“She does what?”
“Pays him to stay away,” Shamus said loudly, as though Angus were deaf. “Gives him a remittance. It’s common enough.”
“Are you telling me that the lot of you have spent three months snooping into Edilean’s private affairs?”
Malcolm looked at Tam who looked at Shamus, then they all looked back at Angus. “Yes,” Malcolm said. “That’s just what we’ve been doing.”
“And what does Edilean know of this?”
“Nothing,” Tam said. “We were careful to stay out of her sight. And that wasn’t easy, as she runs around in her little carriage constantly. I remember one morning I was walking down the street and there she was. I was sure she’d recognize me, but she was having it out with some man about some fruit—she doesn’t like for it to be bruised—so she didn’t see me.”
The story was so like Edilean that it caused a pain in Angus’s chest. “Has she—? I mean, are there... ?”
“Men?” Shamus asked, then when the others glared at him, he threw up his hands. “What’s the problem with all of you? I think you should get on with it and tell him.”
“Tell me what?” Angus asked.
“We worked with a lawyer,” Malcolm said, and turned to Tam. “You tell him.”
“We thought that since Miss Edilean is so rich, what with the gold and the business, we might persuade her to give the McTern estate back to us. We don’t think she wants it. It means nothing to her.”
“You told me that, and I said that you won’t have any trouble. Edilean has a very generous nature. I’m sure she’ll give you the rotting old place even without the peppercorn. Don’t tell me you’re afraid to ask her.”
“It’s not that...” Tam said, looking at Malcolm.
Angus turned to Shamus. “Would you tell me what they can’t seem to get out?”
Shamus opened his mouth to speak, but Malcolm blurted out the truth. “You’re wanted for kidnapping her, so she has to swear before a judge that she ran off with you of her own free will. Once you’re cleared, she can give the place to you because you’re the laird, then you can give it to Tam, as he’s next in line.”
“I see,” Angus said. He sat still for a moment, then got up and walked to the back of the cave. Naps was asleep, but T.C. and Matt looked wide awake as they listened to what the Scotsmen were saying. Angus didn’t know how much they could understand, but from the looks on their faces, they were getting the gist of what was going on. Angus thought of the words kidnapping and wanted that were being bandied about.
He looked back at Malcolm. “You’re saying that you want me to go to Edilean and ask her to tell a judge that I didn’t kidnap her, and that she went with me of her own free will.”
“Exactly,” Malcolm said brightly. “She could give the place directly to Tam, but he’s not the laird. It has to go down the line, all in proper order.”
“And the problem with that is that I’m thought to be a criminal.”
“Lawler was the only one who had any right to want you dead,” Tam said.
“That’s because it was his niece and his gold that you stole,” Shamus said.
“I didn’t—” Angus began, but then stopped. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do what you want.”
“Why not?” Tam asked, his face showing his anger. “You want to keep being the laird even though you live here?”
“Of course not!” Angus said, but he thought about Tam’s words. To give up his birthright? Could he do that? He’d spent most of his life trying to give honor back to the name that his grandfather had almost destroyed, so could he just walk away from it?
“He won’t do it,” Tam said to Malcolm. “I told you he wouldn’t.”
“Do you want to go back to Scotland?” Malcolm asked softly, looking at Angus. “Is that what you want, lad?”
Angus glanced at them and knew he couldn’t say what was in his mind. They were so fresh off the boat from the old country that they still smelled of heather, but Angus had been in America for years, and he liked the feeling that a man could do or be anything. Right now, if he waited long enough, he’d get a thousand acres. The land would be his own, and he could do with it whatever he wanted. In Scotland, nothing had belonged to him, and what he did was always overseen by others. Even now, if he were given charge of the McTern lands, he’d still be expected to look out for hundreds of people. No, he didn’t want to go back. “No,” he said at last. “I want to stay here.”
Tam’s face lost its angry look and he seemed a bit ashamed of the way he’d nearly attacked his cousin.
“So then you will go back with us to see Miss Edilean,” Malcolm said, smiling in relief.
“Sorry,” Angus said, “but I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Tam asked. “You don’t like her?”
Angus gave a little guffaw at that absurdity. “She doesn’t like me,” he said.
“You had a spat,” Malcolm said. “That’s understandable. Is that why you’re here and she’s there?”
“Are you two married or not?” Shamus asked. “And why are you called Harcourt?”
“It’s a long story,” Angus said.
“I got time,” Shamus said, “and I like a good lie if it’s well told.”
“It’s all true and I’m telling you that I cannot go to Edilean and ask anything of her. She... Well, the truth is that she hates me.”
“From what the captain of the Mary Elizabeth told us, that’s not true,” Tam said.
“He said you two were together every minute.” The familiar smirk was back on Shamus’s face. “Did you—” He made a vulgar gesture.
Angus got to his feet, his fists clenched, but before Shamus could get up, Malcolm called them down. “Sit!” he ordered Angus. “And you stay where you are.” He ran his hand over his face. “You two have been fighting since you were born.”
“You jealous, old man?” Shamus said, still with his fists clenched and ready to take on Angus.
“Old man,” Malcolm said under his breath, then raised his head. “I’m young enough to deal with you two.” He looked at Angus. “You have to go to Miss Edilean and ask her to do this.”
“You’re not understanding the problem,” Angus said. “I’m more than willing to ask her, but if I went to her, she’d say no just to get me back.”
“For what?” Tam and Shamus said in unison.
“Nothing that I plan to talk about.”
Malcolm took a deep breath. “We all have our problems with women, but they can be made up.”
“Have the papers drawn up and I’ll sign whatever you want,” Angus said.
“No. We were told that a judge must see you with Miss Edilean to make sure that you’re both telling the truth.”
“That won’t work,” Angus said firmly. “Edilean will tell them to arrest me.”
“Maybe if you tell us what happened, we can do something about it,” Malcolm said, his voice full of exaggerated patience. All of them, even the two men sitting against the far wall, looked at Angus.
Angus thought about how he’d made love to Edilean, then left her there. He remembered the horrible things he’d said to her servant—which, no doubt, he’d told Edilean. Yes, Angus had had a reason for everything he did, but still, the result was not something that a woman would forgive.
“No,” Angus said. “I’m not telling anyone anything. You’re going to have to figure out a different way to get what you want. I’ll sign whatever you need, but I am not going to confront Edilean and ask her to do this.”
That was last night, and this morning they were still after him. At least Tam and Malcolm were. Shamus stood in the background, looking at Angus with an expression that said he thought Angus was a coward who couldn’t even stand up to a girl.
“No,” Angus repeated. “I will not do this and you can stop asking me.”
After the sun had been up for a couple of hours, Mac returned with a wagon and half a dozen soldiers. Angus stepped away from the Scotsmen to tal
k to him.
“I didn’t tell them anything at the fort,” Mac said. “I didn’t figure anyone would believe me if I said we thought Austin had done all this. The colonel was angry that Aldredge was still alive. When I told him that the boy was coming here to break up with Betsy, the old man got even more angry. It’s my advice that Aldredge go back east.”
“I agree,” Angus said.
Mac was looking at the Scotsmen who were standing at the mouth of the cave and watching the soldiers carry Naps down to the wagon. Thanks to Matt and T.C., Naps was much better this morning.
Mac lowered his voice. “If I were you, I wouldn’t return to the fort either. Austin didn’t say much but his face was beet red. He’s very angry that you didn’t let us get killed.”
Angus’s heart plummeted. If he left the employ of the army, when Mercer returned from England with his petition signed by the king, Angus would no longer be on the list to get a thousand acres of land.
“Where’d they come from?” Mac asked, nodding toward the three Scotsmen standing apart from the others.
“Home,” Angus said. “Scotland.”
Mac raised an eyebrow. “As if I didn’t know that. Mind if I talk to them? I’d like to be around someone who can understand me.”
Angus shrugged, glad to have some time alone to think. For a moment he considered cursing all the women of the world. His life had been fine until women entered it. First there was Edilean, who he’d tried to help and ended by getting himself wanted for kidnapping and theft. Then there’d been Tabitha, who’d made Edilean so jealous that it caused a rift between them. And now, here was little Betsy Wellman, who might cause him to lose his future.
Angus was allowed about five minutes’ peace before Malcolm came to him.
“Good lad, that one,” he said, nodding toward Mac. “He talks like an American, but I can’t hold that against him. He told me that if you go back to the fort some man might see to it that you get killed.”
“I can take care of myself,” Angus snapped.
“Seems to me that the only thing that interests you is yourself,” Malcolm said, and went back to the others.
For a moment Angus thought about grabbing his rifle and heading out. He’d become a trader who lived on what he took from the woodlands. He’d sleep on the ground. He’d spend his time alone, never seeing anyone but the animals. He’d—
He knew what he was going to do. He was going to go to Edilean and get that straightened out. Maybe by now, after four long years, she had forgiven him at least somewhat. Maybe she’d found out, or figured out, why he’d done what he had. It was possible that she’d seen that the handbills were again being distributed, so she’d know why Angus had had to leave her.
And maybe if he sent word back to Colonel Wellman that he was going into the wilderness to look for the killer of the soldiers that would hold his place open so he’d still get his land. Maybe—
He looked across the opening of the cave and Malcolm was watching him, a question on his face. Angus gave a small, quick nod, and Malcolm’s eyes softened.
Angus thought of Edilean’s wrath when she saw him again, and murmured, “May the Lord have mercy on me.”
22
ANGUS KNEW HE’D never been so nervous in his life. He fidgeted at the cravat around his neck and wondered if he’d tied it properly. Maybe he’d ask Edilean for her help with the neckcloth. But then, maybe she’d tighten it and strangle him.
Beside him in the coach sat Tam, with Shamus and Malcolm across from them. They all seemed to be a bit in awe of Angus in his gentleman’s clothes. They were from James Harcourt and had been stored in a trunk in the back of the tavern where Angus used to work.
Dolly was glad to see him and wanted him to stay. “It’s been horrible since you left. We can’t keep the place goin’.”
“I can’t stay,” Angus said in the English accent he used with her. Behind him, Malcolm, Tam, and Shamus stood back and watched.
When Angus emerged from the back room wearing Harcourt’s clothes, they’d stood there and stared at him.
“You look English,” Malcolm said, shock in his voice.
“Sounds it too,” Shamus said. “If we have a war, which side will you be on?”
“The only war is going to come when Edilean sees me again.”
Tam looked down at his own clothes, which were rough to begin with and were now dusty and frayed. “She won’t like us.”
Angus shook his head. “Her quarrel is with me. You’ll be all right. Shall we go and get this over with?”
“Yes, we shall,” Shamus said in his version of an imitation of Angus’s accent, but it came out sounding like a foreign dialect—and it made the four of them laugh.
“Come on, lad,” Malcolm said. “It can’t be as bad as you think it will be. My guess is that by now she’s forgotten all about whatever it was that made her angry in the first place.”
“Perhaps,” Angus said, but he didn’t think that was true.
They piled into a hired carriage and went to the town house where Edilean lived with Harriet Harcourt. At the last moment, Angus felt his knees weaken, but Shamus delighted in pushing him out of the carriage so hard that Angus almost hit the ground. He recovered himself, but his nerves were such that he didn’t even reprimand Shamus.
The three Scotsmen surrounded Angus so he couldn’t escape, and they moved forward up the steps to the front door. As Malcolm pulled the cord for the bell, he put his hand on the small of Angus’s back to steady him.
A pretty maid answered the door.
“We’re here to see Miss Edilean,” Malcolm said, but she just stared at him in consternation.
“Miss Edilean,” Angus said in his English accent.
“Is she expecting you?” the young woman asked, blocking the double doorway.
“We have some fruit to sell her,” Shamus said, then louder. “Fruit, girl! Apples.”
“Ah, yes, fruit. Won’t you come in and I’ll get her.”
She led them into a large, sunlit room with a marble fireplace in one wall. Before it were two high-backed chairs on one side and a settee covered in yellow silk on the other. On the floor was a large carpet with wildflowers woven into the border. It was a truly beautiful room, and the three Scotsmen stood in the doorway staring at it but not entering.
“Come on,” Angus said impatiently. “She won’t want to meet us in the hallway.”
Shamus and Malcolm sat down on the settee and looked about them nervously, while Tam and Angus took the chairs.
“You’ve changed,” Tam said, looking across a little table at Angus.
“Fancy clothes don’t change who a man is inside,” Angus said.
“Then maybe you were like this before you got the clothes.”
“Like what?” Angus asked, frowning.
“Like this room. Like this house. You fit in here.” Tam raised his hand. “And it isn’t just the clothes and that way you can talk. It’s something else.”
Angus wasn’t sure what Tam meant, but he didn’t think that now was the time to ask him more, for he heard Edilean’s voice in the hallway.
“You didn’t ask them who they were?” they heard Edilean say.
“No, ma’am, I forgot.”
“From now on, Lissie, don’t let people into my house unless you know them. Oh, heavens! Don’t look like I’m going to beat you! Go to the kitchen and let Harriet talk to you.”
As they heard the girl’s footsteps retreat, they looked toward the doorway in expectation.
As for Angus, he sank back against the chair, letting the high sides of it hide him from the doorway. He hadn’t been prepared for what the sound of her voice would do to him. It was all he could do to keep from running to her and gathering her in his arms. He didn’t realize how very much he’d missed her! Just plain, old-fashioned missed her. Her humor, her no-nonsense approach to life, her strong likes and dislikes. He remembered how she’d won the battle that he was going to America with her. And she’d
been right. If he’d stayed in Scotland he was sure that by now he’d be in prison.
“And how may I help you on this—?”
He heard Edilean’s voice but couldn’t see her for the wing on the chair, but he knew she’d stopped when she saw Malcolm, Shamus, and Tam.
“Oh!” she said, and there was delight in her voice. “Oh, how lovely! I never thought I’d ever see you again. I—”
She broke off when she saw Angus in the far chair.
Slowly, he bent forward and looked at her. She was as beautiful as ever, maybe more so. She had on a long linen smock over her dress, and her hair was disarranged so that wispy tendrils hung about her face. He wanted to hold her, kiss her.
“You!” Edilean said, then she turned and ran from the room.
With a groan, Angus started to get out of the chair.
“Sit!” Malcolm said. “You said you’d do this and you’re going to.”
“She hates me.”
“I didn’t hear that in her voice,” Malcolm said. “Did you, Tam?”
He was starry-eyed, looking as young as he had when Angus last saw him. “She’s prettier than I remembered. How could you do anything to hurt her?” Tam glared at Angus.
“I didn’t hurt her on purpose!” Angus said. “I hurt her to save her from something worse.”
“And what would that be?” Tam asked, his voice hostile.
Before Angus could answer, they heard the scurry of feet in the hallway.
“She’s coming back,” Tam said and he sat up straighter.
It wasn’t Edilean who entered the room, but three serving girls carrying huge trays. They set one on a table in the center of the room, then pulled two other tables beside it and put the other trays on them. It was a lavish tea, with huge blue and white china pots full of steaming hot tea, and dishes covered with little sandwiches, scones, cookies, and cakes with colored icing.
As soon as the girls had set the trays down, they left the room, shutting the doors behind them.
Malcolm was the first to recover his astonishment. “Don’t look like she’s mad at you at all. Come on, lads, let’s have something to eat.” He picked up a teapot and filled four cups.