Improbable Eden (22 page)

Eden's mouth curved into a smile. “Is that some sort of siren? Where is the Rhine?” she asked. “I've never been quite sure.”

Kneeling in the water, Max moved closer to Eden. “You mustn't ask about geography,” he said in a faintly hollow tone. “Don't ask the impossible of me.”

Her eyes shimmered as she gazed at the broad shoulders, now bronzed by the sun and sleek from the bath. He reminded her of a powerful, tawny lion. Eden knew she must not tempt Max, but could not help reveling in her power any more than she could stop from yielding to him.

Yet William of Orange was no longer an unattainable goal. Her virtue was the most powerful weapon in the defense of her father. And of Max. Eden backed away until she felt her bare shoulders touch the tiles.

Max's hazel gaze bore down on her, poignant with desire. “I ask you again,” he begged. “Stop me.”

But Eden knew he didn't mean it. “How can I when I'll wither away?” Her chin trembled, but her eyes were steady.

“
You don't know the difference between love and lust,” he said, deliberately putting a hand in the masses of her wet hair.

“
Yes, I do.” The reply was simply stated, yet carried deep conviction. “I know the difference between you and Charlie Crocker.”

Slowly he tipped her face up to his. Her cheeks were pink from the bath, her eyes wide with anticipation. Through the murky water, he could just make out the delectable curves of her naked body. “You don't know the difference,” he insisted, his other hand at her back.

Eden inched forward, awaiting his kiss. “But I do,” she murmured. “It's you who doesn't know.” Without hesitation, she pressed her mouth against his, her fingers clasped behind his head. She paid no heed to his unshaven chin or the wound on his arm, which was all but healed. Nothing mattered except the fervor of their embrace and the hunger of their kisses.

Max's hand slid down to her waist and then to the rounded flesh of her buttocks, and Eden sighed. The yearning sensation that welled up shattered reason as well as ideals. Caressing the muscles of his upper arms and shoulders, Eden felt the water mingle with his touch and laughed with delight. Not all the kings in Christendom, not all the wealth of Araby could have brought her as much pleasure as Max, hurtling into the room with his sunburned face and ragged clothes.

Max lifted her just high enough out of the pool to bury his face between her breasts and outline the slim waist with his ardent fingers. Locked together in the scented water, they touched and kissed, beguiled by their mutual enchantment. The waters danced around them.

Max held Eden lightly with one arm, while his other hand went to his belt. “I'm a fool,” he said, with a crooked grin. “And an ass as well, and you ought to hate me. But I can't stop. I warned you.”

Eden's instinct told her what was about to happen. She took a deep breath and offered a token resistance by straining against his grasp. But the ebony eyes shone, and her heart raced with excitement. “No one need know. I could tell the King I was ravished in Smarden.”

Max's grin spread across his face as he unhitched his belt. “You wouldn't lie. Yet knowing you, he might believe it. God help us that he—”

The sentence was cut short by the opening of the door and a sharp cry from Elsa. “Lord have mercy! Forgive me, I've come to warn you, Mistress! Your Highness, I didn't know ….”

Clutching at his breeks, Max released Eden and turned to Elsa, who was standing by the pool, a froth of petticoats over her arm. Both master and servant had flushed, and it was hard for Eden to tell who was the most embarrassed. Discreetly, she submerged herself in the bathing pool and felt her spirits plunge along with her body.

“
The soldiers,” Elsa began, setting down the petticoats and gesturing animatedly with her fingers. “They are still looking for Your Highness and have the palace surrounded. I had no idea you were here.”

“
I am.” Max spoke tersely as he pulled himself out of the pool and grabbed his shirt and boots. Eden watched him as he dressed, then beckoned for Elsa to bring her robe. Outside, darkness was settling in over Honselaardijk. She saw Max at the French windows, looking for a way to open them. “If I could slip out onto the dunes,” he said more to himself than to Eden and Elsa, “I might be able to get to a boat.” He turned and spoke slowly to the little maid. “Where is Bentinck?”

Elsa's color had faded from crimson to its normal rosy hue. “He's with the King. His Majesty is ill again. He suffered another coughing fit while listening to his musicians rehearse in the
oranjezaal
.”

“
I'll create a diversion,” said Eden, decorously wrapped in her silk robe. “See, the moon is already going down.”

Max glanced dubiously at Eden, then looked outside. It was true; the luminous half-moon was already hanging low over the scrollwork gardens. “What will you do?” he asked, a hand on her arm.

Pushing the wet hair off her forehead, Eden gave a little shrug. “I'll hunt for turtles. The soldiers will have to help me.”

Max's chiseled expression briefly registered puzzlement, then he grinned and squeezed her shoulder. “I'm sure that makes perfect sense.”

“
Of course it does,” Eden replied seriously. “But where will you go?”

The grin evaporated as Max pulled Eden close, and Elsa discreetly withdrew to a cabinet at the far end of the room. “Not far,” he said. “Putting distance between us doesn't seem to work, does it?” Before Eden could respond, he kissed her mouth, a quick, fierce kiss that made her tremble.

“
You'd best get dressed,” Max growled, sounding much like the moody stranger she had first met. But, as she stared into the hazel eyes, she knew he was a different man.

A
simple ploy had effected Max's escape. Out on the dunes, Eden informed the guard that she needed him to hold a torch while she hunted for turtle eggs in the sand. The King, she said, required a steaming soup, and the eggs that went into the making of it had to be procured after dark. Bored by his long watch and charmed by Eden, the guard stood at her side while Max crept out of the palace.

Eden was relieved that Max had gotten away, but she was desolated by loneliness. The next morning she awoke dispirited, wishing that she had fled with him instead of staying behind with the court. Trying to overcome her lassitude, Eden sought solace among the rows of blue and white lupin, of red and pink carnations, of gold and purple iris, all laid out in a perfect scrollwork pattern behind the palace.

Yet every sight somehow reminded her of Max. The statue of Cleopatra embracing the asp evoked lost love; Momus's mocking countenance taunted her with his cynicism; Narcissus, like Keppel, was self-absorbed, gazing at his reflected stone image in perpetual admiration, and oblivious to the rest of the world's troubles.

Eden had just reached the wrought-iron gates of the royal menagerie when Sidney Godolphin called her name.

“
Mistress,” he began, bustling up to join her and lowering his voice, “is it true that Prince Maximilian was in the palace last night?”

“
He was.” She couldn't hide her forlorn expression. “He tried to see the King, but Milord Bentinck ordered his arrest.”

Concern was stamped on Godolphin's round face. “Bentinck is in a frenzy. The King is very ill,” he explained as a pair of camels stalked the paddock and eyed their human counterparts with suspicion. “Alas, His Majesty's health is much worse than Dr. Bidloo had first suspected.”

“
Oh, dear.” Eden frowned at a strange animal with twisted horns. “Mayhap I should seek out some of my more extreme remedies. Is it mainly his lungs?” Godolphin didn't reply until two maids in flaring Dutch caps had passed by with an assortment of cleaning utensils. “I'm not sure. Usually he's happier and thus healthier in the United Provinces. But not this time.”

Eden was scanning the gardens. “There are cures within these very precincts,” she announced, as a long-necked, long-legged creature strutted toward the fence. “Will you help me? I must see the King.”

Godolphin inclined his head. “Of course. But are you sure you can be of aid, my dear?”

Eden was moving briskly down the path. “If what you say is true,” she said over her shoulder, “I can hardly make him worse.”

As Max stood beside his bay gelding and looked up at the steep curtained walls of the castle at Hohenstaufen, he forced his mind to dwell on every scrap of painful memory. Only now, after all these years, could he confront the tragedy of Sophie Dorothea and their stillborn son. First at Vranes, and now at Hohenstaufen, he had faced his past. Resolutely his hazel gaze scanned the ancient gray stones, so like the face of the mountain that it was almost impossible to tell where Nature's work left off and man's began.

Max's long mouth tightened as he caught sight of a single figure moving down the winding path that lead from the castle.

“
Max!” called Rudolf, his voice echoing off the mountain.

Max said nothing. He had been standing at the edge of a little stream while his horse cropped at the short, thick grasses. With deliberate indolence he strolled to a linden tree and sat down with his long legs stretched out before him. It would take Rudolf another five minutes to get to the bottom of the mountain. Max wasn't going to waste his breath until he was face-to-face with his cousin.

To the casual observer, it appeared as if nothing could please Rudolf more than to find his kinsman lounging under the linden trees and taking the late summer sun. “How fit you look!” he exclaimed, vaulting the stream and dropping down beside Max. “Who could guess you've been running for your life!”

“
You, for one, being the cause of my flight.” Max spoke wryly, his expression wary. “I want it to stop, Rudi. Your persecution serves no purpose. In the end, everyone will suffer. If I were you, I'd worry more about William's wrath than about what happens to me.”

Rudolf locked his hands behind his head and leaned against the tree trunk. “Is that why you came all the way to Hohenstaufen?” His bogus smile was trained on Max. “Sooth, I thought you wanted to kill me. Otherwise, why not come up to the castle?”

Max glanced at the invincible fastness that clung to the cliffs of the Swabian Jura. “I'm not quite the fool you take me to be,” he replied. “As I recall, at our last meeting,
you
tried to kill
me
.”

Rudolf's smile never wavered, its false cheer more sinister than a frank show of hostility. “It was mutual. Indeed, had you not been so squeamish, I'd be dead.”

Max started to respond, then gave a little shake of his head. Rudolf didn't understand any motive that wasn't self-seeking. “It's pointless for us to carry on this feud. I'm willing to compromise,” Max said at last. “I'll give you Dillenburg for Vranes.”

Overhead, a hawk soared among the trees. The bay gelding looked up, then resumed its earnest cropping. The smile ebbed on Rudolf's face as he plucked up a fallen leaf and chafed it between his fingers. “That's a generous offer,” he allowed, looking not at Max, but at an outcropping of rock halfway up the mountainside. “But it won't do.” His blue eyes slid in his cousin's direction. “Come, come, why should I settle for half? Dillenburg should be partly mine in any event, we've always known that.”

Max held his patience in check. “It was never yours, nor would there have been any questions, had it not been for my grandfather's indolence. In any event, a court of law decreed that Dillenburg belongs to me. You've been stealing the revenues, bribing the tenants, cheating me blind for years, all because you've had French troops to back you. But I would still rather have Vranes than Dillenburg, for the sake of Sophie Dorothea's memory.”

Rudolf's lip curled. “You eloped with my sister. Abducted Sophie, as it were. It was only because I doted on her that I weakened and let her have Vranes as her dowry. But that was to please Sophie, not you. And when she died, the reason for my generosity went with her.” He shrugged, and for a fleeting moment almost looked sincere. “You speak of memories! Who could blame me for wanting Vranes back? It's little enough recompense for the loss of my sister.”

Max leaped to his feet in an incredibly swift motion for a man so large. “Damn your eyes!” he exploded, towering over Rudolf. “You talk as if she had been a piece of goods! She may have been your sister, but she was my wife!”

Rudolf made a leisurely effort to get to his feet. “More's the pity. But,” he went on, reading the storm signals that played across Max's chiseled features, “there's still room for your precious compromise. If you sign the separate peace with King Louis, he will reward you amply. After all, except for Maastricht and a couple of other negligible outposts, he controls the entire frontier. What will you? Phillipsburg? Huy? Mons?”

Max's hand shot out to grab Rudolf by the front of his ruffled lawn shirt. “I want Vranes. That's my home.” He spoke between clenched teeth, all but lifting his cousin off the ground. “I'll sign no traitorous treaties with the French. If you do, William will have your head. If,” he snarled, shoving Rudolf away, “I don't take it first.”