Improbable Eden (39 page)

Capturing her mouth, Max felt the smooth flesh from back to buttocks, lifting her body just enough to touch his own. His kiss deepened, turned greedy, devoured her, as if he could never quite satisfy his hunger for her. “
Schoft
, Eden,” he breathed, “let's get married. Today.”

Gasping for breath, Eden clawed at Max's chest. “Not yet … I want a real wedding. I want ….” She moved her knee in such a way that she felt the full masculine strength of him pressed against her. “Dear God,” she blurted, “I want—and need—only you!”

Moved by her ardor, Max studied the piquant face. The wide-set eyes, the full mouth, the inviting curves of her body, the splendor of her hair splashed across the pillow—in looks alone, she was truly fit for a king. The irony of his initial misgivings assailed him. Her forthright manner, her penchant for laughter rather than restraint, even the qualities that had once compelled him to call her a diddlewit and a bumpkin had turned into disarming assets. But most of all it was her open nature, her generous spirit and enormous vitality that had restored him to life. In return, he had given her very little; indeed, he had very little to give. The thought struck him with jarring suddenness, and he buried his face in the curve of her shoulder.

“
Eden!” He uttered her name on a strangled note against her skin. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“
What?” Grabbing Max by the hair, she raised his head so she could look into his face. With the weight and heat of him still upon her, Eden's brain was definitely fuzzy. But she saw the serious, even anxious expression in his eyes and knew she must give him an answer. Of course he was tall and strong and handsome and even had a title, foreign though it might be. He was smart, too, and brave and honest. Yet Eden probably could say as much for a dozen men she'd met in the past year, including Joost van Keppel. Taking a breath, she smoothed the hair from his forehead and looked him straight in the eye.

“
You've made me feel as if I belong to someone. You took away the loneliness. Even Jack couldn't do that.” A smile quivered on her lips. “I'm not just me anymore, I'm part of you.”

An odd light shone in Max's eyes, and if Eden hadn't known better, she would have suspected he was on the verge of tears. He brushed her mouth with his, then sought the ripe flesh of her breasts, the flat of her stomach, the valley between her thighs. Her rational thoughts dissolved in a haze of longing. As Max found amazing new secrets to claim as his own, Eden responded with a zeal to please him as much as he delighted her.

Astonished by her spontaneity, Max rolled over on his back and groaned with ecstasy. “Where,” he gasped as Eden's clever tongue and sprightly fingers stirred him to near frenzy, “did you learn to do that?”

Eden paused, her cheek resting on his hip. “Well …” her insouciant gaze darted up the length of his body, “I guess I am my mother's daughter, after all.”

Max closed his eyes and surrendered to Eden's delicious attentions. “To think I ever thought ill of that woman. She's quite remarkable, actually.”

“
Unique,” corrected Eden with a breathy sigh. Deftly she draped her body over his and, with a little shudder of anticipation, edged down to capture him between her legs. “Oh!” she exclaimed, bracing her knees. “Oh, Max, you're remarkable, too!”

His grin slightly awry, Max clasped Eden's buttocks and rocked her back and forth. Lost in the tempo of their passion, mindless of sunlight or shadows, unaware of anything but their mutual desire, they melded body and soul together until at last rapture first elevated, then depleted them. With trembling limbs, Eden tumbled off Max, sprawling next to him in the bed with one arm flung across his legs and her head on the flat of his abdomen. For a long time neither of them spoke, and though they weren't quite sure, they may have slept. The world was a hazy place, yet warm and comforting.

Eden was the first to move, scooting up toward the pillows and gazing at Max's chiseled profile. His eyes were shut, and she was certain that he had nodded off. “Oh, Max,” she whispered, “you talk of deserving! No one deserves anyone else—we're gifts to each other, freely offered, gratefully taken. How I love you, Max!” Her face damp with tears, she pressed a kiss on his bare chest over his heart.

Slowly, Max opened his eyes and his arms enfolded her. “What a pretty speech,” he remarked, kissing the top of her head. “With words like that, you might have coaxed a king.”

Eden wiped at her cheeks with her fist and nestled closer. “I might have. But no one except you will ever hear them. To any other man they would be a lie.”

The light was fading in the bedchamber and the wind stirred over the rooftops. “Ever honest is my Eden,” murmured Max. “It's said, you know—” he sat up just enough to look at the Dresden china clock over the mantelpiece “—that whatever you do on the first day of a new year, you will do every day that follows.”

Eden seemed to reflect. “What day is it? I've lost track.”

“
It's New Year's Eve.” Max spoke with exaggerated indifference.

“
Well.” Eden pulled him down beside her. “In that case, we'd better stay here in bed until tomorrow. We can always get married next year.”

Max did not argue.

T
he sun was low on the horizon, promising a clear day despite the cold air that blew in from the North Sea. The dock at Margate was crowded with passengers and baggage, but attention was fixed upon the handsome party that had just emerged from a capacious coach bearing the Churchill ancestral arms. Prince Maximilian Augustus Frederick Wittenberg and Princess Eden of Nassau-Dillenburg, the Earl and Countess of Marlborough, Lord Sidney Godolphin and Joost van Keppel, Earl of Albermarle, were exchanging bittersweet farewells. On this first day of February, 1697, the newly married Nassau-Dillenburgs were sailing for the Low Countries to claim their inheritance at Vranes-sur-Ourthe in Brabant, where they planned to make their home.

“
Don't let Max spare any expense,” Sarah insisted in an aside to Eden as
Heer
Van de Weghe supervised the luggage. “From what I've heard, the castle is in shambles. Believe me, when my dear Lord Marl and I build in the country, I'll see to it that he loosens the purse strings for once. A woman has to be comfortable, after all, especially one in your condition.”

Placing a delicate hand on her stomach, Eden smiled at the Countess. Marlborough's wife might never formally accept Eden as part of the family but she had thawed considerably. “After the child is born in the fall, we will return to England for a visit. Max has decided to keep up the rent on the house in Clarges Street.”

“
We're counting on that,” said Marlborough, sidling up to Eden. “It's possible that we may visit you first, of course. Much depends upon Bentinck's success with the French negotiations.”

“
Bentinck!” Even in her present state of happiness, Eden could not hear the statesman's name without a sense of outrage. “If I'd been King William, I would have sent him packing to Holland!”

Marlborough's refined features tightened ever so slightly. “So would a number of others, my dear. But the fact is,” he said, taking her arm and leading her away from the rest, “the King still needs Wilhem. Only a tough old nut like Bentinck can deal with Louis.”

“
Max did right well,” declared Eden, observing her husband's amiable exchange with Keppel and Godolphin. “In fact, he played the diplomat to the hilt.”

The Earl's fair eyebrows lifted a notch. “Somehow I have the feeling that while Max played at being a diplomat, he probably was not very diplomatic. It's not exactly his style. Or mine, if it comes to that. We are both better at deeds than words. And no one knows it better than William.”

“
William.” Eden spoke the name with fondness as the breeze ruffled the ends of her silk kerchief. “Next to Max—and you—I think more of him than of any other man.” She looked at her father with an ironic gaze. “Isn't that strange, since he caused all of us a great deal of trouble?”

If there was one person who could understand Eden's affection and charity toward William of Orange, it was the Earl of Marlborough. His wife might rave and rant and wish him dead, Godolphin could grumble about Dutch interference, and the Princess Anne could pray for “the sunshine day” when the English throne would be hers, but Marlborough, like Eden, held no grudge against the House of Orange.

“
You're a good child,” the Earl said, taking Eden's hand in his and watching the sails snap on the three-masted Dutch vessel that was waiting for the tide. “I owe you so much, yet have given you so little. I regret all these months we were kept apart while I was in prison—but there it is.”

“
Now, now, you sound like Max.” Eden wagged the forefinger of her free hand at her father. “You gave me your name, which is all I ever wanted. And your love,” she added more softly, committing to memory the fawn-colored hair, the finely molded mouth and the clear gray-green eyes. “In a more practical vein,” she noted, “those shares in the Hudson Bay Company and the two thousand guineas for our wedding present were amazingly generous.”

Marlborough's mouth dropped. “Two
thousand
…?”

“
Thousand, hundred, dozen, diddle, done,” broke in Sarah, taking her husband's arm. “Eden has no head for figures, that's quite clear. Come, come, it's time for boarding. The captain has given his signal.”

Eden glanced at the clinker-built upper works of their vessel and felt a pang of sorrow. “In so many ways, I hate to go. I'll write, I swear it, though my letters look like they were scribbled with chicken feet.”

“
Eden! We must board!” Max was striding across the dock, his hair blowing in the wind. Before he could reach his bride, a big white coach with purple plumes rolled up to the pier and the Duchess of Cleveland descended in a billowing cloud of blue and red stripes.

“
Baby Ducks!” she called, “don't leave without a kiss for your poor old mother! I finally recovered from my excesses at your wedding!” Oblivious to deckhands, crewmen and voyagers, Lady Castlemaine swarmed over her daughter, planting loud, smacking kisses on each cheek. “There! I'm so proud of you, a princess and a wife and a mother! And all with the same man! It's enough to make me weep!” To prove the point, Barbara pulled out a lace-edged kerchief and blew her nose.

Eden glanced beyond her mother's huge rose-covered hat and saw an extremely tall man leaning against Lady Castlemaine's coach. Indeed, he appeared even taller than Max, and for one ghastly moment she thought Rudolf had again been resurrected. But the man removed his hat and Eden noted with relief that he was quite dark. And dirty, unless her eyes deceived her at such a distance.

“
Who is that?” she asked, nodding toward the coach.

Barbara was exchanging belligerent glances with the Countess of Marlborough and giving a lewd wink to the Earl. “Who?” The violet eyes darted in the direction Eden had indicated. “Oh, him. No one, really.” Barbara sniggered, then leaned forward to embrace her daughter a final time. “Not a word, Baby Ducks! It's my latest conquest, Czar Peter of Russia. He's here secretly to visit Wee Willie wheeze-'n'-cheese, whom he much admires, though I can't tell why. And yes, he's filthy but he
is
great. Where did you think I got the wolfhounds?”

Eden staggered slightly as her mother released her. Max had been distracted by Elsa's twittering litany about a lost trunk, which
Vrouw
de Koch had just miraculously found under the Marlborough carriage. He made a deep bow to Lady Castlemaine before hustling Eden up the gangplank.

“
Oh, Max,” lamented Eden as they reached the rail and looked down on their friends and family, “how, after so many years, could I find all of my family and now have to part with them?” She covered her mouth and tried not to cry.

“
Eden,” Max said quietly, placing his hand at her waist, “we are a family. You and I and the babe ….” His words were drowned out by the raising of the anchor and the shouts of the crew.

“
I know,” said Eden, more to herself than to Max. And she did, for this was what her dream had always been about—under the eaves at Smarden, enduring the harsh taunts of her foster family, comforting herself with stories of King Charles, trying to please her real father by capturing a king. But the search had ended in Max's arms, and now, with their unborn child, they were going to Brabant and his home in the Ardennes Forest. Nor were the Berengers completely forgotten. Gerard would join Eden and Max in another month, to take the post of Max's steward. In a new life, ironically near the source of his injury, Gerard might be able to make himself whole again. Or so Eden and Max hoped, for both were grateful to the only Berenger who had ever eased the burden of her childhood.

As the sails began to fill and the ship creaked out of its moorings, Eden saw her father, her mother, the Countess and the others wave with fond enthusiasm. “You're right,” she said, and her face glowed at Max. “At last, we're going home.” She shook her head as Max bent down to press his lips against her temple. “Max,” she said against his chest, “I meant to look up Brabant on a map, but I forgot. Where
is
home?”

As the ship crested on the tide and sailed toward the rising sun, Max held Eden tightly. “You don't need to look at maps,” he said softly. “For us, home is wherever we are together.”