Maude burst into laughter. Not a giggle, not a titter, but genuine, uninhibited laughter. Heads turned, one or two grey heads were shaken, but no one seemed too shocked. This was, after all, Lady Maude Templeton and much would be forgiven to the Earl of Pangbourne’s charming daughter. Even, apparently, taking supper with him.
Eden watched her, his own amusement fading away to be
replaced by something quite unfamiliar: affection and a kind of warmth. Maude, he realised, made him feel good inside. He gave himself a little shake, wondering if he was sickening for something, as he had suspected the other day. But it was a very strange fever that seemed to come and go like this.
‘Oh, dear.’ She struggled with her reticule and produced a handkerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes. The tears of laughter made them sparkle as she looked at him. ‘Stays indeed! No, and it is not will-power either—we are expected to eat a large supper before we come out. Didn’t you realise?’
‘How should I?’ he countered. ‘I have no sisters.’
‘And little to do with unmarried girls in the Marriage Mart, I would assume.’ Maude studied the platter and pounced on a salmon tartlet.
‘Are we back to the married ladies again?’ he enquired, wary.
‘No.’ She shook her head, making the loose curls that spilled from the combs set high on her crown tremble. ‘That’s just your guilty conscience.’
‘I doubt I have one,’ Eden admitted, biting into a savoury puff and wondering how far Maude’s hair would tumble down her straight white back and gracefully sloping shoulders if he pulled out those jewelled combs. Slowly, one by one.
‘Then how do you know what is right?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘I don’t know. Judgement, experience, assessment of the alternatives, I suppose.’ It was not something he ever thought about. ‘There is no good business sense in being capricious or dishonest. You keep your word because otherwise no one trusts you; you deal honestly, or they don’t come back a second time.’
‘But in your personal affairs?’ Maude pressed, choosing a cheese patty.
Eden shrugged. ‘The same thing. One does not get involved with anyone who does not understand the rules, then no one gets hurt.’
‘Your rules,’ she said, raising one eyebrow.
‘Yes, my rules, in everything, business and pleasure.’ To have the power to make your own rules and live your life by them, not to be dependent on cold, grudging duty. Yes, that was freedom. ‘Except with you, Maude—you set your own rules.’ She looked at him, faintly troubled, it seemed, then the long lashes swept down to hide her wide brown eyes and she smiled.
Damn it, there was that sensation of…dislocation again, of things shifting. It wasn’t dizziness exactly. Like many very fit men Eden found the prospect of being ill not just worrying, but irritating too. He’d go and get a check-up. He couldn’t afford to be unwell.
‘Would you like me to let you know when I audition for the ingénue part?’ he asked abruptly. ‘It will be next week, the advertisements have gone out.’
‘Thank you, yes, I would be most interested.’ She sipped some wine, then began to study the sweetmeats with close attention. ‘I must only have three, you understand, more would be greedy, so I have to choose carefully. Do you have your notebook, Eden? I imagine you never move without it.’ Maude popped a strawberry-shaped morsel into her mouth and regarded him limpidly.
‘Yes, I have my notebook.’ Was he that predictable? He dug in his breast pocket and produced it.
‘Then please make a note to help Miss Golding find another position.’
‘You, Lady Maude, are a very managing woman.’ He made a note and pushed the book across to show her.
‘And you, Mr Hurst, never do anything you do not want to,’ she retorted, closing the notebook and handing it back.
‘No,’ Eden said slowly, feeling the light brush of her fingers as he took it, inhaling the heady scent of gardenia and warm woman. ‘Not always.’
The sudden jolt of physical desire took him aback. She was single, unobtainable, quite out of his reach in that way and he had thought, now he knew her, his own self-control would have ensured he was safe from the heat that licked like flame across his loins. He had learned the hard way not to yearn for what his birth debarred him from, to take his pleasures where he was in control without the inconvenience of either attachment or snubs.
When he glanced at her, Maude was cheerfully waving at an acquaintance across the room. Hell, she’d flee screaming if she had any idea what he was thinking about. Then he recalled their very first encounter. She had not fled then; instead, she had dealt with the situation calmly and with humour. Which, Eden decided, resolutely ignoring the rising tension in his groin, meant she did not consider him a threat in that way, any more than she would fear that any of the professional men in her life—her doctor, her attorney, her banker—would press their amorous desires upon her. That was, he had to believe, a very fortunate circumstance.
‘He has agreed to join the committee.’ Maude swept into Bel’s drawing room, cast her bonnet and gloves on to the side table and bent to kiss Bel and Jessica, who were seated side by side on the sofa studying a pile of silk brocade samples.
‘Who?’ Bel enquired, with a wicked twinkle.
Maude wrinkled her nose at her. ‘Eden, of course. And he will take some of the men.’
‘Excellent,’ Bel smiled. ‘Another really forceful man on the committee besides Ashe and Gareth will be so useful. And we can set him on all the rich widows to seduce money out of them.’
Jessica raised an eyebrow. ‘Eden? Are you on first-name terms now, then?’