Those Scandalous Ravenhursts Volume 3

* * *

The evening was cold but dry; the air, even full of the smell of horse manure and smoke, was refreshing after the close atmosphere inside. Maude slipped her hand through the crook of Eden’s left arm and breathed deeply as they made their way along Long Acre towards Leicester Square.

The streets were crowded, bustling and, in this part of town, thoroughly vulgar. ‘I love this,’ she confided. ‘Look at how much life there is going on here.’

‘Indeed.’ Eden sounded less enchanted by the sight of barrow boys, ladies of dubious virtue on street corners and groups of working men noisily making their way to the nearest tavern. ‘And a couple of streets further north and we’re into the St Giles rookery, so hold on to me and don’t go wandering off or you’ll experience more life than you’ve ever dreamt of.’

‘As if I would,’ Maude said demurely. ‘Oh, look, Eden, hot chestnuts. May I have some?’

Eden bought a cone of old newspaper, filled with blackened, fragrant nuts and began to peel them as they walked, hampered a little by Maude on his arm, although he gave her his gloves to hold. She laughed at his muttered comments as he struggled. ‘You’d curse if it were your fingers being burned,’ he grumbled at her when he finally freed the hot kernel. ‘I suppose you want the first one too, don’t you?’

‘It would be the gentlemanly thing to offer it to me,’ Maude observed, amused by the glimpse of Eden fumbling with the nut like any schoolboy. ‘And don’t tell me you aren’t one,’ she added as he opened his mouth. ‘But I am definitely a lady, so I think you deserve the first fruit of your labours.’

‘Thank you.’ He popped it into his mouth, then mumbled, ‘I’dths too hot!’

‘I know,’ she said, laughing. ‘Why do you think I let you have the first one?’

He grinned back at her teasing and began to extract another. ‘Here, open your mouth, it will mark your gloves otherwise.’

Eating in the street, let alone having a man popping food into her mouth, was thoroughly unladylike behaviour, Maude knew, lifting the edge of her veil just enough for Eden to deliver the chestnut between her parted lips. But as they walked down Cranburn Street into Leicester Square the people they were passing weren’t ladies and gentlemen, but people with far fewer inhibitions about enjoying themselves, and their chestnuts were not the only things being consumed. Regaining proper speech again, Eden tossed the rest of the parcel to an urchin. ‘Here, catch.’

‘Oh, look, Stagg and Mantle’s are still open,’ Maude said, veering sharply off to the left as soon as they got into the square, only to be brought up short by Eden digging in his heels.

‘Over my dead body are you dragging me into a linen draper’s,’ he stated, with more firmness than gallantry. ‘And,’ he added as Maude studied his face for any signs of yielding, ‘if you so much as flutter an eyelash at me, I will call a cab and that’s the end of our walk.’

‘All right.’ She tucked her hand more firmly into the crook of his elbow. ‘It is your turn anyway.’

‘For what? Mind that coal cart!’

‘For a treat.’ Maude looked up at his austere face. ‘I had the chestnuts, now it is your turn.’

‘I wasn’t aware that walks involved treats.’ Eden sounded amused—or was he simply bemused?

‘My governess started it, and then my girlfriends picked it up and it has become a tradition. So—your turn to choose.’

‘I can’t think of anything I want. Nothing, that is, that it is reasonable to want on a crowded street,’ he added as they walked down Coventry Street towards the bustle of Piccadilly.

‘Hatchard’s?’ Maude enquired hopefully. Once she had lured him into a bookshop, there was the prospect of browsing together companionably, finding out what kind of books he liked, edging him towards the poetry…

‘I have far too much reading waiting for me, without adding any more. Aren’t you tired yet?’

‘Certainly not, this is a mere stroll. At home in Hampshire I walk miles. Oh my, look at that quiz of a hat.’

‘It probably cost twenty guineas. The family estate in Hampshire, no doubt?’

‘Yes, Knight’s Fee. I love it. So does Papa—bone deep. You know, this afternoon, when I saw you looking out from the stage at the theatre, you had just the sort of expression he does when he looks out at the land.’

‘Bone-deep love? Yes, I suppose that is what it is. The first time I stepped into a theatre I was fourteen years old and the magic got hold of me and has never let me go. I had never possessed anything before that was my own creation. The theatre let me create and then I was able to buy one, and another, to put on plays. But none of them were right—but I knew I would know when I found it. And in the Unicorn, I have.’

She held her breath, willing him to go on, to let her see more, to understand more. But he had caught himself up, she could sense it.

‘And you, Maude—you couldn’t live without your country estate and your town house, your balls and your charities, could you?’

‘I could if I still had my friends and I could still visit Knight’s Fee. Women have to get used to the knowledge they must leave their childhood home, at least, unless we give up all idea of marriage.’ It made her slightly breathless, actually speaking of marriage to Eden.

‘And you haven’t given up, despite your advanced years?’ He sounded serious, despite his joke about her age.

‘No, of course not. I have always said that there was the right man out there for me and I would know him when I saw him. Just like you and your theatre. I will remain a spinster all my life, rather than compromise on that. That’s what gave me the strength to stand up to Papa when he wanted me to marry Gareth.’

‘Standon?’ He sounded surprised. ‘So that is who you were telling me about. But you are good friends, are you not?’

‘Excellent friends and we have been for years. It would have been like marrying my brother. Oh, look—’ Maude pointed up Dover Street ‘—that’s where we first met.’ Oh, Lord! I blurted that out without thinking…

‘What, you and Standon?’

‘No.’ Nothing for it. ‘You and I. In Todmorton’s perfumery shop. I was with Jessica—Lady Standon—you had come in to collect something.’

Eden stopped, ignoring the pedestrians who bumped against him, then began to flow round them as though they were a rock in a river. ‘I knew I had seen you before.’ He frowned in concentration. ‘Sponges. Why do I think of sponges?’

‘Because Jessica and I were tossing little ones to and fro and you walked in and had to catch them. We were being foolish and you were looking exceptionally severe.’

Eden ignored that. ‘You were wearing green. Moss green and a bonnet with a big satin ribbon and ruching all under the brim.’

He remembered her! And Jessica had said he hadn’t noticed them at all. ‘That’s right,’ Maude confirmed happily until she realised with a jolt that she should have pretended not to recall any detail at all. ‘It was brand-new. I remember Jessica commenting on it as we went into the shop.’

‘And there I was, thinking every detail of the day was burned on your memory because that was the day we met,’ Eden said, creating an inner turmoil that made her feel light-headed. If he only knew!

‘Well, it was not burned on yours,’ she retorted as her scrambled wits reasserted themselves. ‘I had to remind you.’

‘I could hardly stare at a beautiful young woman, chance met in a shop, now could I?’ he asked reasonably, beginning to walk again. ‘I saw the gown, the bonnet, a glimpse of your face. I knew you were familiar when I saw you at the theatre.’

Maude could have told him every detail about what he had been wearing: the highly polished Hessians, the buff pantaloons, the dark blue coat, the cane with the silver head, the high-crowned hat in his gloved hands. She could have described in minute detail how his hair had curled over his collar, his words to the shop assistant, the almost physical blow to her senses that seeing him had been.

‘Nearly there now.’ They were turning into Berkeley Street, up the side of Devonshire House. ‘It seems we were fated to meet again,’ he added, almost to himself.

‘Yes,’ Maude agreed, striving for a tone of bright amusement at the coincidence.

‘One could almost say that passing the shop again this evening was an omen,’ Eden mused. They had reached the narrow alleyway that ran between the end of the Devonshire House garden boundary and the length of Lansdown House’s high wall. The lighting was poor there, contrasting to the open space of Berkeley Square a few yards ahead. ‘Do you know, I think I know what I want for my treat.’ He stopped and stepped into the mouth of the alley, almost too narrow for them to stand side by side.

‘You do?’ He was drawing her into his arms, bending his head until his mouth was just above hers.

‘I left that shop wishing I could kiss you.’

‘You have. Outside your office.’ It was an inelegant squeak, but the best she could manage.

‘It was hardly my best effort,’ Eden said thoughtfully. He lifted her veil back, then his hands bracketed her face, his thumbs caressing lightly against her cheeks.

‘Eden—we are on the street!’ Her breathing was all over the place and her hands, without any conscious volition, had come up to rest against his lapels.

‘Safest place,’ he said, sounding rather grim for a man about to kiss a woman. And then he kissed her and Maude stopped thinking about his tone of voice at all.

Chapter Twelve

The pressure of Eden’s mouth on hers was light—a caress, not a demand. He did not draw her closer, or try to master her, he simply let his lips stray over hers, tasting, caressing, until finally his tongue-tip slipped between her lips and she could taste in her turn.

His gentleness made her shyer than his force had done; his restraint ensured that every move she made would be very plain to both of them. Maude’s fingers closed around his lapels, rather than slide into his hair, which was what she wanted; she stood still rather than pressed herself against him, which was what her body wanted.

The kiss was over almost before it had begun, before her legs could begin to tremble, before her mind became completely blurred with sensation. Eden released her, dropped a kiss on to her forehead, adjusted her veil, then drew her out into the open, her hand once again tucked chastely into his elbow.

‘Thank you,’ he said seriously. ‘That won’t happen again.’

‘It won’t? I mean, why did it happen at all?’ Maude asked, flustered and not at all certain she was not angry with him. That brief caress had agitated more than it had satisfied, confused her more than answered any of her doubts and questions.

‘It happened because I needed to get that out of my mind,’ Eden said. ‘I needed to be sure I would not reach out for you when we were alone together. Shall we just say, I was satisfying my curiosity?’

‘You may if you like,’ Maude retorted. Yes, she was angry. ‘Why here, now, in the street?’

‘Because it is a very safe place. Even I am not going to go any further than that out here.’

‘Even you?’ she demanded, coming to an abrupt halt on the corner. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I have a certain reputation,’ Eden said, looking down at her. It was hard to see in the poor light, but she thought he looked as grim as he had sounded just before he kissed her.

‘For liaisons with married ladies. Very short-lived liaisons,’ Maude retorted. ‘I hadn’t heard that you went about debauching virgins.’

‘And I do not intend to start.’ Eden strode along the short end of the square, forcing Maude to do a hop and a skip to keep up.

‘Excellent. Because I have no intention of being debauched. It sounds horrible. Seduction sounds much better. With the right man, of course.’ And if Eden had kissed her like that, that night in the box after dinner, then she could not fool herself—he could have seduced her with no difficulty whatsoever.

He stopped again on the corner of Curzon Street and looked down at her. The sound he made might have been a huff of laughter. ‘Hold on to that thought, Maude. Am I forgiven?’

‘Of course. It was very pleasant, and instructive, if brief. I could have told you to stop, could I not? And,’ she added, risking a smile, ‘I did not limit what your treat could be.’

‘No, you didn’t.’ Eden’s smile was genuine, if fleeting. Then he was serious again. Maude wondered if she was imagining the look of bleakness in his eyes, then decided it must be a trick of the torchlight flickering from the flambeaux outside the houses on the corner.

She was making progress with Eden, Maude decided, pouring the earl’s morning coffee as a dutiful daughter should, and closing her ears to his robust, if muttered, comments on the government’s taxation policy.

Eden was obviously attracted to her, or he would not want to kiss her. And it must be something more than mere desire, because he was so gentle with her. And he had remembered what she had been wearing in the shop that day. And he had listened to her views at the audition. It was slower progress, though, than she had daydreamed of. Foolishly she had expected him to take one look and fall in love with her—or at least manage to do so after a short acquaintance.

And just as obviously the fact that she had fallen in love at first sight did not mean it must be mutual. She sighed, remembering the gentleness of his kiss, the total control. He was very obviously not out of control with desire for her.

‘You are up very early, my dear.’ The sigh had obviously penetrated the barrier of the Morning

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