Improbable Eden Page 10

  “You serve too many masters,” Eden interjected, allowing herself the luxury of leaning against Max’s chest. “I’ truth, I’m sorry you had to inherit my poor suit, as well.”

  “But I don’t mind,” he protested, his voice dropping a notch as his hand slid down the heavy green silk that covered her back. “This house is a happier place with you in it.”

  “Oh!” Eden gasped with astonishment and stared at Max. She could hardly believe he’d uttered such gratifying words.

  Judging from the embarrassed look on Max’s face, neither could he. “It’s more like … ah, family,” he explained a bit clumsily, his hand straying to the curve of her waist. “Not that my relatives were a kindly lot. But then you’ve met Rudolf.”

  Eden gazed up at Max and blinked in confusion. What she beheld in those hazel eyes startled her. She could have sworn that she saw more than sadness or anxiety. A yearning, perhaps, or some other need that she couldn’t recognize? She was still trying to solve the riddle when Max claimed her mouth in a tentative, exploratory kiss. Taken by surprise, Eden’s mind registered a protest, but her body melted pliantly into Max’s embrace. The kiss deepened, driven by that unleashed hunger she had unwittingly glimpsed.

  To her amazement, Eden responded with an eagerness that was as foreign to her as it was intoxicating. She felt Max’s hands caress her back as he kissed her chin and the curve of her throat. Resting in his arms with her head tipped back, she hazily noted that the door was opening. A moment later, Max froze then released her so abruptly that she stumbled against the little inlaid table.

  “Harriet!” Max exclaimed, pushing back his hair and attempting a weak smile. “I thought you had left.”

  “I can see that.” Harriet’s eyes could have chilled the sun. “I intended to, but I sensed you were at home.” She gave a brisk tug at the velvet mantle draped over her shoulders. “It seems I was right. If ever a man was comfortably settled in, it’s you, Max.”

  The brittle note jarred Eden as she tried to recover from Max’s kiss and concentrate on Harriet. As for Max, his valiant effort to regain his composure was only a partial success. “Will you stay and sup with me?” he invited, moving in swift, long strides to help Harriet with her mantle. “I can explain everything over a succulent pheasant.”

  Harriet’s glance flickered over Eden. “It’s the succulent peasant that concerns me,” she retorted. She shook off Max’s hand and whirled, the mantle’s lace-edged tails swinging behind her like angry butterflies.

  “Harriet …” Max began, but was silenced by the frosty glare she threw him from over her shoulder.

  Eden, however, was not so easily quieted. “La, Milady, it seems I’ve won my wager, after all. Now Max owes me three kisses.” She stood in the middle of the room, her fingers laced behind her back, her hips swaying slightly under the gimped silk skirts.

  “What wager?” demanded Harriet, her voice more shrill than brittle.

  Eden glanced from a bewildered Max to an irate Harriet and shrugged. “I bet Max a kiss that you were the most unreasonable woman in London. He argued and argued and finally convinced me otherwise. So,” she added, unlinking her fingers and raising her hands, “I had to pay him with a kiss. It’s part of my training, you see.”

  Harriet’s perfect dark eyebrows arched. “Training? To do what?”

  Eden tilted her head to one side. “To please. To charm. To captivate. Isn’t that so, Max?”

  Max’s expression was somewhere between stunned and apoplectic. But it was to Harriet, not Eden, that he turned. “It’s true, she’s being groomed for the court. It’s Marlborough’s idea,” he averred, and winced at his disclaimer.

  “If Jack weren’t in the Tower, I wouldn’t be here,” Eden chimed in, affecting a careless manner as she patted Max’s arm in apparent commiseration. “But, Milady, you must be very proud of Max for defending your disposition. Foolish as I am, I’d let my own eyes and ears deceive me. Max made such a persuasive case on your behalf that I came to believe you were indeed a most agreeable person, right up until you walked through that door.”

  The lovely oval of Harriet’s face grew yet more pale. “You’re impudent,” she said through clenched teeth. “As for you,” she went on, waving a gloved finger at Max, “for the sake of our future, I should like to take as truth what this creature says, though common sense tells me otherwise. I will not stay to sup, but shall expect you to call on me early tomorrow.” On that imperious note, Harriet departed, banging the door behind her.

  Eden’s glee was dashed by the stormy expression on Max’s face. Having overcome his shock at Harriet’s ill-timed intrusion, he turned wrathful. “Why,” he demanded, shaking Eden by the shoulders, “didn’t you keep quiet? Why didn’t you just disappear? I told you before, I’m in charge in this house!”

  Eden felt like a rag doll in his grip; the strand of pearls snapped, and little beads spilled all over the floor. “I thought I was helping you!” she cried as he noted the broken necklace and let go of her. “You just stood there like a stick!”

  Max said nothing, but stomped to the window where he stood with his shoulders slumped. His hand went to the drape, but he made no attempt to pull it back. After a painful silence, he turned on his heel, brushed past Eden and headed for the door. “How can you pretend you helped,” he growled from the threshold, “when in fact you hindered?”

  Angry and humiliated, Eden let loose her reply a fraction too late. “I didn’t ask to be kissed!” she called after him, but the door had already closed in his wake. Fighting back tears as she bent to collect the scattered pearls, Eden spoke again, though this time in a whisper: “I didn’t, I swear it!”

  But somewhere deep within her, a small voice said she lied.

  Chapter Seven

  Marlborough’s longtime friend Lord Ailesbury had barely escaped going to the block on Tower Hill. Other accused conspirators had not been so lucky. The King’s justice had been meted out. But rumors persisted that neither William nor Bentinck was satisfied. At home and abroad, there were still Jacobites plotting to restore James. As for Marlborough, his trial date had been postponed, due to insufficient evidence.

  Eden had visited him on two other occasions, but the second time she found his quarters moved to a cramped cell without amenities. The gaoler had been much more punctilious about the length of the visit, hustling her away after a brief ten minutes. Despite her father’s optimism, Eden had left the Tower precincts in a somber mood.

  As was often the case these days, Max was not at home when she returned. He seemed to have a number of pressing engagements concerning his inheritance on the Continent and his appeasement of Harriet. Unable to express her anxieties about Marlborough to Max, Eden cast discretion to the wind and entrusted her innermost fears to Vrouw de Koch. As it turned out, the housekeeper knew a great deal more than Eden had realized.

  “This is too small a house to hide much,” she told Eden, plying her with freshly baked current buns and strawberry jam. “Himself tries to keep his little secrets, but I know him too well.”

  “You were his nurse?” Eden ventured, toying with a warm currant bun.

  Vrouw de Koch shrugged. “Of a sort. I was his mother’s confidante. She was a pretty thing—smart, too. Catharina of Anhalt-Dessau, daughter of the Elector of Saxony. She married Prince Frederick of Nassau-Dillenburg, Duke of Brabant.” The housekeeper paused to take another bite of the buttered bun she held. “Happy they were, all things considered.”

  “Such as?” Eden murmured innocently.

  Vrouw de Koch was too shrewd to be duped. “It’s not just tittle-tattle. You talk of Jan and Jana from the farm—that’s gossip. But when you’re speaking of German Electors and Flemish Princes, that’s history. Remember,” she admonished, wagging a buttery finger, “you heard it here. Prince Frederick was killed in the war, at Huy. Princess Catharina wasted away. A broken heart, maybe, but more likely one of those sicknesses that takes people young. They had only the one child, Maximilian. The
others were stillborn, which was very sad. You’d think Prince Max would be spoiled, eh?” She didn’t wait for Eden’s answer, but gave a firm shake of her head. “Not a bit of it! Sometimes I thought they blamed him for living when the others didn’t.”

  “You mean they were unkind?”

  “Oh, no. But hard. They expected much of him. It was as if they wanted him to make up for all the others.” Vrouw de Koch’s round face softened. “A pity they didn’t do more to help him. The rest of his family are worthless, especially that meddlesome Rudolf.”

  Eden reflected briefly, then risked asking the question that had been taunting her for weeks. “What about that unfinished portrait in the other bedroom? Who is she?”

  Vrouw de Koch suddenly seemed absorbed in brushing errant crumbs from the white whisk that covered her bosom. “I’ve never seen it. His grandmother, maybe.”

  Eden sensed the other woman’s evasiveness, but had no opportunity to press the matter. Heer Van de Weghe had burst into the room, his usual aplomb ruffled. “An invitation has come, from His Majesty. There is to be a levee at Whitehall two days hence.”

  Even though the royal summons was anticipated, Eden didn’t feel ready. Anxiously she watched the hofmeester scurry off, tufts of hair standing straight up on his balding head like the feathers of an agitated canary.

  Almost two hours later, Eden finished her singing lesson, leaving Signor Macarelli with his usual severe headache. His eager departure was interrupted by Max, whose entrance all but knocked the little Italian down.

  “Scusi,” Max murmured, setting the music teacher on his feet and grinning at a startled Eden. “At last! King William’s keepers are allowing him to go out in public!”

  “I don’t know ….” Eden gulped and passed an uncertain hand over her forehead. “Max, I’m afraid. I’ve not been an apt pupil. I have no sophistication. I shall embarrass Jack, and you, as well.”

  Max gave her arm a little squeeze. “Rot. You’re wonderfully real and disarmingly honest. William will appreciate that. Just don’t talk much.”

  “Ooh ….” Eden’s expression was withering, even as she clung to Max’s fingers on her arm and wondered if he remembered their kiss. “You think I’m an imbecile, don’t you?”

  “Of course not,” he answered in a reasonable tone. “You’ve had only a short time to learn history and politics, that’s all.” Max took her hand in both of his. “Don’t fret, you’ll probably have only the briefest conversation at this first meeting.”

  Fleetingly, Eden glanced at her hand, imprisoned in Max’s long fingers. She felt uneasy, yet comforted by his touch. “You’re not still vexed with me?” she inquired wistfully, thick lashes shielding her eyes.

  Max looked vaguely puzzled. “Vexed? Oh.” He shrugged. “Not anymore. I’ve made amends to Lady Harriet, though it cost me almost two months’ rent. I must beg Dame Chance’s help when next I dice at the coffeehouse.”

  Gritting her teeth, Eden withdrew her hand. “You bribed her! What sort of love is that?”

  “What business is it of yours to ask?” Max barked, no longer puzzled or benign.

  Eden thrust out her chin in a pugnacious manner. “I need to understand this ‘love’ business, as carried on by the nobility. It’s certainly not the same in a village.”

  Max’s face grew dark, though his eyes held an ironic expression. “If that lout at the Bell and Whistle was an example of how you’ve learned about love, you know nothing about the subject.”

  Eden made an angry slashing gesture with her hand. “Zut! At least Charlie Crocker isn’t mean-spirited! I can’t imagine how you could learn of love from Lady Harriet, who seems about as warm as February frost!”

  Max reached for Eden as if he intended to shake her, but then restrained himself. “I didn’t say I learned to love from Lady Harriet,” he said with quiet dignity before turning to take his cloak from the newel post. His hazel eyes had an intensity that conveyed both searing heat and chilling cold. “I learned all I could ever need to know about love from my wife.”

  Eden’s jaw dropped, but no sound came from her mouth. With a deliberate step, Max ascended the staircase.

  The palace at Whitehall had been the seat of English monarchs since the reign of Henry VIII. William of Orange, however, preferred the country air of Kensington. Plagued by asthma, William found London’s reeking atmosphere unhealthy, but deferred to his English subjects by holding court at least once a week at Whitehall. Often these were public appearances, with the King playing the gracious host in the beautiful banquet hall designed by Inigo Jones.

  There had been a damp chill in the spring twilight as Eden and Max set out for the palace in a rented coach, a strained silence between them. She had not yet recovered from the shock of learning that Max had had a wife. No doubt that unfinished yet lovely face on the canvas in the empty bedroom belonged to the woman Max had married. There had been no opportunity to question Vrouw de Koch during the hectic hours of preparation, but Eden assumed that the poor creature had died. Certainly that would explain a great deal about Max that had puzzled Eden until now.

  Nervous and on edge, Eden tried to concentrate on the handsome homes along the way. Almost all of them had been built some thirty years earlier, after the great fire. She gawked openly at the gold and rose-colored brick, the fine wrought iron, the row upon row of windows, the balconies and arches, the colorful parterres.

  Whitehall, with its jumble of buildings from a bygone era, struck her as a dowdy matron set among a bevy of fresh-cheeked maids. The company, however, was another matter. Lackeys in green, gold-laced livery held candelabra on the stairs, pages in blue satin trimmed with crimson and gold scurried to satisfy the guests’ every whim, musicians in ivory silk played Scarlatti, and footmen in purple and silver served tasty delicacies from gilded dishes.

  But it was the noblemen who evoked the greatest gasps from Eden. Not only did they far outnumber the women, but their apparel overshadowed that of the fairer sex by far. Shut up in Clarges Street these past two months, except for her unnerving riding lessons and her visits to the Tower, Eden had only glimpsed the mincing beaux who decorated the better parts of London. Here in the banqueting house at Whitehall, she was confronted by a sea of silk and satin-clad men, as exotic as rare tropical birds. It occurred to her that the elaborate wigs dictated the posing attitudes of their wearers, because they restricted movement of both head and shoulders. Preening on high-heeled shoes, with a gem-studded snuffbox in one hand and a lace handkerchief in the other, many had highlighted their powdered faces with tiny stars, crescents or triangular patches. Eden was relieved that neither Max nor Marlborough aspired to the height of fashion. Max was plainly garbed in his dove-gray breeches with buckles at the knee and a long blue coat decorated with three rows of silver braid. Yet he still appeared ill at ease in his court clothes.

  As it turned out, his lack of enthusiasm for dressing à la mode was shared by the King. Indeed, had William of Orange not been sitting in the chair of state, Eden would never have picked him out as her sovereign lord. Though he affected the formal wig, it was unpowdered, and there was no suggestion of the much admired furling horns on either side of the center part. William’s nod to fashion was a light shade of brown, which, Eden judged, was probably not unlike his own hair. His eyes were an intense brown, his mouth stern yet malleable, the brows even and well etched. But it was the nose that dominated William’s face, large and beaklike, evidence of the aggressive side of his character and strength of purpose that reposed in his frail frame.

  The King was a small man, thin and wiry, with an air of weariness about him. Though Eden knew he was the same age as Marlborough, William could have passed for the Earl’s father.

  At last Eden dared to broach a comment. “He looks so … insignificant,” she whispered to Max behind her fan. “Somehow, I thought he’d look more like Jack. Or even you,” she added, unable to take her eyes off the King, who was listening to an animated monologue by a handsome young man at
his left.

  Max was accepting a glazed cherry tart from a tray proffered by a buck-toothed page. “He’s never been robust,” Max admitted, his tone even but distant. “I fear he’s aged greatly since the Queen died.”

  “Sad,” Eden sighed, thinking it was also a pity that William should be so puny and unattractive. But most of all, she fretted over Max’s impersonal attitude and his lack of moral support. If ever Eden needed words of encouragement, it was now, when she was about to make the most important impression of her life. Tentatively she put a hand to the claret-colored curls whipped into a gleaming confection by Elsa. “Max,” she began, as the King laughed so hard that he started to cough, “do you think I look … passable?”

  Max, however, was looking not at Eden but at the young man who had so amused the King. “That’s Joost van Keppel. He’s signaling that we may be introduced to His Majesty. Are you ready?” His eyes skimmed over Eden, exhibiting neither approval nor censure. The tight rein he held over his emotions bordered on physical pain. In Clarges Street, she had descended the staircase in a cloud of copper-colored silk and black lace mesh, the candlelight catching the threads of silver in her petticoats and the shimmering curls. Her full ruffled sleeves were decorated with perfect black bowknots that inched their way across the top of the bodice to nestle against her creamy breasts. On her feet were silver slippers with topaz stones set in tiny buckles, and on her hands she wore gloves of spidery black lace. If Max had always considered Eden disarming, on this night he found her utterly breathtaking. But of course he had no right to say so.

  Eden’s hand tightened around her China fan. Her legs felt weak, and her stomach turned over. “I asked you,” she breathed, her eyes enormous, “how do I look?”

  Though he winced inwardly, Max seemed to give her no more than a cursory glance. “Satisfactory. How else after all these weeks of planning and great expense?”