business.
Someone else who managed to be in trade and remain respectable, Maude thought with an inward sigh.
‘Tell me all the gossip,’ Elinor demanded, waving aside Bel and Jessica’s questions about the exact state of Paris hemlines and where she had bought her bonnet. ‘Talk to Theo about fashions—he makes me buy clothes; he threatened to burn all my old ones.’
At least, with the three others engrossed in their conversation, Maude was able to avoid any more comments about her wan complexion. She slipped out of the room while they were still talking and went downstairs to curl up on a window seat, shielded by the curtains, where she knew she could watch the comings and goings in the dining room unobserved. For some reason she felt shy about seeing Eden again; when the room was full she could emerge and mingle at a safe distance.
As she thought it, he came in carrying a portfolio and a roll of paper, Lady Wallace at his side. His willingness to throw the resources of the Unicorn into supporting the charity seemed to have overcome her suspicions of him.
