Improbable Eden (10 page)

Upstairs she paused at the first of two doors. The one at the end of the hall must belong to Max. Having no wish to be caught invading his privacy, she tried the door opposite her own. The latch gave at once. Eden discovered that the furniture was covered in dust cloths and the draperies were tightly closed. There was a stale, musty smell, indicating that no one had used the room in a very long time.

An easel stood in the middle of the floor holding a partially hidden canvas. Carefully Eden plucked at the cloth and found an unfinished portrait of what was probably a very beautiful blond woman. The curls were the color of honey, the eyes a brilliant blue. But the mouth was only sketched in, the nose a mere stroke and the rest a blank. Eden pondered her identity and wondered why the artist had given up his task. Preoccupied, she made her way out of the room and ran straight into Max.

He was wearing a light gray riding cape and held his three-cornered hat in his hand. He wore no wig, and Eden wondered if he ever followed fashion.

“
You're in the wrong room,” he barked, taking an awkward step backward.

“
I know,” she admitted. “I went exploring. I found an unfinished portrait in there. Who is she?”

The high cheekbones darkened. “What idiotic questions! Why do you pry?”

Eden shrugged, trying not to let Max know how much his volatile temper unnerved her. “I was restless, and it was too foul to go outside.” Her lashes dipped in apology. “Forgive me.”

Max was having trouble controlling his emotions. The pulse in his jaw twitched, and his big hands played havoc with his hat. “You ought to be sorry,” he growled. “Why aren't you studying something?”

“
I was,” Eden replied defensively. “I was studying your house.” She watched his glower deepen and decided on a more placating approach. “The landscapes in that little parlor downstairs—they're lovely. Who did them?”

Max's hands grew still and his voice became controlled, if tense. “One is by Abraham Storck. Another by Aert van der Neer, who died some years ago. They both have a genius for water scenes. The one with the skaters is mine.”

“
Oh!” Eden clapped her hands together, ignoring Max's disgruntled look. “But it's wonderful! Those charming children and the dog running down the hill and the little village …. Wherever did you learn to do that, Max?”

He was as oblivious as she to the use of his Christian name and was already swinging past her, the gray cape snapping at his calves. “It was merely a hobby.” One arm jutted toward the door to the vacant room. “Don't go in there again. Ever.”

“
Max!” she cried, distressed at his harsh words. She was even more jarred by the note of reproach in her own voice.

“
Well?” He turned, still scowling.

Eden swallowed hard and tried to strike a conciliatory note. “Did you find Captain Craswell?”

“
No,” snapped Max. Why couldn't the wench leave him alone? It was one thing to have her under his roof, but quite another for her to invade his life. She should have had the good sense to keep to her place. Instead, she strolled around his house, poked into his private rooms, scrutinized his paintings and acted if she had every right to treat him like an equal. That, Max knew, was the problem with comely lasses—they felt free to take advantage. But he was well-armored against such feminine onslaughts. “Craswell has disappeared into thin air,” he said in a less heated, if distant, manner. Perhaps he couldn't treat her like kin; maybe he should act as if she were the enemy. Yet, he reflected, that was often what kinsmen were.

“
How strange.” Eden put a hand to her hair, hoping Max would notice the transformation of her coiffure. “Maybe he was kidnapped,” she suggested.

“
Of course he was!” Max started to turn away again.

Eden's hand froze on the cluster of curls at her temple. “Truly? Who would do such a thing?” She knew, of course; her father had relentless adversaries.

“
Whoever it is, I intend to find out,” Max assured her, giving the doorknob a twist. “By the way, are you wearing a wig? I hate wigs.”

“
It's my own hair! Master Clavell did it this afternoon.” Eden was defiant. “You sent for him, did you not?”

Max shrugged, but came forward to study the hairdresser's art more closely. It was his duty to approve her appearance, after all. “I sent for somebody. The name would mean nothing to me.” He tipped her chin up, then to one side. The shining curls smelled like honeysuckle, and Max was reminded of summer days on the Rhine. “Well. It's rather becoming, if contrived. I'm not sure I didn't like it better the other way.”

“
Fashion demands artifice,” Eden averred, finding Max's touch warm and not unwelcome. “Could a peasant seduce a King?”

“
A number of them probably have,” Max replied, apparently still absorbed in the intricacies of Master Clavell's creation. “Not William, but others. Such as Charles.” His hand fell away, and he shifted rather uncomfortably. “I must give Jack a favorable report. The swifter your progress, the sooner he will be free.”

Eden's ebony eyes were questioning. “You mean how quickly I can get the King to …?” She averted her gaze so abruptly that the gleaming curls bobbed on her shoulders. It was one thing to talk about seducing William in the abstract; it was quite another to contemplate the grim reality.

“
Holy St. Hubert,” sighed Max, “don't tell me you've suddenly gotten tongue-tied?” Grooming Eden for the royal boudoir was difficult at best, but it was certainly compounded by her reluctance and naïveté. How, Max wondered, could the wench provide companionship for a king when it was so obvious that she herself needed looking after? “The truth is,” he said in a rather uneasy voice, “I'm not much good at courtly manners myself.”

“
But you're a prince!” she protested, her hands nervously working to restore her coiffure to Master Clavell's pristine perfection.

“
A prince without a principality, a man without a home,” he replied with a wry expression. “Except for this house, which is leased from Lord Godolphin, to whom I owe the past three months' rent. Stop that,” he exclaimed, grabbing Eden's wrist, “you've got hairpins all but sticking from your ears!”

Eden stood motionless while Max did his clumsy best to rearrange her hair. In truth, though she couldn't see the results, she had the feeling that his efforts were no more efficacious than her own. She suffered his ministrations without protest, however, and discovered that she liked the tickling sensation of his fingers on her skin. Though he insisted she look straight ahead, Eden darted an occasional glance at his chiseled face and wondered what it would be like if Max leaned down and kissed her. Surely not like Charlie Crocker or Adam Young or the guard in the Tower.

“
There.” Max nodded and stepped back. “Much better. Don't let them put those silly patches on your face.”

“
But they're all the rage,” Eden declared, not wanting to admit that she, too, found them somewhat ridiculous, at least when used in profusion. “I thought you wanted me to be a proper courtesan.”

“
What I want doesn't matter!” Max exploded, shocking them both with his vehemence. He was standing stiff as an icon, fists clenched at his sides. Embarrassed, he looked away for a moment, struggled with his composure and finally brushed one sleeve across his forehead. “Why should it matter?” he muttered before regarding Eden with a stony expression. “Except for Jack, of course.”

“
Of course,” Eden agreed, forcing lightness into her voice. Max's moods continued to unsettle her. In Smarden she could at least predict the various ill humors that persisted among the Berengers.

“
So.” Max was undoing the tabs of his cape. “I must delve further into this Craswell affair. And you must practice your French.”

He wheeled, this time heading not for his chamber but for the stairs. Eden stared after him and called out in a voice that dismayed her with its querulous tone, “I told you, I already speak excellent French!”

But Max had disappeared down the staircase, leaving Eden alone.

That week the music master arrived, followed in due course by a dancing instructor, a professor of languages, a gourmet and a riding teacher who took a very nervous Eden riding in Green Park. The days were long and full, stretching through cheerless February and into dreary March. Meanwhile Marlborough languished in the Tower. Others had since been arrested, including the Earl's doughty old friend, Lord Ailesbury. The Duke of Berwick, James's son by Arabella Churchill and thus Marlborough's nephew, had been implicated but had fled to the Continent. Ironically, Craswell's crony Pendergrass had been rewarded by the King and had gone abroad. Sir John Fenwick remained at large.

The first day of spring brought a gray drizzle. Eden sat at the inlaid desk in her boudoir to write a letter to her father. She began on a positive note, regaling him with her small successes but concealing her larger failures. Halfway through, however, she confessed her loneliness and frustration: “Having found a Father, and being so hastily deprived of his Comfort, I am driven in my Duties only by the Thought that somehow my poor Accomplishments can aid in releasing you from Prison.”

Eden stared at the writing paper, wincing at the many blots she had made. A fortnight ago she had written to her foster family in Smarden, advising them of her whereabouts. That piece of correspondence had been virtually flawless. Why could she not have done half so well by her father?

Dispirited, Eden scrunched up the parchment and threw it across the room. Words, however neat, would do the Earl little good. Even now Max was abroad, looking for Captain Craswell. When the missing man had not turned up in London after a two-week search, Max had decided that Craswell must have been spirited out of the country. The house on Clarges Street seemed to echo with emptiness in Max's absence, and Eden felt cast adrift.

On impulse she made up her mind to visit her father. She had to make an eloquent gesture to prove to him that she had his best interests at heart.

Snatching up her new cloak with its miniver trim and matching muff, she called for Elsa and ordered Master Van de Weghe to send for two sedan chairs. In less than an hour, she was confronting Sir Edmund Greene, the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, and asking for permission to see Milord Marlborough. To her surprise, the request was readily granted.

“
Milord Marlborough,” said the bluff Lord Lieutenant with a wink, “has certain privileges.”

He also had a fairly commodious cell, complete with scarred but comfortable furniture. There were books and the remnants of what had been a full meal, and at least one complete change of clothes. Still, the Earl's excellent complexion had turned sallow, and he was thinner than Eden remembered him.

“
Eden!” he exclaimed, hurrying to take her hand and kiss her cheek. “What a delightful surprise!”

“
Albeit a tardy one,” she responded ruefully. “I had no notion 'twould be so easy to call on you here. I' truth, your lodgings are well-nigh luxurious.”

Marlborough, who had been studying Eden's metamorphosis with approval, gave a quick look over his shoulder at the familiar surroundings. “Sidney Godolphin insists on bribing the gaolers. You'd think a man who had been Lord Treasurer of England could devise better ways to spend his money.” The Earl shook his head at the thought of such extravagance. “Sidney, bless him, is a good and generous friend.”

“
For the sake of your comfort, I'm glad he is,” Eden declared, trying not to smile at her father's penurious streak. She still had difficulties reconciling his expenditures on her behalf with his frugal nature. “Have you any news from the King?”

Marlborough was lifting the lid of a small teak chest. He extracted a dusty bottle, presumably of wine, and reached for a mismatched pair of pewter mugs. “A toast, my dear? To our success?”

Eden eyed the wine bottle uncertainly. A few drops wouldn't hurt, now that she knew it was unwise to down too much too fast. In any event, she must become accustomed to strong spirits, since she understood that the courtiers drank little else. “Indeed, sir,” she replied, realizing that, as with Max, she had no idea what form of address to take with Marlborough.

The Earl had noticed her sudden consternation. “I believe in respect,” he remarked, handing her one of the mugs, “but we are family, after all.”

Family, Eden thought as she held onto the mug with both hands. The word had taken on a new dimension, though it still didn't seem quite real. Yet there was Marlborough, standing not three feet away, as easy of manner imprisoned in the Tower of London as he would have been in the House of Lords—or the Berenger kitchen. Any notions Eden might have had about the haughty arrogance of English aristocrats was given the lie by her father's comfortable egalitarian manner.

“
I can't call you Papa, I called Monsieur Berenger that. And Father sounds so formal ….” Eden's earnest face wore a puzzled expression.

“
What about Jack?” suggested Marlborough. “That's what my friends call me.”

“
Jack?” She'd heard Max refer to the Earl in such a way, but somehow it seemed too ordinary, even common. Yet, Eden had to admit, he looked more like Jack than milord or Pater or even Father.