Days of Gold

  Edilean turned her head, as though she were going to accept his kiss, but then she grabbed the cherries and sprinted away from him. “These are sweeter,” she said as she put a cherry in her mouth.

  “How do you know what a fruit that you haven’t tried is like?”

  “Great imagination.” She finished the cherries. “Mmmm, so delicious.”

  Angus started to go after her, but he stopped himself. Instead, he sat there looking at her with serious eyes.

  “I’m so happy to be away from all of it that I feel that I could... I could almost fly.” For a moment she put her arms out and danced about the small room. “I’m not married to any of those awful men and I’m going to a whole new country.” Stopping, she looked at him and saw that he was frowning.

  “Nay,” he said, “this canna be.”

  She sat down on the chair across from him. “What can’t be?”

  “This,” he said softly. “This teasing, this... this playing and grappling, and touching.”

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, smiling at him through her lashes.

  “I like it too much.”

  “Well, then, what could be the problem?”

  “Stop it!”

  “Stop what?” she asked, looking at him.

  “I am not one of your dandies who you can flirt and tease to your heart’s content. For all that you have me dressed as a popinjay, I’m still Angus McTern, a man who’s spent more time outdoors than I have inside a house. And I’ve never spent any time in the fancy houses that you’ve lived in.”

  “So now I’m a snob?” she said. “Shall we add that to the list of things you’ve found wrong with me? According to you, I can do nothing, have no talents that are of any use to anyone, and now you tell me you think I’m a snob.”

  “Please don’t pretend to misunderstand me,” he said, leaning toward her, his face serious. “It was your idea that I travel with you as your husband, and I agreed because there was no time to do anything else.”

  “And you needed to get out of Scotland,” she said.

  “Aye, I needed to get out of Scotland, but if I’d gone on a ship by myself I would have traveled in the bowels with the sailors, not here, in this.” He motioned to the beautiful windows in the room.

  With a sigh, Edilean leaned back in the chair. “What is it that you’re trying to say to me?”

  “That I don’t come from your world, and that I don’t know these games you people play. I don’t—”

  “What does that mean? ‘You people.’ How am I different from you?”

  He took his time in answering her. “I’ll stay with you in this room on one condition, and that’s that you don’t continue playing the temptress.”

  “The what?” she asked, already offended by what he was saying.

  “A temptress, a woman who entices a man into doing what he shouldn’t do. An Eve with her apple held out to him, tempting him into sin.”

  “Why you...” she began, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I do apologize for trying to make you sin. Tell me, Mr. McTern, what can I do to keep you sin-free and pure?”

  “It is you I am trying to keep pure,” he said in a low voice. “You’re a beautiful young woman and just looking at you is enough to drive a man mad with desire. I don’t know how I’m going to stand being in this room with you day after day and not... not disrobe you. I’m saying that if I’m to stay so close to you, you must treat me as... as your brother. And I must try to think of you as my sister, although that will be nearly impossible. Am I making myself clear?”

  “I, uh...” Edilean began but could think of nothing else to say. Flirting was something she was good at, something that was much done at the houses of the girlfriends where she stayed. In fact, at school she’d often given lessons to her less fortunate classmates on how to flirt. She couldn’t be angry at him for saying what she knew to be true. She had been flirting. And, besides, it was impossible to be angry at a man who was telling her that he thought she was so beautiful he was having trouble controlling himself.

  “If you don’t do this, I’ll go below and sleep in a hammock. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said. If he’d been any of the other men she’d met in her life, she would have batted her lashes at him and asked if this order meant there were not even to be any kisses. But when she looked at Angus’s handsome face, she didn’t dare. It occurred to her that she was now dealing with a man, while they had been boys.

  “I’ll make it as easy for you as I can,” she said. “I’ll behave myself. No laughter, no teasing, no wrestling. Is that what you want me to say?”

  “I want you to say...” He looked at her across the table. He felt bad that his words had taken her from wanting to fly because of such sublime happiness to now being so serious. “I’m sorry for my Scots gruffness, lass, but I’m a man and I canna bear being so close to you.”

  “I understand,” she said as she looked down at her hands on her lap, then back up at him. “But what if you and I fell in love?”

  For a moment, Angus looked shocked, then he smiled at her in a patronizing way. “You didn’t love me when I was wearing what you called a woman’s dress. And not long ago you were saying that you hated me. Do you know what a time I had getting off that roof after you locked me there?”

  “No,” she said. “I was too busy trying to keep from freezing in my wet clothes from where you’d thrown me in the horse trough.”

  “That’s not a deed I’m proud of,” he said. “But, lass, you must listen to what I’m saying. You look at me now in these fine clothes, with my hair tied back and my face shaved, and you laugh and flirt with me and you talk about love. If you love anything, it’s the clothes, certainly not the man. Under this silk, I’m still just a poor Scotsman and I’d embarrass you in front of your fine friends.”

  “I think you’re my—”

  “Your savior,” Angus said. “You think I’m the man who rescued you from a fate worse than death. Aye, I know all that, lass, but never forget that I did no such thing. All I was going to do was get the minister drunk and maybe save you from one night. It was an accident that I got on that wagon and found you in that coffin.”

  “Nasty, dirty thing,” Edilean muttered. “I think it was half full of sawdust and when I got in it the dust billowed up around me and nearly smothered me. But by then I’d already taken that awful laudanum James had given me, so I could barely stay awake long enough to pull the lid over me.”

  “The fright you gave us when you sat up in that coffin!” Angus said. “I swear my heart stopped.”

  “You knew who I was, so you knew I wasn’t dead.”

  “I thought maybe your uncle’d murdered you to get your dowry.”

  “So you thought I was a ghost?”

  “I did until you started complaining about the dirt and telling me that I’d again done something you didn’t like.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Edilean said. “I think it was the dust up my nose that woke me, and I heard shouting and my head ached. Then when I woke up and saw you there and not Shamus, I—”

  “You could not have chosen anyone worse to help you. If you had combed all of Glasgow and Edinburgh, you could not have found anyone less heroic than Shamus.”

  “But you saved me—reluctantly, mind you—but you did save me, and now you tell me I must be careful not to touch you.”

  He could tell by her tone that she was laughing at him. “I’m saying that for my sanity, you must not tempt me more than I can bear.”

  “I will do my best,” she said, smiling, “although I think the real reason you were staring at those women this morning was because of that pretty one with the fat chest.”

  “The—?” He was smiling. “Oh, aye, I do like a fat chest. More to strap into one of those whalebone things you wear.” He glanced at her chest, which though not “fat” was certainly full enough.

  “Now who is flirting and teasing?”

  “Ah, but you are not tempted
by me,” Angus said. “That is a great difference.” There was a knock on the door and he got up to answer it.

  As he walked across the room, all six feet plus of him, she looked at the way the fabric clung to his heavily muscled thighs. She was not tempted by him? Was he insane?

  “The captain had me bring these to you,” the officer said. “He thought you might need them.”

  Behind him four seamen carried two heavy trunks.

  “Put them in that corner,” Edilean said from behind Angus. “And thank you for bringing them.”

  The seamen looked at Edilean as though they’d never seen a woman before, and backed out of the room with their caps in their hands.

  “I guess if you were a sailor you’d be like those men,” she said as she went to the trunks.

  “If I were them and a beautiful woman was on the ship, I’d do what I could to get her to notice me.”

  “But not now and not me?” Edilean asked, curious.

  Angus gave her a look of great sadness. “Alas, I have come to know you. Knowledge of the lies and betrayals, of the injustice done to you, hinders my advances.”

  Edilean couldn’t help laughing. “As if you care! Shall we see what James has stolen for us?” As she said it, they felt the ship move, and for a moment she lost her balance and almost fell, but Angus caught her arm.

  “Do you get seasick?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve only been on little boats on lakes that were as still as glass. What about you?”

  “I don’t know either,” he said.

  Smiling at each other, they turned their attention to the trunks and unfastened the latches. The one she opened had been in the room of James’s wife.

  Edilean gasped when she saw that in the bottom were folded what looked to be many dresses, each one more beautiful than the other.

  Angus watched as she pulled one dress after another from the trunk and admired it, exclaiming over embroidered silks in beautiful colors of apricot and golden yellow. “These are divine,” she said. “Truly beautiful. I’ve never seen dresses more exquisite than these. They’re—”

  She stopped when she saw some papers in the trunk, and as she read them, her face turned angry.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at this!” She thrust the papers at him.

  “I can read the numbers, but I don’t know what it says,” he said stiffly.

  “I can tell you what it says. That blasted—may he rot in hell!—James Harcourt charged all his wife’s dresses to me. The name on these bills is mine.”

  Angus gave her a one-sided smile. “He thought he’d be gone so you’d have to pay for dresses that you never got, but now he’ll be charged for dresses he doesn’t have.”

  For a moment Edilean stared at him, then she started laughing. “That is good! My dressmaker in London said she is so sick of people not paying that she’s hired men with clubs to go after them. I can assure you that I paid her in a very timely manner.”

  Angus threw back the lid to the second trunk, and when he looked inside he saw James’s clothes. Digging down through them, he pulled a piece of paper from the bottom and handed it to her.

  Edilean grinned. “Also charged to my account. James’s name but mine under it as cosigner for his debt.”

  They laughed again, and she turned back to the trunk to see what else was in it. “Oh, my,” she said when she got to the bottom. “Look at this.” She opened a large, thin, dark blue box and held it out to him. “It’s a parure.”

  “A paw-roo?” he asked, saying the word with the French pronunciation she gave it. “What’s that?” He took the box from her and looked at the contents. Inside, neatly arranged on satin, was a matching set of diamond jewelry. There was a necklace with two strands, the bottom one making scallops on the edge, and three bracelets. The earrings had hanging diamonds, and a large brooch had a gem that was as big as his thumb.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Other than jewelry, but is it something special?”

  “James’s new wife was an earl’s daughter, wasn’t she? It’s my guess that this was her mother’s and hers before her, and I’d be willing to bet that James knew nothing about it. If he had, I think he would have pawned it. Let me see it,” she said, taking it from him, then she removed an earring and used her nails to unlatch a tiny hook. “See? They can be worn as drops or as a cluster.” She put the earring back in its place. “I would imagine that all the pieces are like that. The brooch can probably be worn as it is or as two clips or as one smaller piece, and the necklace can probably be changed from one strand to two. Jewelers are such clever people.” She handed the box back to him.

  “What do I do with it? You can wear these to dinner tonight.”

  She was looking in the trunk. “I’d rather shave my head than wear any of those.”

  Angus carefully put the box on the floor beside her.

  “You must keep them,” she said.

  “Me? What would I do with them?”

  She gave him a look of astonishment. “Don’t you know that wearing diamond earrings is the latest fashion for men in London? I’m sure the captain will have on his tonight.”

  Angus blinked a couple of times, then smiled. “Oh, lass, you almost had me that time. These things are for a woman and you should wear them.”

  Edilean sat back on the floor. “But I won’t wear them. They belong to another woman and I won’t have them on me.”

  He picked up the jewel case and started to put it back into her trunk. “Then we’ll send them back to her.”

  “They don’t belong to her that much!” Edilean said. “For all I know, she and James were working together. I want you to take those jewels. If you won’t take gold from me, then take those. Do what you want with them. Sell them and buy some land, some cows, pigs, whatever you want.”

  “Or give them to my wife?” he asked softly.

  “It’s my observation that your taste in women runs to ones who are too fat to get them around their necks,” Edilean said, giving him a false smile.

  He laughed. “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me you can’t keep them! You’ve done a lot and risked a great deal. You can’t be so proud as to make yourself end up in a new country without a penny to your name. What will you do? Sell yourself as a bound man? It would be seven years before you’re free. But then, perhaps your employer will be kind and not beat you too often, and maybe he’ll give you a pound or two when you leave his employment.”

  “You have a sharp tongue on you.”

  “It’s been sharpened by men who look at me and see only gold.”

  Angus didn’t say anything for a moment but looked at her with soft eyes. Her hair was falling down about her face and he couldn’t resist pushing it back behind her ear. “I see gold but not what you find in a bank. This is worth more than gold.”

  “Dignitas praeter aurum,” Edilean said, translating what he’d said into Latin. For a moment they looked at each other in silence, then Edilean remembered all that he’d said to her just minutes ago about keeping her distance. She broke eye contact, looked at the dress on her lap, and held it up between them. “This woman is as big as you are. How will I ever make the dresses fit me?”

  Angus put his hand on hers and made her lower the dress. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll take the jewelry. It is more than generous of you to give me this.”

  To hide her blushes, she leaned over so her face was inside the trunk. “You gave up a great deal more for me than just a pile of ugly old jewelry.”

  “So that’s it, is it? The lot of them are out of fashion?”

  “Horribly so. My grandmother—if I had one—wouldn’t wear those things.” The lightness was back between them, and she was relieved. As she pulled the last gown out of the trunk, she said, “What will you do when you get to America?”

  “I haven’t had time to think about it.” He stood up, stretching, towering over her. “I guess I’d like to buy a piece of land.” He
glanced at the jewel case on the floor by his feet. “I’ve thought that I might ask my sister to come to America to be with me.”

  “And Tam,” Edilean said.

  “Tam?” Angus asked. “The boy who was in love with you?”

  “All the Scots were in love with me,” she said. “Except you.”

  Angus smiled. “I think they were. Even my uncle Malcolm adored you.”

  She raised her hand to him, and as he helped pull her up, for a second they looked into each other’s eyes.

  “What do you say that we go to the top and see the wind in the sails?”

  “I would love that.”

  “But I must keep you safe,” he said, smiling at her. In the next second, he picked up the jewel set and looked about the room. He saw some cabinet doors under the big window, opened one, and put the case inside, standing it on its side so that it couldn’t be seen at first glance.

  “And why is my safety so important?” she asked when he joined her at the door.

  “To protect my wee bairn,” he said, as he offered her his arm and opened the door. They laughed together as they left the room.

  11

  AS CAPTAIN INGES watched the young couple walk about the deck, he sighed. He and his wife had been like that once. He saw the way the tall Harcourt hovered over the beautiful young woman, his eyes only on her, listening to every word she said. As for her, she looked at him as though he’d hung the moon.

  “Nice couple.”

  The captain turned to his first mate, Mr. Jones, and nodded. This was their third voyage together and he liked the young man. “Yes, they are. Reminds me of my wife and me when we were that age.”

  “I would like to find a woman who looked at me like that,” Mr. Jones said.

  “That, or would you like a woman who looks like her?”

  “Both,” Mr. Jones said, smiling. “Do you think they’ve been married long?”

  “My guess is that it’s been hours, but maybe it’s been years. Who knows?”

  He and Mr. Jones stood by the rail and watched the young couple as they walked about the deck, looking at the sea that was rushing past them. The wind was good and they were moving quickly. At this rate they’d be in Boston in just three weeks.