Improbable Eden (15 page)

Eden must also try to ignore Harriet's ominous presence, despite the conciliatory manner the other woman had assumed.

“
La,” Harriet remarked in a subdued voice, “note that my good uncle, Milord Bentinck, tries to capture the King's attention. How Uncle Wilhem hates his young rival, Keppel! They are like a faithful old lion and a skittish young tiger.”

More surprised by Harriet's sudden change of attitude than her disclosure about William's feuding rivals, Eden was momentarily distracted. “I forgot,” Eden confessed, “that Milord Bentinck was related to you.” She tried to pick out the Dutch statesman among the churning covey of courtiers. A serious man with graying red hair was standing to one side, his face puckered in an expression of bewildered rejection. “Is that Milord Bentinck?” Eden asked under her breath.

Harriet's fine eyebrows shot up. “What? Where?” She seemed inexplicably obtuse.

“
There,” replied Eden, nodding toward the older noble, whose attempt at fashion was ill-suited to his stolid demeanor.

Harriet held a slim white hand to her eyes. “La, I seem bat-blind! To think I espied the dear man only a moment ago! Pray point with your fan, Mistress. The room grows hazy with smoke.”

Trying to check her impatience, Eden jerked her fan in Bentinck's direction. “He's no more than ten feet away, Milady. I' faith, your sight is—” She stopped abruptly, startled as much by the sudden shocked expression on Harriet's face as by the unexpected immobilization of her fan. Turning slowly, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “Good God almighty and seven hands around!” Eden cried as, to her horror, she discovered that her fan was lodged in the unpretentious furls of King William's wig.

“
We beg your pardon,” came a gruff voice with a foreign accent. “By your leave, Mistress, please liberate our wig.”

Woodenly clutching the fan, Eden felt dozens of eyes boring in on her. She was dimly aware of Max looming over the rest, his sharp features frozen in dismay. To her astonishment, it was Harriet who rushed to the rescue.

“
Your Majesty!” she exclaimed, sweeping a practiced curtsy, “it was an accident! Mistress Eden was trying to point someone out to me, and she gestured with her fan.” Her hand glided through the air like a white dove, then deftly extricated Eden's fan from William's wig. “Allow me, Sire,” she exhorted, gingerly smoothing the waves of artificial hair into place. “Perfect! Your Majesty's imposing appearance makes King Louis tremble with envy!”

Mortified, Eden watched Harriet's eyelashes flutter like an insect's wings and realized that even the King was not immune to the insidious woman's charms. A large open space had formed around Eden, Harriet and William as the other courtiers withdrew. Max stood rooted nearby, his visage showing signs of a gathering storm.

For Eden, no door had ever seemed as far away as the nearest exit in Inigo Jones's banqueting house. Mercifully, the King was ignoring her. Instead he was murmuring his gratitude to Harriet and bestowing a perfunctory kiss on her hand. Then he turned to the dais where Bentinck brooded and Keppel pranced like a pony.

“
Max!” exulted Harriet, her smile sweet as sugarplums. “Haven't we had the most extraordinary incident? Eden got to meet the King! ”

“
So I saw,” Max muttered, eyeing Eden with barely controlled fury. “It's time to leave. Indeed, it's already too late.”

But again, Harriet seemed to intercede. “Now Max,” she countered, a graceful hand at the tiny spray of violets that sprouted from the bosom bottle she wore in her décolletage, “don't let a minor gaucherie spoil your evening. We must share a dish of early strawberries and thick cream.”

Max vacillated, inadvertently giving Joost van Keppel time to approach the trio. “Zounds,” exclaimed Keppel, studying Eden with an inquiring eye, “can this be your protégée, Max? She's kin to Marlborough, I hear.”

With a fuming glance at Eden, Max turned to Keppel. “Don't blame Jack,” he muttered. “The poor man has troubles enough.”

Keppel pivoted just enough to show off the handsome embroidered clocks that adorned his silk stockings. He was a handsome young man, with well-defined features and an excellent physique, but for Eden, his attributes were lost under the heavy powder and elaborate wig. More to the point, she wished she could lose herself among this hostile company and flee London. Even the Berengers seemed congenial by comparison.

“
Marlborough deserves a better fate,” Keppel remarked, though Eden wasn't sure whether the Dutchman alluded to the Earl's imprisonment—or her.

Speculatively, Keppel gazed at Harriet, who was looking vaguely belligerent. “His Majesty receives poor advice. Perhaps I should test the wind and put in a word on His Lordship's behalf.” With a careless motion, he withdrew an ivory snuffbox from his red damask coat. Inserting a pinch in each nostril and sniffing with consummate delicacy, Keppel eyed Bentinck across the room. “It seems to me that it's time for a breath of fresh air to blow through these stale old walls.”

“
Cheek,” breathed Harriet, rising to the bait. “Have you ever seen a new foal run at Newmarket?”

Keppel regarded her with a bemused expression. “No, but I've seen an old fool try to run the King.” Ignoring Harriet's ire, he sneezed twice, bowed to both women and nodded to Max before sauntering away in the direction of the royal dais.

“
Boor!” cried Harriet. “He hates my uncle because the King relies so much on Uncle Wilhem's expertise! And because His Majesty and Uncle Wilhem were boys together in the Gelderland! Joost is a mere popinjay, a dancing doll!”

Several courtiers were turning to see why Lady Harriet was so annoyed, but Max put a firm hand on her arm. “You forget that your uncle has done much to persecute Jack, who happens to be my friend. I had hoped that our engagement might persuade him to leniency.”

“
Oh, pooh!” retorted Harriet with a wave of her hand. “Our union doesn't include the entire English peerage, half of which seems bent on regicide!” Abruptly, she composed herself and turned those mesmerizing emerald eyes on Max. “Take me home, my sweet. I'm most fatigued.”

Eden, who had been standing in miserable isolation, tried to look at Max, but faltered. He had already motioned to a lackey and was dropping a coin in the lad's hand. “I have a rented coach,” he said, then jerked a thumb in Eden's direction. “Will you see this … young lady into it?” With only the most cursory of nods, Max sent Eden on her way.

Blindly, she followed the lackey out of the banquet hall. The ride to Clarges Street seemed to take forever. But as she dragged her elegant silk skirts up the steps and let herself in as noiselessly as possible, Eden's resolve hardened. The evening had been a disaster, there was no use avoiding the fact. But the gaffe she had made wasn't irreparable. Nor, she was convinced, had it been her fault.

Harriet was a nasty creature whose uncle happened to be the King's closest adviser—and an adversary of Marlborough's. Harriet had embarrassed Eden not only out of spite, but also to hamper the Earl's cause. Surely Max could understand his fiancée's motives. Eden could almost appreciate the other woman's petty jealousy. But Harriet's interference with Marlborough's fate was another matter. The Earl's life was not a trifle to be jeopardized by a spoiled chit's whims.

Quite worked up into a frenzy of righteous indignation, Eden headed not for her upstairs bedroom, but to the little parlor with the paintings she admired so much. She lit the tapers in the sconces that flanked the Venetian mirror, then she collapsed onto a tufted ottoman. She shed her dainty silver slippers, peeled off the spidery gloves and tossed her cloak onto the Italian harpsichord. In the flickering candlelight, Max's snow scene took on an eerie brumal cast. Frowning, Eden tried to relax and overcome her sense of failure.

After an hour passed she grew sleepy, but willed herself to stay awake. She hoped Max would not while away the night with his spiteful fiancée. To her surprise, no more than another five minutes passed before she heard his footsteps in the hall. Summoning up both courage and dignity, Eden called to him just as he put one foot on the bottom stair. “Max, I need to speak with you. Please.”

Max peered into the gloom, his hand on the balustrade. “
Schoft
,” she heard him mutter, but he reluctantly complied. “Don't tell me you're going to make a tearful apology at this time of night,” he grumbled, going to a small cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jet. “There's not much you can say to excuse your ridiculous behavior.” Removing a grizzled glass decanter, he poured himself a drink, pointedly making no offer for Eden to join him.

“
Max, you're an ass.” Eden was bracing herself against the harpsichord, but her gaze was level. “No—it's that you're easily duped. Harriet makes you dance like a marionette, and I'll be halfway to heaven before I can figure out why. The woman has all the charm of rust.”

Towering over Eden, Max held the tumbler of gin in one hand and drummed the fingers of the other on the burnished harpsichord lid. “You're insolent. You have no right to criticize Harriet. Or me. Here you are,” he went on, his voice rising steadily, “trying to shift the blame for your own stupidity! When all you had to do was curtsy nicely and say a few pretty words and look completely dazzling. But instead,” he roared, the gin sloshing over the brim of his cup, “you humiliated yourself—and me! You played the diddlewit! It was a farce!” Max gulped at his gin, then made a visible effort to get his temper under control.

His harangue had made its impression, yet only one word mattered to Eden. Max had called her dazzling. Not satisfactory, but dazzling. She felt the beginning of a smile on her lips, yet knew she must remain serious.

Tossing down the rest of the gin, Max shook himself like an enormous pup. “This is worthless blather. It's late, I'm to bed.” He set the tumbler on the harpsichord and started for the door.

“
Why didn't you tell me before?” Eden's question was phrased softly, yet with portent.

He turned, one foot on the threshold. “What?”

Trying not to betray her nervousness, Eden pushed an errant curl from her temple. “You refused to tell me how I looked. You threw me into the lion's den without a weapon. Did you truly think I was confident or sophisticated enough to survive on my own?”

Max's face contorted with annoyance. “Don't be silly! I complimented your appearance. What did you want, for me to grovel at your hem like Charlie the Lout?”

Eden lifted her chin. “You're not Charlie. Nor are you a lout. Why,” she asked, and a sudden, jarring note of despair pierced her voice, “don't I hate you?” Eden began to cry, loud, racking sobs that convulsed her body and forced her to cling to the harpsichord like a shipwreck victim clutching at flotsam.

“
God.” Max's composure was jolted, and he took three long strides across the little parlor to her side. “Stop!” he commanded, shaking her bare shoulders. “You're overwrought! Here ….” He reached for the decanter, remembered that he'd put it away and instead patted Eden's back in a soothing gesture. Her sobs subsided, though tears still coursed down her cheeks. Perhaps he should call for
Vrouw
de Koch and let the housekeeper put her to bed. But the jumble of curls that nestled in the curve of Eden's shoulder, the agitated rise and fall of her soft breasts, the wounded misery in her ebony eyes made him pause. For all her insouciant ways and ebullient manner, she was a vulnerable little thing, a fish out of water, an innocent country lass lost in the corruption of city and court.

Staring into her dark, sorrowful eyes, Max felt goaded to make an apology. But the words he was carefully forming never came out. Instead, his mouth claimed hers in a kiss that was as inevitable as it was impassioned. Eden's knees buckled and her fingers clutched at Max's chest for support. He was holding her close, lifting her off the floor, searing her lips with his, drawing the breath from her, and somehow reaching down into her very soul. She was limp in his embrace; the evening's catastrophe faded into insignificance.

Max's mouth crept down to the hollow of her throat while one hand lost itself in the tumble of curls at her neck. She pressed her fingers into the fine fabric of his shirt sleeves, savoring the taut strength of his arms. Max's touch on her breast evoked a gasp of delight, stirring emotions that Eden had only glimpsed at their first kiss. In the jumble of her mind, Marlborough's words came back to her, about differentiating between wants and needs. With Max, Eden knew no difference—want and need were one and the same. Without the slightest hesitation, she drew back just enough to permit Max's hand to roam at will, her eyes closed in sweet surrender.

With an agonizing slowness born of awe as much as pleasure, Max's hand all but swallowed up one breast, his thumb poised against her nipple as if willing its bud to burst with desire. All of Elsa's carefully concocted handiwork had now come undone, and shimmering claret tresses spilled over Max's arm. He lifted his mouth from hers to make a strange growling noise deep in his throat, and Eden purred in response. So, she thought hazily, this was love—or was it? Max was betrothed to another, and for Eden, love was a stranger.

But her mental processes failed her. Max was loosening the bowknots on her gown, slipping down the lace and silk and ruffles to reveal her sheer lawn chemise. This, Eden realized in some still rational part of her mind, was the moment of restraint. Should the dainty chemise with its edge of fine lace yield to Max's covetous hands, instinct told her, all was lost. Opening her eyes, she stared into the chiseled features with their steep plains and rugged angles. The hazel eyes were smoky, a parody of Max's usual cool detachment. He seemed almost helpless, a willing victim of Eden's spell. She felt strangely powerful, and the smile she gave him was as luminous as the April moon.