Improbable Eden (28 page)

Max's face was grim as he surveyed the sun hanging low in the sky. “If we ride like the wind, we can make it by sunset. But we'll have to wait for the morning tide.”

Eden nodded. She could scarcely believe that their idyll was over. “Max, when I get to England, where shall I go?”

For some time he could not bring himself to look directly at Eden. When he finally did, his eyes were filled with pain. “Your mother's, I suppose. We dare not stay together in Clarges Street.” His attempt at a smile was a failure. “For many reasons.”

Eden started to nod, then shook her head. “No, Max,” she said in a choked voice. “Just for one.”

B
arbara Castlemaine was cursing like a pirate at Cromwell, who had ruined a Pieter de Greber still life by trying to rip the banana out of the painting. “Poxy wretch!” she screamed, swatting at the monkey and missing by a hair. “No more nuts for you!” As Cromwell grasped the draperies and swung onto the Italian chandelier, Barbara collapsed on the settee. “Why didn't I get a dog, like a sensible widow?”

Eden, who had been keeping her distance from the fray, cautiously sat down in a bergère chair opposite her mother. “I'm sorry, I didn't realize your husband died.”

Barbara's finely plucked brows arched. “He didn't. It's just that I haven't seen the poor sod for so long that he might as well be dead. In fact, we might as well never have been married. If memory serves, I had no children by Roger. I felt more married to Charles than to all the rest put together.”

“
Even Jack?” Eden couldn't resist the question.

Over her gin tumbler, Barbara looked mildly surprised at her daughter's temerity. “Yes. Even Jack. Though he was the best of the rest, Baby Ducks, I'll give him that.” She grew silent, one eye on Cromwell, swinging from the chandelier, the other resting on the Lely portrait at the far end of the room. “You've changed,” she said at last. “Max, I presume.”

Eden knew it would be fatal to admit she had given herself to Max. Yet she trusted her mother with a faith as old as time. More to the point, Barbara Castlemaine had an unerring instinct when it came to men and women. Eden's silence was the only answer her mother needed.

“
Stupid of you, but inevitable,” remarked Barbara. “At least he's well-rid of the Villiers baggage. Where is he, by the way?”

Eden assumed that Max was in Clarges Street. By chance, they had reached Oostende in time to sail on the midnight tide. Their journey from Margate had been made at a furious pace, bringing them into London on the first Monday of October. With a fervent and hasty farewell, he had deposited her in Arlington Street with a promise to let her know what was happening with Marlborough as soon as he could ferret out accurate information. Four days had passed, and there had been no word. Eden was more than worried, she was working herself into a frenzy of concern. Max, after all, was still nominally an exile.

But Barbara, who had expressed only the merest suggestion of surprise over the arrival of her bedraggled daughter on her doorstep, was well-versed in the rumor mill. John Fenwick would go to trial before the House of Lords before the week was out; Marlborough would follow.

“
You must return to court,” Barbara said, her mind on Marlborough. “Fenwick will not recant.”

Eden got up and wandered restlessly around the room. “I don't understand why he's so obstinate. Why does he persist in such lies?”

Barbara popped a piece of marchpane in her mouth and washed it down with a swallow of gin. “A simple motive. Revenge.”

“
For what?” Eden regarded her mother with a puzzled expression.

Cromwell leaped from the chandelier onto the back of the settee and gave Barbara's neck a series of wet smacking kisses. “Off with you, your lovemaking reminds me of at least six men I regret I ever bedded.” She paused, eye to eye with the monkey. “Well, three at least. Regrets are such a waste.”

Eden was growing impatient. “Revenge for what?” she repeated, sidestepping Cromwell, who had come to chatter at her hem.

Lady Castlemaine blinked in a futile attempt at innocence. “Why, for being one of the three I regret, of course.” She saw Eden's brow furrow. “Fenwick and Jack fought a duel over me years ago. Jack won.” She shrugged. “It's simple enough. Why do you think Fenwick came here in the first place?”

Eden's shoulders drooped. She should have known that Fenwick's motives were personal. She was beginning to realize that the business of nations, like villages, was often conducted from the human heart.

“
So you must go to court,” Barbara was saying, trying to lure a suddenly coy Cromwell back with an almond sweetmeat. “I learned only an hour ago that a second witness has been produced to testify against your father.” Barbara's glance turned rapier sharp. “Harriet found him. Isn't she sweet?”

Riding in her mother's white coach with its purple plumes, Eden felt conspicuous, but at least she was spared the discomfort of a hired Hackney Hell Cart. She could not resist stopping off in Clarges Street on her way to Whitehall. Her excuse was the need to collect some of her clothes: The garments loaned by her mother were too large and too ostentatious. In borrowed plum brocade and rose velvet, ornamented with gold fringe and embroidered pretintailles, Eden felt more decorated than dressed. Directing the coachman to wait around the corner, she hurried to the bright blue door and knocked.

Vrouw
de Koch all but fell over her. “Mistress! Elsa was sure you'd been murdered by foul thieves! She's been crying ever since she got home! You disappeared from Maastricht as if by magic!”

Gently, Eden extricated herself from the housekeeper's smothering embrace. “Black magic is more like it. I'm glad Elsa managed on her own.” Eden was well aware of the difficulties and fears the deaf girl must have faced when stranded by her mistress in a strange land.

“
The coachman was very gallant,”
Vrouw
de Koch offered. “And worried, he was, too, having misplaced his charge.”

“
With good cause, all things considered,” murmured Eden as the little maid appeared along with
Heer
Van de Weghe and what seemed to be the rest of the household staff. A chorus of welcome echoed in the hallway, led by Elsa, who had burst into tears, this time, presumably, of joy.

“
It's a long story,” said Eden, touched by the servants' concern, but suddenly struck with an onslaught of anxiety. “I would have assumed Prince Maximilian explained what happened.”

Her comment evoked blank expressions from the entire group. “But isn't he still on the Continent?” asked
Vrouw
de Koch.

Eden started to reply, but clamped her lips shut. Elsa, the housekeeper and the
hofmeester
were all eminently trustworthy. But Eden could not be sure of the rest, particularly the two or three new faces that had been added in the months she was away. “I thought he might have returned ahead of me,” she answered a trifle lamely. To cover the awkward pause, Eden spoke again, explaining quickly that she had gone to live with her mother and needed to have her belongings sent to Arlington Street.
Vrouw
de Koch put Elsa in charge of another half dozen servants, who whisked up the stairs to Eden's bedroom.

Dismissing the rest,
Vrouw
de Koch and
Heer
Van de Weghe insisted that Eden come into the small parlor to wait. The housekeeper closed the door and turned to Eden with a somber expression.

“
Himself was here, like a thief in the night,” explained the housekeeper in a voice barely above a whisper. “No time to talk, to eat, to rest, mind you. Then he was off, and only the good Lord knows where.” She glanced at
Heer
Van de Weghe, who nodded in stolid agreement. “Only the two of us knew he was here, but this house is being watched. Why did he ever come back?”

Eden plucked at the gold embroidery of her borrowed plum gown. “To make matters right with the King. He had no opportunity in the United Provinces, being hounded by Bentinck's lackeys.”

“
They'll hound him here, too,” the housekeeper replied with a deep frown. “Is it true that Count Rudolf is dead?”

“
Yes.” Eden closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Alas, that doesn't solve Prince Max's .problems. Or Milord Marlborough's.”

Vrouw
de Koch was pacing the room, her chunky body listing more than ever. “I don't like it, I don't like it one bit. At least he's rid of the Villiers chit.” She wheeled, fixing Eden with a shrewd eye. “He didn't come back because of you, did he?”

Dismayed at the accusation, Eden stiffened in the high-backed chair. “Certainly not! It was something to do with Vranes and that treacherous peace treaty.”

Vrouw
de Koch turned faintly sheepish. “Of course, of course.” Ambling over to Eden, the housekeeper patted her satin-clad shoulder. “I wish it were because of you, to tell the truth. But I fear for him. He is star-crossed, that one.”

Again, Eden saw
Heer
Van de Weghe's unhappy nod of agreement. Slowly she stood up. “No, he's not. He's had some bad luck in the past, that's all. But in the end, he will be happy.” She gave both the housekeeper and the
hofmeester
a long, hard look. “Remember, you heard it here.”

William of Orange was never as content in England as he was in the Gelderland; he was never as happy at Kensington Palace as he was at Hampton Court; and he was always more irascible at Whitehall than anywhere else in his island domain.

Unfortunately for Eden, it was at Whitehall that the King was residing while he waited for the House of Lords to debate the charges against Sir John Fenwick and the Earl of Marlborough. Keppel met Eden outside the Holbein Gate in the late afternoon, while the fog came creeping up from the river.

“
Sooth, His Majesty is testy today,” Keppel complained, his own usual cheerful demeanor absent. “Secretary Huygens has resigned, Bentinck mopes, and Milord Shrewsbury refuses to come back to court after being exonerated in the Jacobite plots.”

“
Why,” demanded Eden, “are Shrewsbury and Godolphin forgiven, but not Milord Marlborough?”

Keppel gave an impatient shrug. “It's Fenwick's doing. The man's a convincing liar, and now there is this other witness, an Irish bounder named Roark. To make matters worse, Sir John Vanbrugh, who is a good friend of Marlborough's, has written a risqué play that has proved to be the toast of the London season.”

Eden made a perplexed face at Keppel. “
Zut!
And what can some silly mummery have to do with Jack?”

Keppel avoided Eden's gaze. “Nothing directly, but its subject matter has offended His Majesty.” He paused, then offered a sheepish little smile. “I suppose I should be offended as well. The play is called
The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger
. It's about men who … prefer men.”

Eden rolled her eyes in disbelief. The tapestry of life seemed to be made out of the most unlikely skeins. But she would not be stymied. “I've brought a new syrup that will soothe His Majesty's throat in this damp weather. Won't you let me see him, if only for a minute?” She turned a plaintive gaze on Keppel, but wondered if she could trust him. At least he had not betrayed her to Rudolf. On the other hand, for all his vaunted influence, he had made no headway in freeing Marlborough.

Keppel was mulling over her request, the garnets twinkling on his baldric sash. “It can't hurt, I suppose,” he allowed, “but be prepared for an unpleasant meeting.”

The King was sitting by the fire, a brocade quilt muffling him to the chin and the omnipresent Dutch pugs at his feet. He looked even thinner than when Eden had last seen him, but his dark eyes had lost none of their sharpness.

“
Well!” he grumbled, as Eden dropped a graceful curtsy. “We thought you had abandoned us! Wherever did you run off to after Het Loo?”

“
I'm not sure,” Eden replied truthfully. “I spent some time in the country, near Liège.”

Both William and Keppel eyed her with curiosity, but Eden wasn't about to enlighten them further. “Here, Your Majesty,” she announced, extracting a small porcelain jar from her studded handbag, “this is berry syrup, with rare herbs. Not only will it help your throat, but it tastes delicious.”

William took the jar and removed the lid, sniffing at the contents. His scowl softened, then he handed the syrup to Keppel. “Very well, we shall try it tonight at bedtime. We thank you for your concern.”

Eden refused to acknowledge the ring of dismissal in his words. “You ought to take some now,” she suggested. “You also ought to have a camphor kettle going, don't you recall? And,” she added, picking up a decanter of gin that rested on a table next to the King, “you ought not to be drinking these strong spirits. You wish to get well, not fermented.”

The King's brows drew together in a dangerous fashion. “You ought not to lecture your sovereign! Where were you when that Brandenburg brat smoked her chalk pipe like a sailor and I had the worst coughing fit of my life?”

Eden fought to keep from laughing as she envisioned the tribulations William must have suffered at the Elector's summer house. She also noted that the King had forgotten himself long enough to dispense with the royal plural. Assuming a serious air, she tapped her chin and appeared to reflect.