Days of Gold Read online

  But he couldn’t do that. Oh, he knew that she was beginning to think she was in love with him, but that had happened before with other girls. What was different was how he felt about her. No other woman had come close to making him feel as she did, as though he could do anything. It wouldn’t surprise him if she told him she believed he could fly. And when she looked at him with such wonder in her beautiful eyes, Angus thought maybe he could develop wings and soar away.

  No, he couldn’t do that, he thought. She was just a girl, barely past eighteen, while he was, at twenty-five, not old, but compared with her, he felt as though he’d lived a thousand years. He’d never told her, but her uncle had sent him on many errands, some of them a great deal less noble than protecting some sissy Englishman as he drew pictures of old castles.

  Angus knew Edilean thought she’d had a difficult life because she’d not had a mother and father to tuck her in at night, but he knew she’d been sheltered and taken care of. Her father’s money had been there, even if he hadn’t been there in person. So she spent a week or two with some girl she didn’t like. What horror was that?

  She’d not seen her father die before her eyes, as Angus had. She’d not seen her mother waste away from too much work and the loneliness of her life. And Edilean hadn’t been told since the day she was born that she was responsible for the health and well-being of an entire clan of people. More than once, Malcolm had taken him by the shoulders and said, “The fate of Clan McTern rests with you, lad. It’s all up to you. You must undo what your grandfather—my father—did.”

  All his life, Angus had heard in detail what a nasty piece of work his grandfather had been. He’d raided other people’s sheep during the night, had stolen from everyone within a hundred miles. He’d been caught often and several times had escaped death by mere minutes. When he was thirty a young woman, a lover, had rescued him from the gallows. Three days later his wife gave birth to Angus’s father. But his wife forgave him for whatever he did. It was said that all the women forgave him for anything.

  Maybe his wife forgave him, but his three sons didn’t. The eldest one lived to adulthood, but he was killed when his son, Angus, was only five. The second son had tried to follow his father, to be as “tough” as he was, but he couldn’t. He died in a nighttime raid and a month later his young wife gave birth to Tam. Only Malcolm survived his father’s treachery.

  Angus’s father had done his best to hold the clan together, but too much hatred had been created over the years. During a raid on McTern sheep, Angus’s father was stabbed in the stomach by a man hiding in the bushes. He’d lived long enough to get home, but died soon after, with his wife and young son beside him. His last words had been to his little son, telling him he had to take care of the McTerns. “Don’t do to them what my father does.” He’d held the hands of his wife and son. “I’m glad I won’t see the old bastard as I know he’ll go to hell.” He’d smiled at the words, then closed his eyes and died.

  It was said that on the night Angus’s grandfather gambled away everything on one cut of the cards, the moon was full and the wolves came out to howl in protest. No one knew what happened to the old man after that. He’d laughed off every bad deed he’d done, every tear—and every death—he’d caused, but losing his family’s past as well as their future was too much even for him. Three weeks later, he was found sitting in a chair in a pub in Edinburgh, dead.

  Angus’s mother died a few years after that, leaving Angus and his sister alone.

  “And why that sad look?”

  Turning, he saw Tabitha standing close to him, her dark eyes giving him suggestive looks. Had he met her a year ago, he would have liked the way she looked at him.

  “You have another fight with the missus?”

  When he gave her a look that said he was going to tell her nothing, she laughed.

  “I’m going to find out the truth between you two,” she said.

  “There is no hidden truth,” Angus said. “We are what you see.”

  Tabitha gave a little laugh to let him know she didn’t believe him. “Will you set up a house together in America?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, gritting his teeth. The woman really was an annoying creature. He’d seen her three times since the first day and she was always prying into his life—and nearly always right. She saw what others did not. “If you’re so perceptive, how did you get caught by a man?”

  “Love,” she said quickly. “You can’t help what love does to you, now can you?”

  He didn’t bother to answer but turned back to look at the sea. Behind them a man yelled that the women were to go back down below.

  “They’re afraid we’ll corrupt the men,” Tabitha said.

  “And haven’t you?”

  “Any corruption I’ve done has been mutual,” she said as she went to where the other women were gathering and grumbling about having to go down again.

  Angus looked back at the sea and thought about how Edilean was so jealous of Tabitha. At even a hint of the woman, Edilean’s eyes flashed fire and she looked like she wanted to attack someone.

  Love, Angus thought. Tabitha said she’d had an affair with her employer because of love, and Angus knew that Edilean was beginning to think she was in love with him. But she wasn’t. She was just scared of being alone in a new country. And alone she had to be. Or at least separated from him, from Angus McTern.

  It was tempting—oh, so very, very tempting—to make a few advances toward her, to “accidentally” touch her hand, to look at her in a way that would let her know what was in his mind. He knew that if he did, it would take only minutes before she fell against him, before she gave herself to him.

  But then what? he thought. He had to close his eyes as he imagined delicious weeks, perhaps even months, of lovemaking. They’d have quiet dinners that they’d never finish because they’d be on each other’s bodies.

  But somewhere in there he knew that their true selves would begin to show. Edilean had spent her life in school, while Angus couldn’t read. Edilean loved silk dresses and afternoon tea; Angus liked to roll in a tartan and sleep on the ground.

  There was no common ground between them. Now, on the ship, with Angus wearing another man’s clothes, and using a false accent, it was almost as though they were equals. He saw the way her beautiful face lit up when she saw he could do something besides run through the heather.

  But that wasn’t him. He couldn’t spend his life trying to be someone else. It wouldn’t take long before people saw through him. Even Tabitha, a woman who’d lived in the dregs of society, had seen through him. She knew he was an imposter.

  Angus had a vision of some handsome young man who had a degree from a university making Edilean laugh about some French poet. And that night she would look at Angus with contempt.

  What if they married? He could see her telling their children not to ask their father. “He knows nothing,” she’d say. Or no, she’d be too polite to say it, but they’d know. He’d be in the midst of a family that laughed together over poetry and stories written in Greek, and Angus would be left out of it.

  Even now he could imagine his anger at being so treated. What would he do? Have an affair with a woman like Tabitha? While his wife and children were at home in their pure, innocent beds, would he be like his grandfather and spend his nights out with loose women? Would he need them to feel like a man?

  Angus ran his hand over his face to clear away his ugly thoughts. All he knew for sure was that he could not continue to be with Edilean after the voyage ended. He knew that when they docked she’d no doubt look at him with her “save me” eyes. They’d be near to tears, and she’d be so beautiful that he’d be ready to grab a sword and lead an army into war for her. But he had to resist her!

  If he knew anything in life, it was that if he stayed with her, married or not, they’d come to hate each other. She would hate him, or worse, come to despise him, because underneath the elegant clothes he was no gentleman. And he’d hate her be