‘How exhausting can playing with a baby be?’ Maude demanded. ‘She’s tiny.’ A doting expression came over Bel’s face, so she added hastily, ‘Anyway, will you and Ashe be able to come to the theatre with us on Monday?’
‘We’d love to. Your box at the Unicorn? Do you mind if we bring another gentleman with us? Ashe has a navy friend coming to spend a few nights.’ She looked up, obviously making connections. ‘Is that where you think you may be able to find employment for some of the men?’
‘Possibly. I am intending to invest in the theatre and Papa wishes to meet the manager before he will support me.’
‘I should think he does.’ Bel narrowed her eyes. ‘You are up to something, Maude Templeton.’
‘As I said, investing. Of course, it is somewhat unconventional,’ Maude said airily.
‘And of course Mr Hurst of the Unicorn is very good looking,’ Jessica added slyly. ‘Gareth and I are definitely coming on Monday. I’m not missing this for anything.’
‘No!’ Bel sat up straighter, weariness forgotten. ‘Hurst? But surely I have heard of him.’ She bit the tip of her finger in thought. ‘Eden Hurst? But he is notorious for his affaires with married ladies! Ashe warned me about him, although I gather he is hardly predatory; he just stands around looking handsome and they throw themselves at him as they did at Byron. But Maude, even if he is a lay preacher in his spare time, he still has to be utterly ineligible, you wicked woman. Darling, I don’t think this is sensible; he’s received, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be ruined by associating with him.’
‘I wish to invest in his company,’ Maude protested, flustered that Bel had immediately leapt to the conclusion that she wanted Eden Hurst. As for his reputation—well, she refused to think about that just now.
But Bel had seen Jessica’s face and Jessica knew only too well what she wanted. ‘Oh, very well, Jessica will tease until you know it all anyway. I intend making Eden Hurst fall in love with me. He is intelligent, charismatic, dynamic and beautiful. When I talk to him it is not like any other conversation I have with anyone. I was right when I sensed he was meant for me; when I am with him I feel more alive than you can imagine. There is so much passion in him, so tightly controlled. Passion for the theatre, I mean,’ she clarified as Jessica rolled her eyes.
‘He just doesn’t know yet that I am the woman for him. I intend to give him every opportunity to realise it.’
‘Goodness,’ Bel said weakly. ‘And then what? You cannot possibly marry him. Think of his reputation.’
‘If he marries me, he will not be having affaires. And why should he not marry me?’ Maude demanded. ‘He is very well off. And his father, I believe, was an Italian prince.’
‘But was he
married to Mr Hurst’s mother? That’s the point,’ Jessica queried. ‘Hurst is not exactly a Italian name, now is it?’
‘Er…no.’ She turned in a swirl of skirts and plumped down in a chair. ‘It is no use the pair of you looking at me like that. You don’t have to tell me it is going to be difficult. I want to marry an illegitimate, half-Italian theatre owner with a reputation. He is quite a rich illegitimate theatre owner,’ she added hopefully.
‘Maude,’ Bel said gently. ‘Money is not going to be the issue. Breeding is.’
‘I have enough breeding for both of us, and he is a gentleman, even if society won’t see it,’ Maude declared, beginning to be alarmed despite herself. She had expected Jessica and Bel to support her.
‘Yes, but what does he think about this?’
‘Nothing at all, as yet, other than I am very unconventionally intending to invest with him. I have been cool and businesslike. I intend to grow upon him.’
Jessica snorted inelegantly. ‘Maude, I am your friend, so I can say frankly that you are a very beautiful woman. The man has kissed you—passionately, by all accounts. And you are waiting to grow on him? I should imagine your financial assets are the last thing on his mind at the moment.’
‘He has done what?’ Bel’s face was a picture.
‘Kissed me. By accident. He thought I was someone else,’ Maude explained patiently. ‘It was wonderful, but he appears more than capable of restraining his animal passions when I am alone with him, believe me.’
‘Oh. That’s not very encouraging,’ Bel said, then caught herself. ‘I mean, what a good thing. To be fair, according to his reputation he does not appear to be dangerous to virgins.’
Maude determinedly ignored contemplating who else Eden Hurst might be dangerous to. ‘Well, I am not concerned. I want him to fall in love with me, gradually. Not lust after me. That, too, of course, in time, but I am sure desire clouds men’s brains. Love first, then lust.’
‘It doesn’t work that way round,’ Bel observed, smiling. Jessica nodded in agreement as she continued, ‘I’m afraid the poor weak things work on the basis that anything female between the ages of sixteen and sixty is looked at with the eye of lust. One’s finer features, such as your mind or your skill at the harp, or your lovely nature, have to grow upon them.’
‘Oh.’ Somewhat daunted, Maude regarded her two friends. ‘I wanted him to be so passionately in love with me that he would disregard the difference in our positions.’
‘Not if he has the gentlemanly instincts you say he has,’ Jessica pointed out with depressing logic. ‘If he loved you, then he would sacrifice himself by refusing to see you any more. As Bel said, he does seem to restrict himself to married women, so he has some scruples.’
‘And anyway,’ Bel added, ‘it isn’t what he thinks about your respective positions, it is what society thinks.’
Maude fell silent, wrestling with the conundrum. The only possible solution appeared to be to become his lover, then hope he fell in love and realised that, having hopelessly compromised her, he must marry her. But what if he did not fall in love and felt he had to offer anyway?
‘This is 1817,’ she said, raising her chin and meeting their sympathetic looks with determination. ‘Things are changing, men with wealth and intelligence are breaking into society.’