Days of Gold Read online

  Shamus and Tam eagerly took plates and began to fill them, but Angus held back.

  Tam ate three little tea sandwiches in rapid succession, then turned to look at Angus in admiration. “Whatever you did to her, it couldn’t have been too bad. Look at this food.”

  Angus was still frowning, but part of him was beginning to relax. Maybe Edilean had seen the handbills. Maybe she’d realized why Angus left. Perhaps she even thought more of him for having given up so much to protect her.

  Malcolm held out a cup of tea to Angus. “Come on, lad, drink it while it’s hot.”

  Angus reached for the cup but halted when he heard a thud outside the parlor door. It sounded as though something heavy had been dropped on the floor.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” Malcolm said, “that was a piece of baggage. Looks like this time she doesn’t mean to let you leave alone.”

  Angus took the cup of tea and downed it in one gulp as two more thuds came.

  “She’s certainly planning something,” Tam said, now looking at Angus as though he were the epitome of manhood. “What did you do to make her... well, to want you.”

  “I ain’t so sure it’s baggage,” Shamus said, his mouth full. “These cakes are good.”

  “It’s all good,” Malcolm said as he settled back, cup in hand, a full plate on his lap. “I can see why you’d want to stay here, lad. She sets a good table.”

  Angus put the teacup down and went to stand in front of the fireplace. Another thump came. “I don’t like this. I want to know what she’s doing.” He took a step toward the door, but both of the doors flew open, and there stood Edilean—with a rifle in her hands. Two women stood behind her, and on the floor was an arsenal of firearms. The only thing missing was a cannon.

  Angus’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but he’d had too many years of dodging bullets to stand still when a rifle was aimed at him. “Get down!” he yelled while he dove for cover behind a chair. Tam hit the floor, but Malcolm and Shamus sat where they were, not hesitating in their eating.

  The bullet missed Angus by inches, hitting the chair and sending stuffing flying. “Edilean!” he said from behind the chair. “We can talk about this.”

  “I never plan to speak to you again,” she said as she hoisted a second long, heavy rifle and fired it at him. The bullet tore through the chair arm. He moved his legs a second before he would have been hit.

  Angus peeked around the destroyed chair. Edilean was standing in the doorway, and the two young women flanking her glowed with good health—and humor. As one loaded the rifle Edilean had just fired, the other one handed her a pistol. Both girls looked very happy, as though they’d wanted to do this all their lives.

  “Edilean, please,” Angus said. As he spoke, he motioned to Tam, who was hiding behind the other chair, to make a run for the window. It was closed, but nearby there was a heavy silver candlestick on a tall cabinet. Angus pantomimed that Tam should use that to break the window and get out.

  Edilean cocked a pistol, aimed, and fired directly at Angus, but he rolled away and the shot went into the floor, tearing a hole in the pretty rug. In the next second, Tam threw the candlestick at the window, it broke and he started out. But there were two young women standing outside, and they were holding loaded pistols aimed at him. He paused with his foot on the windowsill.

  “I’m not the one you want,” Tam said.

  One of the girls cocked her pistol. “We can’t be sure of that, now can we?”

  “But I don’t even look like him!” Tam said.

  “We were told that he’s big and beautiful,” the second girl said, raising her pistol toward Tam’s head.

  “Well, I guess there is a similarity between us,” Tam said, smiling, and he started out the window. But the first girl pulled the trigger, missing Tam by little more than an inch.

  He went back in and crouched on the floor by Angus, who gave him a look of disgust.

  “Ever hear of clan loyalty?” Angus asked.

  Tam shrugged. “This is your personal fight.”

  Angus grimaced as he looked around the chair and saw Edilean aiming another pistol at him. “For God’s sake, Malcolm. Help us in this.”

  “Ain’t my way to interfere in love,” Malcolm said as he licked jam from his fingers.

  “This is love?” Angus rolled away from another near-miss shot. “Then give me hate.”

  Malcolm said, “I do indeed like these biscuits.”

  Shamus looked at Edilean standing in the doorway, holding a rifle longer than she was, and at the two young women beside her, pistols in their hands. “I think I like everything about this country.”

  Angus said, “Edilean, if you’d just give me a moment to explain I could clear this up. It really is just a misunderstanding.” As he spoke, he half rolled, half ran to the other side of the room and crouched down behind the settee. He figured she wouldn’t shoot at him if Malcolm was between them.

  “Malcolm,” Edilean said as she took another pistol, “would you please move to the left?” She shot through the settee, but the bullet went through Malcolm’s shirt, grazing his upper arm. “Oh, I am so sorry,” Edilean said. “I meant my left, not yours.”

  Malcolm glanced at the wound, and continued eating. “That’s all right, lass, it’s a common enough mistake.”

  “Did I hurt you?” Edilean asked.

  “No, not at all,” Malcolm said. “These little raspberry tarts sure are good.”

  Angus, behind the settee, rolled his eyes, then stood up and said firmly, “Edilean, this is ridiculous! You’re going to hurt someone.”

  She took a pistol from one of the women. “I mean to kill you,” she said, her jaw clenched. She looked at Malcolm and said sweetly, “Harriet made those. I’ll have her give you some.”

  “Edilean,” Angus said, “if you kill me they’ll hang you.”

  She gave him a cold look. “Not after I tell them what you did to me.” She looked back at Shamus. “It’s good to see you again. Have you been well?”

  “Well enough,” Shamus said. “Was that really gold in the back of that wagon I was supposed to drive for you?”

  Edilean blinked at him. She’d been away from Scotland so long that she didn’t understand what he’d said.

  Angus, still standing behind the settee, which now had a huge hole in the center of it, translated.

  “Yes, it was gold,” Edilean said.

  “Damn!” Shamus said.

  “He said—” Angus began.

  “I could understand that!” Edilean said angrily. “You have always thought that I’m incompetent and worthless.”

  “I’ve never thought any such thing!” Angus said. “If you’ll stop this lunacy and give me time to explain, I could tell you—”

  “Edilean,” said a woman who came to the doorway, “whatever are you doing?”

  “Tabitha?” Angus asked. “Is that you?”

  Edilean looked from one to the other, at the way Angus’s face was breaking into a smile, and she fired again.

  Angus just had time to dive under the settee, his head between Shamus’s and Malcolm’s feet.

  In the next second a woman came running from the back of the house and Angus recognized her as Harriet Harcourt.

  “Edilean!” Harriet said. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Hand me a loaded pistol,” Edilean said to the woman behind Harriet.

  Harriet pushed the girl’s hand away. “This is absurd! You can’t shoot at people and you cannot destroy the furniture again!”

  Angus backed out from under the settee and stood up, his face showing his relief. “That’s just what I’ve been telling her.”

  Harriet looked at Angus and her face turned to anger. “You! Give me that pistol!” She snatched the pistol from the girl and fired at Angus, who went back down under the settee.

  Tam, still on the other side of the room, hiding behind a chair, said, “What the hell did you do to these women?”

  “I’d rather not t