Improbable Eden

by Mary Daheim

  The pistol went off with a shattering roar, ripping a hole in the nearest coach and startling the horses. Max and Rudolf were on the ground, grappling in the snow. Eden could only guess that Max had come out through another window and had somehow managed to leap from the sturdy oak coffeehouse sign. With all eyes fixed on Rudolf, and with the snow coming down more heavily, no one had noticed Max’s unorthodox arrival.

  As the two men rolled in the slushy lane, Rudolf’s armed companion turned his gun on Max, but could not get a clear shot. Frustrated, he danced this way and that, the snow blurring his vision.

  “ ’Ere!” a stocky bargeman shouted at Rudolf’s men, “leave ’im be! ’E saved the little miss ’ere!”

  The crowd responded with a unified charge at the two henchmen, who were swiftly subdued.

  Eden, with three of the smallest children clinging to her wet skirts, tried to see what was happening to Max in the midst of the melee. At last she caught sight of the two combatants a few yards away. Max had Rudolf in a viselike grip and was trying to haul him down the lane. With one great heave of his body, Rudolf threw Max off, then went for his dagger. Still staggering from the force of Rudolf’s defensive maneuver, Max unsheathed his rapier. The weapon Rudolf wielded was shorter by half than Max’s swept-hilt sword, but its thicker blade and curved cross-guard made it equally lethal.

  Except for the frightened horses, the crowd grew quiet as they watched the two big men duel. Eden held her breath when Max slipped on an icy patch and Rudolf tried to drive his dagger home. Max dodged just in time, the blade missing flesh but tearing his clothes. Righting himself, Max countered with a thrust that caught the baldric on Rudolf’s sash, driving him to the wall. With a well-aimed kick, Max knocked the dagger from Rudolf’s hand, sending it into a pile of slush-covered garbage.

  As the wind howled down the lane, the onlookers huddled closer together, awaiting the outcome of what they were sure was mortal combat. The two blond giants were skirting the precipice of life and death and though both were foreigners, the London crowd seemed to know that one was good, the other evil.

  Through the thick, swirling flakes, Rudolf glared at Max with a fanatical hatred. “Kill me! Kill me as you killed Sophie!” Taunting his adversary, he yanked off the sash, ripped open the brocade waistcoat and tore at his linen shirt. With chest exposed, he let out a stream of German curses, then reverted to English: “Do it! Let this foul multitude see what a murdering pig you really are, Max! They’ll tear you to shreds!”

  Breathlessly Eden waited for the fatal lunge. But Max stood riveted to the ground, the rapier poised at an angle. “I prefer the King’s justice,” he said at last. “Call me coward, but don’t call me murderer, for that I am not.” Deliberately he took a backward step, but kept his weapon at the ready. “You will come with me down the lane to the Eagle and Child. We will await the King’s men there.”

  With surprising docility, Rudolf shrugged and moved toward Max. “I don’t fear Wee Willie,” he said in a pallid imitation of his usual amiable tone. “I have friends even more powerful than he.”

  “Really,” remarked Max, glancing at Eden, who was giving the terrified children a farewell pat on the head. The crowd was already dispersing, driven away by the sudden severe change in weather as well as realization that the battle was over. Rudolf’s henchmen were nowhere in sight, apparently having retreated into Old Slaughter’s to lick their wounds.

  Up ahead, the driver of the damaged coach was still trying to quiet his skittish horses. With Eden at his side, Max held the rapier at Rudolf’s back. The trio paused by the coach, waiting for the vehicle to move out of the way.

  “You’ll pay for this,” the coachman yelled, still struggling with his animals. “Milord Sunderland will see to that!”

  “A pox on Milord Sunderland,” Rudolf replied agreeably, pulling his shirt and waistcoat into place. “The man’s a snake.” Casually, Rudolf turned to look at Max. The small ivory-handled pistol he held in his right hand was pointed at Eden’s abdomen.

  “I’m going to walk down the lane alone,” he said evenly, his terrible smile in place. “This little cannon would probably not kill your lovely trollop, but it would certainly spoil your pleasures with her. I’m disappointed in you, Max. You really ought to have searched me. Do you think I’d carry only a dagger in a dangerous city like London?”

  Max’s lean face had darkened with rage, directed not only at Rudolf but at himself, as well. He said nothing, the sword still held a tantalizing, impotent foot away from Rudolf. Eden knew she was shaking as much from fear as from the cold, and tried to move closer to Max.

  “Stay where you are, all of you,” Rudolf barked. “You didn’t deserve to win. Victory goes only to the bold.” His smile turned into a ghastly leer. “A pity there’s only one ball in this little toy. It would be more of a pity to waste it.” Slowly he raised the gun a few inches, squinted down the gleaming barrel and moved the weapon from side to side. “Which one of you will make the ultimate sacrifice for the other? How true is true love?”

  Max threw his arms around Eden, offering her as much protection as possible. Rudolf’s menacing figure was a blur. Eden cringed in Max’s grasp, yet wanted to hurl herself between her beloved and his vengeful cousin.

  Unable to watch the coachman while aiming at Max and Eden, Rudolf sensed rather than saw that the horses had finally quieted down. In the ensuing deadly stillness, he steadied the pistol and pointed it at Eden’s breast. Bracing for the horrible explosion, Eden opened her mouth to cry out, but there was no sound, from her or from the gun. Lord Sunderland’s irate driver had swung the whip at the horses. The big animals had reared up, hooves thrashing in the wind, then hurtled down, to send Rudolf flying against the coach wheel. The pistol dropped from his hand as he let out a terrible curse. The horses broke away, thundering in a circle and crushing Rudolf’s body beneath the heavy wheel.

  Max pulled Eden close, shielding her eyes with his hand. “Don’t look,” he breathed.

  She didn’t need the caution. The horrific grinding of the coach and the trampling hooves painted a grisly picture in her mind’s eye. “He’s dead?” she asked in a faint voice.

  Max winced as he took a last glance at the blood-spattered snow and the crumpled form that had once borne the hopes of the House of Hohenstaufen. “Yes,” he said, his voice unsteady. “This time he’s really dead.”

  Despite Eden’s initial urgency in getting to the Tower, she was unable to continue directly. Nor could Max leave the scene of the tragedy until the authorities had been summoned. “I owe Sophie that much,” he explained as they sat in the Eagle and Child, drinking Nantes brandy and recovering their nerves.

  Eden, who had been rendered speechless by the events of the past hour, noted with gratitude that the strain was beginning to ebb from Max’s lean face. Sitting near the fire so that her clothes might dry out, she shook her head and at last found her voice. “You’re an amazing man, Max. Half of me wanted you to kill Rudolf, the other half begged for mercy. I admire you more for your compassion than I would for what others might have called heroics.”

  “I’m glad,” he said with a wry grin. “Harriet would have called me dismal. But,” he noted, slipping his hand under hers, “Sophie would have sided with you, even if Rudolf hadn’t been her brother. In some ways the two of you are more alike than I thought.”

  Eden smiled for the first time since she’d left Clarges Street some two hours earlier. “Perhaps we can be even more alike,” she said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  Max looked up as a serving man brought plates of Westphalian ham and buttered potatoes. “How do you mean?”

  Eden waited for the server to leave. If Old Slaughter’s had reeked of stale tobacco and overbrewed coffee, the Eagle and Child dispensed an aroma of roasting pigeons and sizzling mutton steaks and fresh-baked bread. Eden took knife and fork to her thick slice of ham and gazed at Max through her lashes. “Like Sophie, I can be your wife. The King has freed Jack.”r />
  Max choked on a piece of potato and had to cover his mouth with a napkin. “Holy St. Hubert!” he finally gasped, leaning forward in his chair. “What happened?”

  Supremely pleased with herself, Eden tossed her head and toyed with a piece of ham. “Oh, I simply explained to His Majesty about Roark’s perjured testimony and then I suggested he take me as his mistress and after he got over the shock I admitted that you and I were in love and he said, ‘Fine, somebody has finally told the truth to a poor Dutchman.’ Or something like that.” She gave a little lift to her shoulders. “Well?” The ebony eyes were very round. “Didn’t I perform admirably?”

  Max let out a whistle and sank back in his chair. “It’s incredible. Does Jack know?”

  “Not yet. That’s why I was so anxious to find you. I wanted us to go together to the Tower. But by now the news may have already gotten there ahead of us.”

  “Perhaps not.” Max considered briefly, then gazed at Eden with open admiration. “I can hardly believe it! I don’t think I ever thought we’d be free to be together.” Still dumbfounded, he reached across the table to lightly touch the cut on Eden’s cheek.

  For a long moment they sat looking at each other, their smiles as wide as their eyes were bright. Max was the first to break the spell, placing a kiss on his fingertips and brushing Eden’s lips with his hand. “We have plans to make, plans I never thought we’d have the chance to consider. But first, we must get to Jack, wherever he may be. I have some news of my own.” He began to eat in haste.

  Eden was about to ask what sort of news when Lord Sunderland’s coachman approached their table. He had, as far as Max and Eden could tell, spent the past quarter of an hour explaining to the authorities how the accident with his horses had come to pass.

  “Bloody nuisance,” he grumbled, sitting down without waiting to be asked. “Milord is on his way to Kensington, I’m told, but from what I hear, King William won’t grieve over a Jacobite spy.”

  “True enough,” agreed Max, passing the man the brandy bottle. “We owe you our lives, you know. If this were the army, I’d commend you for your … assistance.” He started to reach for some coins, but the coachman waved his hand.

  “No, Your Highness, I needn’t get paid for ridding the world of that traitor.”

  “At least let me pay for the damage,” Max persisted.

  The coachman snorted again. “Milord says he’s having a new one made. It seems his son, Lord Spencer, is going a-wooing.” The man halted abruptly, glancing around the crowded room. “Oh, blimey, it’s no secret now. Young Spencer is courting Anne Churchill. The match looked dubious, don’t you know, because her father was in the Tower.” He leaned on the table confidentially. “All London’s abuzz—Marlborough’s been set free.” The coachman sat back, waiting for an appropriate response. “What do you think of that, eh?”

  “We’ll head for St. James’s,” Max said as they hurried out into St. Martin’s Lane. “Jack will undoubtedly join the Countess there.”

  Wearing Max’s cloak, Eden blinked against the unexpected brightness of the afternoon. The snow flurry had passed, leaving London under a brilliant white mantle. Footprints already marred the pristine landscape, but a sense of peace had descended over the neighborhood. The aftermath of the storm not only concealed the drab and dirty aspect of the city, it also had erased the evil that had so recently pervaded the lane outside Old Slaughter’s. Eden could not be sure exactly where Rudolf had been killed. Even the lumpy mass that had once been the fat snow woman was a sparkling mound, which the children were turning into a fantasy castle.

  In the Strand, the winter calm was broken by shouts from a gaggle of Londoners who surrounded two men on horseback. Eden and Max paused, both shielding their eyes against the bright winter sun.

  “It’s Jack,” said Max, grinning. “And Joost. They must be coming from the Tower.”

  Amid the cheers of his supporters, the Earl of Marlborough sat astride a handsome gray gelding. He wore the same brown cloak he’d had on when Eden first met him in Smarden, but had acquired a beaver hat with a turned-up brim etched in gold braid. Keppel was costumed in his usual style, a peacock blue embroidered cloak over an orange satin vest, fringed gauntlets at his wrists, with a black plush muff depending from a silver ribbon slung around his neck. The sleek bay stallion he rode was caparisoned to match its rider’s wardrobe. But all eyes were on the Earl.

  Taking Eden by the hand, Max led her up the Strand to join the festive crowd. But before they could reach the gathering, a calèche came crunching over the snow-covered street, its top folded back to reveal Sarah, Countess of Marlborough, and the five Churchill offspring.

  To Eden’s surprise, the smallest girl was no more than seven years old. It had not occurred to her that the Earl’s other children could be so young. The boy was no more than ten, but his three elder sisters all appeared to be in their middle teens. Eden tried to scrutinize them for possible signs of kinship. They were a handsome lot, but at a distance of some twenty feet, she saw little resemblance to herself. Marlborough had been right, Eden was definitely her mother’s daughter.

  Her father’s wife did not see Eden and Max, so intent was she on the gladsome sight of her husband. As the calèche rolled to a halt near the entrance to Drury Lane, the Earl jumped from his horse, the crowd obligingly parted, and the Countess alighted from the calèche with her children at her heels.

  The public reunion of husband and wife evoked a hearty cheer from the onlookers. Keppel beamed his approval while Max put an arm around Eden and inclined his head in a bemused manner. The young Churchills were being greeted one by one, with a special salute for the son and heir who stood at military attention before allowing his father to hug him close. Eden felt tears sting her eyes, and she put her head against Max’s arm.

  “I should be ecstatic,” she murmured as all the Marlboroughs clambered into the calèche. “Why am I crying?”

  Max’s initial reaction was to tell Eden that she was shedding tears of joy. But another look at the delirious Marlborough family elicited a different opinion. Max phrased his reply as tactfully as possible. “You wanted to be the bearer of good news. It didn’t work out that way, Eden.” He gave her shoulders a little squeeze as he wiped her tears with his finger. “You’ll see Jack later. I know he’ll be enormously grateful.”

  “It’s not that,” Eden began, but stopped as the calèche turned around in the middle of the Strand and began to head for St. James’s Palace. With her hand half raised, Eden thought of calling out to her father. But the procession, truncated as it was, suddenly reminded her of that summer day on the road to Tunbridge Wells, when she had wanted so badly to be noticed by King Charles. Even after more than a decade, Eden couldn’t bear a repetition of the humiliation she’d suffered when the man she believed to be her father had ridden on without so much as a nod.

  And then, as Marlborough and his children jostled for comfortable positions in the carriage, he turned toward Eden and Max. His refined features lighted up, and a smile as dazzling as the snow crossed his face.

  “Max! Eden! Come here!” The calèche stopped again, the driver waiting patiently while still more Londoners congregated.

  “Jack!” Eden cried as she ran to meet him. Her feet slipped twice on the fresh snow, but both times Max grabbed her arm. A moment later, she was leaning against the calèche, holding Marlborough by the hands. “I didn’t think you saw me,” she whispered, unaware that her cheeks were still damp with tears.

  “I didn’t,” Marlborough replied honestly. His smile was as kindly as ever, his manner as self-deprecating as Eden remembered. “I’m not used to being out in the bright light of day.”

  Eden smiled through her tears. “I’m so glad you’re free! I’ve been afraid … of so many things.”

  “Here,” said Marlborough with a mild glance of reproach at his younger children who were growing fractious, “come join us. We’re a bit cramped, but we’ll manage.” He looked beyond Eden to Max who
was standing with hands on hips amidst a clutch of well-wishers. “Max! Take my horse, ride with Joost. We’re heading for St. James’s.”

  Eden hesitated for only a moment, then climbed into the carriage. The Countess’s smile held a hint of frost, but the rest of the family displayed unconcealed curiosity. As Eden watched Max swing up on the Earl’s gray gelding, she became aware of the awkward atmosphere that had suddenly enveloped her fellow passengers.

  Apparently, Marlborough felt the same sense of discomfiture. With Eden pressed between him and the side of the calèche, he bestowed a sympathetic smile on his family. “My dear children,” he said in his imperturbable voice, “this is your sister, Eden. We all owe her a great debt. Indeed,” he went on, while the five young Churchills gaped with varying degrees of disbelief, surprise and hostility, “she has saved my life.”

  “Our sister?” Anne blurted, taking in only the first part of her father’s words. “Papa, how can this be? Do you mean that ….” Words failed the Earl’s eldest.

  “It means your father is human and had an unfortunate lapse,” snapped Sarah, shoving her hands deep inside her ermine muff. “In fact, he had two of them. The other one is in France.” The Countess’s expression brooked no further remarks.

  The Earl, however, was not quite as cowed by his wife as the rest. “We’ll have a long talk about all this later, my dears. Indeed, we’ll have plenty of time to talk and talk. Thank God,” he breathed, and without regard for the sensibilities of the others, he reached out and patted Eden’s hand. Her face glowed with happiness. After a lifetime of waiting, her father’s carriage had finally stopped to take her in.

  By the time the Marlborough entourage had reached St. James’s, the crowd of admirers had grown into the hundreds. At the palace gates the Earl doffed his beaver hat and waved while a great cheer shook the afternoon’s relative calm.