letters stuck to the walls or under the pots. It reeked of cheap perfume and the gas lighting, greasepaint and sweat. ‘It is organised chaos an hour before curtain up,’ he commented, closing the door again. ‘The other dressing rooms are further along.
‘Mrs Furlow is in here,’ he added as he opened the door into the room. ‘The room used by visiting leads. Madame’s dressing room is just beyond.’
Maude realised there was something amiss the moment she stepped into the dressing room in front of Eden and heard the sounds. It was gloomy, with the shade drawn over the high window. In the half-light the gasps were even plainer, more disturbing than if it had been broad daylight.
Confused, Maude peered at the far side where bodies were tangled on what seemed to be a makeshift bed. Someone was being strangled—she started forward to go to their aid, then she realised that it was a couple making love, that the choking cries were a woman in the throes of ecstasy and the curved shape she could see were the naked buttocks of the man between her spread thighs.
‘Out!’ Eden seized her around the waist, lifted and dumped her bodily into the corridor before stalking back into the room. ‘Merrick!’ There was a feminine scream, a thump. Shaken but shamelessly curious, Maude applied her eye to the crack of the half-open door—then closed it hastily. A young man was pulling on his breeches. He was also gabbling something she could not catch. Cautiously Maude opened her eyes again.
‘Be quiet.’ That was Eden. ‘I will see you in my office in half an hour.’ Maude glimpsed him as he turned to face the bed, his face hard. ‘Miss Golding, you will pack your bags and be out of here at once. I will have your wages made up to yesterday and sent to your lodgings.’ There was a gasp, a girl’s voice protesting. ‘You, Miss Golding, are easy enough to replace, Merrick less so. Oh, for pity’s sake, stop cowering under that sheet, girl, and get some clothes on. I am quite unmoved by your charms, believe me.’
He stepped back out into the passage, shutting the door behind him with a control that was as chilling as the look on his face. ‘I am sorry you had to witness that.’
‘So am I, but not half so sorry as I was to hear what you have just said,’ Maude snapped. ‘That poor girl you have callously dismissed—what is going to become of her now?’
Eden’s dark eyes rested on her face with indifference. ‘She will find a place in the chorus somewhere. Or a position on her back if that fails.’
‘On her—’ The crudity took Maude’s breath away. Behind Eden’s back the door opened and Merrick eased out, his coat bundled in his arms, and hurried away. From the room came violent sobbing. ‘Poor thing, let me go and speak to her. He is just as much to blame as she—why does the woman have to take the blame?’
‘No.’ Eden reached out and shut the door, cutting off the sounds of distress. ‘Come, back to my office; it is better if you leave before I have my interview with Merrick.’
Yes, the middle of the passageway was not the place for this conversation. Maude gathered up her skirts and stalked ahead of him in the direction he indicated. Eden Hurst was going to have an interview with her before he got anywhere near the delinquent juvenile lead.
‘That was cruel and unfair.’ Maude stood with her back to the desk, her fingertips pressed to its surface behind her. It was easier to confront him standing up, with some support. ‘That young man probably coerced her.’
Eden came in and stood in front of her, close enough to touch, close enough for her to see the coldness that turned his eyes almost black. ‘Fairness has nothing to do with it. I am running a business here. If Merrick goes, I will probably lose Susan Poole, his mistress, who is our soubrette. I can ill afford her loss at this stage in the Season, but ingénues like Harriet Golding are two a penny.’ He shrugged as though that settled the matter.
‘But Miss Golding is just a girl, alone. Don’t you care that she might become a prostitute as a result of this?’ She admired this man, was convinced she loved him. Surely he could not be this cruel? Could she have so misjudged him?
‘Her choice. Merrick was not forcing her, nor has he seduced her. I have been watching them for a few days now.’
‘Then you should have done something before now, she was your responsibility.’ He was close, too close. Maude resisted the instinct to bend back, put one hand firmly in the middle of his chest and pushed. ‘And don’t crowd me, you bully.’
It was like pushing the wall. Apparently oblivious to Maude’s hand planted on his chest, Eden dug into his pocket and produced his notebook, flipped it open and turned it so she could read what was written on the page.
Under oil lamps the definite black letters said Merrick/Golding/ Poole. ‘Oh. Well, you should have done something sooner. Will you please move!’
‘If I wanted to crowd you, Maude, I would get a great deal closer than this.’ Eden tossed the notebook on to the table, seized her wrist and removed her hand from his waistcoat without any apparent effort. He then took one step forward. Maude tried to retreat, came up hard against the edge of the desk and swayed back. Both big hands came down on the leather, bracketing her hips, a knee forced hers apart and then he was standing between her thighs, leaning over her. ‘Now this is crowding you.’
Maude struggled for balance, gripped his shoulders and stared, furious, up into his face. ‘Let me go.’
‘When you admit you were exaggerating,’ he said calmly.
Maude, braced to fight, blinked. ‘What?’
‘You accused me of crowding you, bullying you. This, I agree, is both. But before, no. You accuse me of unfairness and yet you spent an hour this morning with your attorney making certain this theatre was run as a business.
‘I am not running the Unicorn as a recreation, Maude. I am not a gentleman, although you appear to be having trouble grasping that. This is my life and my business and I will not be indulgent with anything that threatens it. Harriet Golding is not some little innocent I am tossing out into the cold—she knew exactly what she was doing when she spread her legs for Merrick.’
The fact that he was standing between her own parted thighs was not lost on Maude. Nothing was, not the heat of him, the smell of him, the tightly contained anger nor the discomfort in her back, bowed over the desk. And most of all, more mortifying than all the rest, the knowledge that she wanted to pull him down to cover her body and make love to her here and now and as wantonly as those two actors.
‘Very well.’ She swallowed. ‘I may have been a trifle… emotional about the situation, I admit. Will you please let me up now?’
Eden stepped back and she came with him, pulled by her grip on his shoulders. When she found her feet Maude let go, brushed down her skirt and walked, as steadily as her aching, shaking, legs would allow her, to pick up her hat, gloves and reticule. She had something more to say to him, but she did not know how she was going to find the courage; it was far too close to her own feelings. Yet, how could she not do her best for the girl?
She set the hat on her head, tied the ribbons beneath her chin and then drew on her gloves as she walked back to where Eden Hurst stood in front of the desk, watching her from under
