Improbable Eden (27 page)

The slant of the cottage eaves made it impossible for Max to stand up. “I hope my feet don't hang over the edge of the loft,” he whispered, as with a final admonition for the two young boys to settle down, the Boeykenses blew out the candles below.

Eden blinked in the sudden darkness as she tried to rearrange herself in a comfortable position. Directly above her was a tiny oval window where she could catch a glimpse of sky. Now that she and Max were safe and in relative privacy, she felt unaccountably tense. “Where are we going?” she whispered, for want of a more pertinent remark.

Max was having even more trouble getting situated than Eden. “Oostende, then to England. William will be heading there as soon as his visit with the Elector is finished. If I'm to exonerate myself and you are to help your father, we must see His Majesty as soon as possible.”

“
Yes,” Eden agreed on a rueful sigh. “I've lost track of time. What day is it?”

“
I'm not sure, either. Third week of September, as I recall.” Max kicked his boots aside and made yet another attempt to stretch out, this time on the diagonal. His feet struck Eden's calf, making her giggle. “Sorry. This is the damnedest barracks I've ever been assigned to. In truth, it's not—I slept in a pigsty once, near Ath.”

“
You wouldn't have to stick your head in the corner if you moved over,” Eden suggested, trying to roll up the stiff sleeves of Max's jacket.

“
I'm fine,” Max replied abruptly, forgetting to lower his voice. He paused, leaning on one elbow. The reassuring sound of snoring floated up from the main floor of the cottage. “Good night, Eden.” Grappling with the single coverlet, he sat up and banged his head on the rafter.

As he stifled the curse that leaped to his lips, Eden put out a hand. “Max!” she cried softly, “Are you all right?”

“
Yes. No,” he corrected himself, rubbing the top of his head.

The moon had come out, sending silver shafts of light into the little loft. Eden could see Max quite clearly, the sun-streaked hair awry, the lawn shirt torn at both sleeves, the bare feet sticking out from the coverlet. Eden found his dilemma both pitiable and endearing. “Is there a bump?” she whispered, sitting up. “Let me see.”

“
Don't!” Max retreated, though he could move no more than a few inches. “Go to sleep, Eden,” he ordered in a stern voice. “You'll wake the Boeykenses.”

“
Judging from those snores, the French army couldn't wake them,” Eden retorted, annoyed by Max's sudden shift in mood. Somehow, she had hoped that the recent candid rapport between them would have quelled his need to put up barriers. Maybe he didn't know his betrothal to Harriet had been broken off. Perhaps he was angry because she had spoken sharply about Sophie Dorothea. As he lifted his chin above the covers and grimaced slightly, Eden had to press her hands against her sides to keep from touching him. She had no right to want him. But neither could she repress her love for him.

Timidly, she made an attempt to mend the unexpected breach between them: “Max—I didn't mean to criticize your wife today. I was tired and frightened, and the words came out all wrong.” Eden twisted around on the pallet, trying to keep the bulky coat in place. “
Vrouw
de Koch told me what a wonderful woman she was. I know Sophie must have been perfect.”

Max had been staring into the rafters, his face devoid of expression. He raised his head and turned slowly, his chin on his hand. Eden was a scant three feet away, the claret curls a-tumble, the ebony eyes shadowed by the long lashes, the enchanting features made poignant by distress. Shoeless, with torn silk stockings and a bruise on her cheek, she was all but enveloped in his big coat. The childlike quality he had at first found captivating and irritating had never been more apparent, yet she had changed in these past months. As with a great painting, he discovered something new every time he looked at her. Today he had been struck by her courage and daring, as well as her ability to rally from adversity. Each fresh quality made her more priceless and unique. He reached out to brush the bruise on her cheek.

“
Sophie wasn't quite perfect,” he said quietly. “She wasn't you.”

Eden's eyes widened with wonder, and she grasped his fingers in hers. She could not believe what he had said, nor could she take in the frank expression in his gaze. Wordlessly she pressed her face against his hand as joy spilled over her.

“
I may never again have a chance to tell you how much I love you,” Max said, speaking in a low, husky voice. “But you ought to know. You've given me strength and joy and hope. My life was empty until you popped out of that gate with Jack, all but falling down onto the cobbles.” His smile was bittersweet as he caressed her cheek, ever mindful of the bruise from Rudolf's blow. “I didn't know it then. In fact, I refused to recognize the truth until a few weeks ago, when I went to Hohenstaufen. My memories of the place were so painful that I could never have gone there at all if you hadn't given me the fortitude to face the past.”

Eden put a tentative hand in his rumpled hair. “But I didn't do anything. I wasn't even there,” she protested with a little shake of her head.

Max pulled her closer and rubbed his nose against hers. “But you were. That's the wonder of it—you are always with me. You were even there when I left you the first time, to go to Givet last spring. And that's the way we must leave it.” The pain in Max's eyes gave the lie to the resolute tone of his words. Slowly, he took away his hand. “Let's go to sleep, Eden. It grows very late.”

Eden took a deep breath and closed her eyes. His declaration was more than she could have hoped for, yet it was what she had known for a long time. Guided by an instinct as old as Eve, she'd tried to tell him she knew the difference between the lust she had seen in Charlie Crocker's eyes and the love she had glimpsed in his own. But his denials had shaken her faith. She was young and inexperienced; perhaps she had been wrong.

“
How could I have doubted what seemed so plain?” she murmured, as much to herself as to Max. “Do you know about Harriet?”

“
Harriet?” Max was once again wrestling with his coverlet. “Oh—yes. She ran off with some rich peer from Suffolk.”

“
Sussex,” Eden corrected him. Clearly, he didn't give a fig about Harriet. Eden should have felt triumphant. Instead she grew melancholy. Turning on her side, she looked at Max, his rumpled hair silvered by moonlight, his bare chest exposed under the open, ragged shirt, the sharp cheekbones taut with emotion. Her love could not be stifled any more than his, but she owed it to both her father and Max to keep a rein on her desire.

“
I'm glad you don't have to spend your life with that virago,” Eden remarked quietly. “She would have made you miserable.”

“
I already was.” Max gave a rueful laugh. For some moments he was silent, and Eden wondered if he was drifting into sleep. Then he shifted on the pallet and turned to look straight into her eyes. “Did Rudolf really … harm you?”

“
No.” Eden shivered at the memory of his violent attempt. “He would have, though, had you not come in time.”

Max nodded once. “For that, I would have killed him.” His gaze traveled from her pale face to the curve of her throat and the opening of the bulky suede coat, which revealed the merest hint of the cleft between her breasts. “I can't get comfortable,” he said rather testily. “Maybe I should sleep in the cheese house.”

“
The cats will keep you awake,” Eden responded, a trifle too loudly. She tensed, awaiting some sound from below, but heard only the Boeykenses' contented snoring. Outside, an owl gave its nocturnal call and a chorus of frogs replied. Eden suddenly realized she was staring at Max and that he was staring right back, their gazes holding each other hostage.

Max willed himself to break the enchanted gaze, but even as he moved to sit up and leave the loft, his arms reached out to pull Eden close. No mortal man could go on resisting a maid as enchanting as Eden, especially when love joined forces with desire.

“
I've no more fight left in me,” he muttered, just before his mouth came down on hers. Eden drank in his kisses with a hunger fueled by self-denial. She felt his tongue in avid exploration, inviting her to respond with an eagerness to match his own. Their kisses grew more greedy, each devouring the other with the pent-up passion they had fought so hard to suppress. Max slipped his hand beneath the big coat, seeking her bare flesh.

“
This is madness,” he whispered, crowning one breast with his hand.

“
No, it's destiny.” Eden seized his hair in her fingers and planted fierce little kisses on the chiseled planes of his face. Her breasts ached at his touch, and she wriggled impatiently as he stripped the coat from her shoulders.

“
These past few weeks I was haunted by the memory of how you looked in the bathing pool at Honselaardijk.” Max spoke in a whisper, a crooked smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I can't stop now, Eden. I should have known that before we came up to the loft.”

Eden gave him a look that smoldered with a sensuality she would never have recognized in herself. “Maybe you did.” Her thighs quivered as he kissed each breast, then flicked his tongue over her nipples, turning them into fiery buds of longing. She moaned softly, her hands at his chest, pushing away the tattered shirt. Max shrugged the garment off, his hand trailing from the nape of her neck to the waistband of her skirts. She knew as well as he did what folly they were about to commit. But wrapped in each other's arms, under the eaves in a shaft of silver moonlight, Eden could only follow her heart. She offered no resistance when Max pulled away the riding habit and placed the flat of his palm on her silk-clad thigh.

The hands that imprisoned her senses and freed her spirit crept up to caress that most secret part of Eden's being. Even through the filmy undergarment, Max's touch was like flame on frost. She melted into him, urging his fingers to work their will. In a slither of silk, she lay bare before him, elated by the expression of awe upon his handsome face. Almost worshipfully he ran his long fingers through the rich ebony triangle that promised the fulfillment of his quest.

“
God help me, I love you so!” he breathed, one hand at his belt. “Is love so wrong?”

Eden swallowed hard, then gasped as she saw Max in the virile glory of his nakedness. All the strength, power and intensity she had recognized in him overwhelmed her. As he knelt above Eden, she locked her fingers behind his head and arched her back. “You
are
godlike,” she murmured, trembling at the sensation of his touch between her thighs.

Max's head was buried between her breasts even as he explored the untouched terrain of her womanhood. Eden tightened her grip on him, as if holding him captive. Her entire body seemed driven to a destination she understood in only some vague, primeval way. For one brief moment, it seemed as if her goal was elusive, an impossible attainment no earthly force could achieve. The unexpected pain vanished in a flash of ecstasy as he thrust slowly yet surely, his arms cradling her shoulders. Together they moved as one, their rapture lifting them above the clouds, over the moon, somewhere among the glittering stars. And like a comet, Eden's world blazed with light and warmth until she gasped with wonder and went limp in Max's embrace.

Max had also gone very still, his chin resting in the masses of her tumbled hair. He had known great happiness in Sophie Dorothea's arms, he had not lived a celibate life since her death, and his experiences with women had been momentarily pleasurable. But despite Eden's innocence, he had found such bliss as he could not have imagined. “You are aptly named,” he said softly. “You
are
Eden.”

Still dazed by the marvel of their mutual discovery, Eden looked at him with a smile that was as wide as her ebony eyes. “No matter what happens, we belong to each other,” she whispered. “Forever.” Her face was damp with tears.

Still in a state of euphoria, Eden and Max set out the next morning for Brussels. The sun shone with the burnished gold of autumn, and the leaves were turning to copper on the poplar trees that lined the road. They spoke very little, content to ride pressed close together and to let their love flow between them like a sprightly mountain stream.

It was in a tiny, nameless village that the spell was broken. Max had stopped to water their horse at the trough in the rustic town square when he overheard the local blacksmith exchanging the latest gossip with a mendicant friar.

“
William stayed only two days at Moylandt,” Max told Eden after he had questioned the monk closely. “The Elector's daughter is a prissy schoolgirl of fourteen who smoked so much she set His Majesty to coughing up his lungs. To make matters worse, Keppel raced Bentinck's coach halfway to the Rhine, and the two men almost came to blows. The King has already sailed for England.”

Eden blanched at the news. She had almost hoped that William would find a new bride, thus absolving her of the need to continue her pursuit. But that was thoroughly selfish. Besides, William's marital status had nothing to do with his acquisition of a mistress. Worst of all, his departure for England signaled danger for Marlborough. The trial would no doubt begin as soon as William reached Whitehall.

“
How far is Oostende?” she asked in a hollow voice.