For a moment she thought he would not answer her. ‘I hope not.’
‘You did not get on well together?’
‘He never spoke to me. If it was necessary to decide something, he would speak of me in the third person to one of the servants.’
‘Perhaps he wasn’t very good with children,’ she suggested, chilled. ‘Some people aren’t.’ Eden merely looked at her, but the expression in his eyes said everything. ‘Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘Have you ever gone back, since you became a man?’
‘You are wondering if I created an ogre in my mind and it would do me good to confront him? Yes, I went back, once. I suppose I thought it would be amusing to see what he made of the scrawny little kitchen rat now I’d grown up to look like him, with good clothes and money in my pocket.’
Maude flinched. ‘And?’
‘And I found it…interesting to see what I would look like in thirty years time, although I wondered if I would ever learn the self-control to stay that calm, that distant, in the face of an arrogant twenty-year-old. Or that contemptuous,’ he added, his lips thinning. ‘It was a lesson in the perils of sentimentality. I had thought, perhaps, to have made him proud of me; I learned that the only person whose opinion matters is my own.’
‘You have found no one else whose opinion matters?’ she asked, unable to find anything to say about the rest of that speech. Not and keep from weeping.
‘I had thought not,’ Eden said. ‘Now, let me tell you about the auditions.’ His explanations took them through the main course and into dessert. Maude listened and nodded, all the time conscious of the long fingers gesturing to mark a point, the intensity in his eyes when he was serious about something. She did not dare venture into anything more personal again. ‘There has been a considerable response to my advertisements, so I expect it to take all day,’ he concluded.
‘When will you start? I want to make sure I am here to see everything,’ Maude said, spooning a syllabub as light and rich as spun silk. ‘Mmm. This is heaven.’
‘You will be bored to death, Maude. I will be starting at nine, but you will hardly want to do more than drop in for half an hour or so, surely?’ He reached over and dipped an almond biscuit into the dish in front of her, licking syllabub off the tuile with sensual enjoyment.
‘You said you didn’t want any!’ Maude raised her spoon in mock aggression. ‘This is all mine and I will defend it to the death.’
‘But that was before I tasted it.’ Eden feinted with another little biscuit and Maude rapped him over the knuckles and they both laughed. Then their gazes locked and Maude found she was staring, the laughter dying on her lips as something happened, deep in the dark eyes fixed on hers. ‘Perhaps I am not as good with temptation as I thought,’ he said slowly. There was a long, breathless moment before he broke the gaze with an almost physical abruptness and reached for the platter of cheese.
Maude got her breathing back under control. ‘I will be here for the auditions at nine, then,’ she said. ‘I would like to give you my opinions and I cannot compare one actress with another if I do not see them all.’
Eden put down his knife, his face showing no signs of amusement or flirtation now. ‘The decision is mine. We made no agreement about casting or employment.’
‘Yes, of course. I am not claiming any privilege in the matter.’ What was it Jessica had called him? A dark angel from the chillier regions of Hell—yes, that was it. Well, he was not apparently angry, so Hell was presumably on hold, but his severe masculine beauty and the implacable expression certainly fitted the first part.
She shivered, more unnerved than she liked to admit to herself at his rapid change from amused teasing to icy assertion of his rights. ‘I thought I would sit up here and watch, as though I was a member of the audience. My opinion may be of value to you, and if not, you will ignore it.’ She did her best to sound neither defensive, nor shaken by his territorial reaction.
‘Very well.’ Eden could not be said to have relaxed again, for his body had not noticeably stiffened in the first place, yet Maude sensed the moment of tension had passed. Don’t touch my theatre! He should have a sign hung up, she told herself, striving to find a lighter note. ‘Yes, that will be interesting,’ he added, ‘to see what you think of each from this vantage point.’
‘It is agreed, then.’ She risked further provocation. ‘And Miss Golding? What news of her?’
‘She has found a place at the Sans Pareil in the Strand. They specialise in burlettas; it will suit her well enough.’
‘Thank you,’ Maude said, warmly. ‘I am so happy that you did that.’
‘You are happier than Mr Merrick in that case, for he is short one week’s wages that I added to what was owing to Miss Golding.’
‘So you are not completely heartless, then?’ Maude watched his face from beneath her lashes, caught the wry twist of his mouth. ‘You did not tell me before that you had done so.’
‘It was no loss to me and it served as a lesson for Mr Merrick,’ Eden said coolly, disowning any motive of kindness. He must, surely, have a softer side?
‘You left me to think you were cruel enough to simply cast her out,’ Maude observed, ‘and you were not.’ Instinctively she reached out, laid her own hand palm down over his. ‘It isn’t a crime to admit to compassion, Eden.’
He sat looking down at her hand, then turned his under it and lifted until her fingertips were an inch from his lips. He is going to kiss them… She could feel his breath, hot on the sensitive skin. Then he raised his eyes, watching her under the thick black lashes as he lowered her hand to the table and released it.
‘It is probably as well if you have no illusions about my character, Maude. I am not one of your society gentlemen, running tame in ballroom and parlour. I grew up differently and I know weakness is not gentility, it is danger.’ He did not appear to expect an answer to that, instead picking up a knife and looking at her questioningly. ‘May I tempt you to some cheese? A glass of port?’
‘No, thank you.’ Maude shook her head, distracted by wondering how she was ever going to crack Eden’s defences.
‘Shall I see you to the carriage, then?’ She nodded, still not concentrating completely. ‘I would like to prolong the evening, but I have no desire to cause Lord Pangbourne any anxiety.’
‘Thank you. But he is engaged with friends until the early hours,’ Maude said vaguely. ‘Still, I should not keep my maid waiting up for me.’ Eden came and pulled out her chair for her to rise and she smiled her thanks over her shoulder as she did so.
It happened so fast, came out of nowhere—there was no time to think. At one moment they were formal, she rising gracefully from her seat, he placing the chair to one side so her full skirts were unimpeded, the next she stumbled, her low French heel catching in the carpet rucked by the table, and she was in his arms.
Instinctively her hands went up for balance, fastening on his lapels, and his arms were around her, swinging her away from the low edge of the balcony, folding her against his chest. Her overwhelming sensation was of the scent of him: clean, warm male with a hint of an exotic spice mingling with starched linen and that green earth smell of olive oil.
‘You’ve been oiling your hair,’ she said, such a foolish thing to be talking of when she was strained against his body and he was looking down at her as though he was still ravenously hungry.
‘Yes,’ he said, half-laughing at her, half-serious, with a kind of confusion that seemed alien to him. ‘Maude?’
A question, a statement? A plea? She couldn’t tell. Nor, she realised with something like despair, could she pull away. He was going to kiss her. Too soon…