Days of Gold Read online

“Bloody hell,” Margaret said as she sat down at the table across from Angus. “What did you do to her? Was it the way you were makin’ eyes at Tabitha?”

  Angus stared at the woman. He knew it wasn’t right for him to feel this way, but he didn’t like her familiarity with him. Nor did he like the way she’d just plopped down on the chair as though she owned the place. As he felt this, he told himself he was being ridiculous. He and the woman were equals, and he wasn’t a snob. He was... “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “She didn’t tell you? She asked the captain if one of us women could sew. She’s promised me money if I’ll fix her dresses for her.” She looked at him. “I woulda thought a woman would tell her husband about somethin’ like that. Askin’ a criminal into her nice cabin and all.” She looked about the room. “This is as nice as a house. You could live here. Where we are stinks worse than some jails I been in.”

  Angus couldn’t help it as his temper rose. Yes, Edilean should have talked to him about hiring some woman who’d done heaven only knew what to get herself banished from her homeland. It was not a wise thing to do. If the cabin weren’t so full of valuables he’d go after Edilean and tell her what he thought of her hiring this woman.

  “Margaret,” he said finally, “my wife isn’t feeling her best right now. Perhaps you should come back later. We’ll call you.” As he said it, he went to the door and opened it, but Edilean entered the room.

  She went to the trunk to get out the dresses that needed to be almost totally remade.

  “Cold enough in here to freeze snow,” Margaret said, her eyes on Angus.

  “Excuse me?” Edilean said while giving the woman a look that told her to keep her opinions to herself.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” Margaret said with a little curtsy. “Now what was it you wanted me to do?”

  Edilean sat at the table, looking out the windows at the ocean. It had been a week since she’d told Angus what she thought of his behavior, and now everything was different. There wasn’t a day when she didn’t mentally kick herself for her stupid, childish thoughts she’d had before that day. It was true that she’d tried to make him into something he wasn’t, but for the last week she’d made it up to him by not interfering in his life. In fact, she’d done her best not to say much at all to him. Their dinners with the captain and Mr. Jones had changed, so they weren’t the happy events they had been. The first night after their argument, Angus said, “Sorry, but my wife isn’t feeling well,” and they’d left the dining room soon after the meal. Edilean had spent most of the week inside the cabin reading any book she could find. Angus spent his time on the deck. If he was with the women prisoners, she didn’t want to know about it.

  When the door opened, Edilean looked back at her book and ignored Angus. No more did she lay out his clothes for him, and he’d learned to tie his own cravat. She’d even arranged for Margaret to come to her cabin twice a day to help her with her corset.

  “I’ll need a job in the new country and you need a maid,” Margaret said the second day, heavily hinting that Edilean should hire her.

  Edilean had given the woman a cool smile and said she’d think about it. But the truth was that she’d never hire a woman who’d done whatever Margaret had to get herself transported.

  Now, Angus said, “Lass! You should get out of here more.”

  “I have work to do before we arrive in America, so I need to get it done.”

  “And what work would that be?”

  “A house,” she said without thought. “I think I’ll have a house built to my specifications.”

  “And what would they be?”

  Edilean didn’t answer him because she hadn’t been thinking about a house or her future. In fact, when she thought of the new country and being utterly alone, she nearly froze in fear. Never in her life had she had any independence, and now to go from having no freedom to being entirely on her own scared her.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Did you enjoy your dancing today?”

  “Did you enjoy your sulking?”

  She didn’t answer him, as it seemed that every word she said started a fight with him.

  Angus picked up the quill pen, dipped it into a pot of ink, and paused over a sheet of paper. “About a year ago your uncle sent me to London to run an errand for him.” He made a few lines on the paper, then looked up at her. “Now that I think about it, I believe the errand was about you. I had to meet a man outside a bank and he gave me a letter to take back to your uncle Neville. At the time I wondered why he didn’t just post the letter, but now I think it was about the gold, and it told Lawler something he wasn’t supposed to know.”

  As Angus talked, he was making quick marks on the paper. Edilean wanted to see what he was doing but the pile of books she’d borrowed from the captain was blocking her view.

  “Anyway,” Angus said, “as I was riding, I saw a house that had been built only the year before. It was rather plain and very simple, but I thought it was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen.”

  He pushed the paper toward her, and she saw that he’d sketched a truly lovely house. As he’d said, it was a rather plain house with five windows on the second floor, four windows and a door on the ground floor.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, not able to suppress her praise. “And your sketch is excellent. How would you arrange the interior?”

  “I have no idea. It’s not as though they invited me in for tea. If I’d been wearing this getup and talking like James, they would have, but not as I was then.”

  Edilean’s face still showed her surprise at his drawing. He had an eye for proportion, and for all that he held a quill as though it were a foreign object, the rendering was very good. Edilean ducked her head to hide her smile, but he saw it.

  “Was that a smile?”

  “No!” she said sharply.

  “You’ve been angry at me for a whole week! Can you not find it in your heart to forgive a man who took his homesickness out on you?”

  “You blame me for all your misfortunes.”

  “That’s because you’re the cause of them.” When she looked away, he said, “But now that I’ve talked to some people about this America, I think I might like it.”

  “How could you when you left your family back in Scotland?”

  “About that, lass, perhaps my life there was not as good as I said it was.”

  “According to you it was pure heaven.”

  “Did I tell you that my father left me a cottage?”

  “No,” she said. “In fact, you’ve told me very little about yourself—except that you were the happiest man on earth and I destroyed it all for you.”

  “Perhaps that was a wee bit of an exaggeration.”

  For a moment she thought about picking up her book and moving away from him, but she’d missed him in this last week of coolness. “So you owned a cottage?”

  “It was a pretty little place with a thatched roof and deep windows. My mother grew roses on one side and I’d wake up to the smell of them.”

  “You’ve never mentioned your mother,” Edilean said. “Or for that matter, your father.”

  “Died long ago,” Angus said in a tone that told he’d say no more. “It was just my sister and me left and she...” Pausing, he shook his head. “She fell in love with a man who is very lazy, and takes great joy in belittling other people, me in particular.”

  “Worse than Shamus?”

  “Different. If you held a penny in your hand and Shamus wanted it, he’d break your arm to get it. But my brother-in-law, Gavin, would say how greedy you were and that if he had a penny he’d give it to the church. Of course you’d have to give it away. Either way, you’d end up penniless.”

  “How drunk did you get at the wedding?”

  Her question startled Angus and made him laugh. “Oh, lass, but I’ve missed your humor. But you’re right. I drank so much I had a sore head for a week. My sister and her new hus