The earl stood up as Eden entered and offered his hand. ‘Come, sit down.’
‘You are recovered, my lord?’ Two nights ago he and this man had clung together, shed tears together, over Maude. Now he was shaken to find how much he was concerned about someone he hardly knew, how much he felt for him. It was as though Maude had ripped open a locked compartment in his heart, leaving him vulnerable to not just her, but to everyone he met.
‘Yes, thank you. My doctor said it was shock and overexertion, nothing more serious. You said in your letter that you want to talk to me about Maude, hmm? You’ll take a glass of brandy?’
‘Thank you.’ It was early for him to be drinking, but Eden could only feel grateful for a little Dutch courage. He took the glass, sipped, waited for the older man to sit. ‘I love Maude and I want to marry her.’ The earl nodded, his face giving nothing away. ‘She says she wants to marry me. But I cannot take advantage of that, not unless I know we will have your blessing and not unless I am certain that such a match will not compromise Maude’s position in society and her relationship with her dearest friends.’
‘As the daughter of an earl, there is not a lot that can compromise her standing,’ Lord Pangbourne remarked, swirling his brandy.
‘Marriage to a bastard half-Italian theatre manager might,’ Eden said bluntly. ‘Constant whispering, gossip, cuts will hurt her.’
‘Very true. I will be frank with you, Hurst. I had you investigated before I allowed Maude to associate with you. I know who your parents are, I know the names of the society women you have slept with, I know as much about your finances as you do yourself.’ Eden felt his anger burn, then subside as quickly as it had flared. Of course her father would do anything to protect Maude—so would he in his shoes. ‘You’re a rake, but you don’t seduce virgins, you’re a hard man at business, but you don’t cheat, and you’ve a brain in your head.’
He took a swallow of brandy and regarded Eden over the rim of the glass. ‘I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to pick an illegitimate half-Italian in the theatre business for her though, I’ll be frank.’
‘Who would?’ Eden enquired bitterly, provoking a bark of laughter.
‘I’ll tell you something about her mother, my Marietta. She was a wild girl—beautiful, intelligent, impossible to handle. She fell in love with an actor, tried to elope, but they were caught and separated. He died in an accident. I loved my wife, Mr Hurst, and she loved me, but I knew that her heart had been broken and it would never be whole again.
‘I gave Maude as much freedom as her mother had been denied because that was what her mother would have wanted. I thought I saw something in her eyes when she mentioned you, so I set her boundaries, which I know she’s kept to—even if she’s bent them as far as they’ll go, I’ll be bound.’ Eden felt a twinge in his newly found conscience, more, perhaps than a twinge, for the older man smiled. ‘I see you have the grace to blush, sir! If you love her, and I believe you do, after seeing you the other night, then you have my blessing.’
Eden stared into the golden brown liquid in his glass. He had come prepared to beg, if that was what it took, and this extraordinary man had given his permission without hesitation. He found it difficult to make his voice work. ‘I see you set more importance on your daughter’s happiness than on society’s strictures, my lord. I give you my word, Maude will never have cause to regret marrying me.’
Eden raised the knocker on the Henrietta Street house, aware that Madame would have finally drifted out of her boudoir and would be pecking at a little light luncheon by now.
He was shown through without ceremony and stood for a moment to admire dispassionately the picture his leading lady made. His mother. Coiffed, subtly tinted, dressed in the most feminine of gowns, she was posing even though she thought herself alone, finger at her chin, head tilted as she studied a fashion journal.
‘Eden, darling.’ She pouted as she became aware of him. ‘Has all the fuss subsided at the Unicorn? I cannot be expected to work in such an atmosphere.’
‘You mean the natural distress of the company over Doggett’s death and the anxiety of getting the gas system to work more safely?’ he enquired. ‘Yes, all the fuss is subsiding.’
He sat and regarded her, wondering, even as he did so, which leading actress he could secure at short notice if what he was about to say sent her off into screaming hysterics. ‘That was not why I called.’
‘What then, darling?’
‘When I was born, did you register my birth at any of the English embassies?’ he asked.
‘What? Yes!’ Marguerite goggled at him, shaken off guard into frankness. ‘Yes, of course I did—in Florence. And the chapel register at the palazzo. But I went to the embassy because I wanted you to be able to get an English passport if you needed one.’ She stared at him. ‘Why on earth are you asking?’
‘You never gave me that passport after we arrived in England,’ he pointed out.
‘Didn’t I?’ She shrugged. ‘It is around somewhere, I suppose.’
‘And what name did you put in the embassy register?’
Marguerite became flustered. ‘Name? Why, Eden Francesco Tancredi, of course.’
‘My surname, Mother.’ He could not recall ever calling her that, not since the day she took him from the palazzo and told him sharply to call her Marguerite, or Madame, never Mother.
‘Eden, I do not like you to call me that,’ she began.
‘I do not care what you want, Mother.’ He smiled, his voice light, aiming to keep her off balance. ‘What surname did you put?’
‘I…Hurst, of course.’
‘I suggest you tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘If necessary, I will contact the embassy directly, or tear this place apart until I find those passports.’
‘Damn you, then.’ She flung down her napkin and got to her feet, pacing angrily away from him. ‘Ravenhurst. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that going to make you any more acceptable to that chit of Pangbourne’s? I never speak of my family.’ She said the word as though it were a curse. ‘Never, you know that. Why must you upset me, be so selfish, Eden?’