Days of Gold Read online

  After her first encounter with him, people had gone out of their way to tell her that it wasn’t possible that Angus McTern had loosened her saddle. “He takes care of us all,” she was told.

  In the week between when she’d struck him and when he’d dropped her into the horse trough, she’d heard nothing but good about him. Wherever she went, someone told her about Angus. Often, she wasn’t told directly. She’d visit Marmy in the stables and people would suddenly appear outside the stall and they’d put on a “conversation” about Angus.

  According to them, he was the epitome of every virtue known to mankind. After four days of these staged talks she’d wanted to shout, “Do you expect me to marry him? Is that what you’re after?”

  During the last of that week, as Edilean went over every point in her life, she thought that she shouldn’t have been so awful to the man. She should have worked harder to make him like her. If she had, then maybe he would have helped her when she’d asked him to. She even thought that maybe she could have offered the current laird to her uncle as an alternate husband. If Angus McTern was half as honorable as she’d been told, he might have been persuaded to relinquish the gold to her uncle.

  But then what? she thought. Was she to go live with him in one of those two-room stone cottages and make a baby every year?

  Now, she could feel the warmth of him at her side. It was cold, and she wished she could move closer to him, but things had changed when he’d leaned toward her and she’d acted as though she found him repulsive. But she didn’t. It was the way she’d survived years of aggression from too-friendly men.

  She brushed at her hair with her hands. “Am I still covered in sawdust?”

  “A bit, but I’m sure he’ll like you.”

  She rubbed her hands to warm them, glancing up at him, but he said nothing. “Maybe by this time tomorrow I’ll be married.”

  He hadn’t been fooled by her attempt to cover her nervousness. “You’ll do fine, lass.”

  “Do you think my uncle will be searching for us soon?”

  “In a day or two,” Angus said softly. “Malcolm will figure out what’s going on and he’ll give us some time.”

  “By then I’ll be gone,” she said.

  Angus saw her scratching at the sawdust on her neck and decided to let up on her. He halted the horses, and immediately she was scared. But he nodded at her and said he just needed a bit of... privacy. He took a big bag from under the wagon seat, tossed it to the ground, got down, and lifted his arms up to her. “Like to stretch your legs?”

  She nodded and put her hands on his shoulders as his big hands encircled her waist and lifted her down. For a second, they stood together. They were strangers but they were both facing whole new lives. It created a bond between them—a bond that she knew would end when they got to the city.

  She didn’t go far from the wagon to take care of her private needs, but he still beat her back. He’d changed clothes, removing the tartan and exchanging it for trousers, a shirt, and a big jacket. He’d gone from looking like the hero of a romantic novel to looking like a man who worked on the docks.

  She smiled at him, but she knew he could feel the difference. Yet again, she felt that he thought she was lacking in some way.

  “Shall we take you to your future husband?” he asked as he lifted her onto the wagon.

  They drove all that night and through the next day. When they reached the city, Angus skirted the center the best he could as he went toward the dock and the Red Lion Inn, which were both south of the hustle and bustle that he hated so much.

  Edilean yawned. She’d slept half the way, her small body leaning against Angus. Twice, he’d fallen asleep, but she’d woken him up. One time, she said, “I could drive the team.”

  “You?” he’d asked with so much humor that he’d roused from his sleepiness.

  “Why do you persist in telling me that I can do nothing?”

  “You have sawdust on your nose,” he said.

  “Oh!” Edilean exclaimed, rubbing it hard. When she looked at Angus, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “It keeps me awake,” he said. “Does Harcourt tease you?”

  “No,” Edilean said. “He loves me so much that he never teases me.”

  “Doesn’t he make you laugh?”

  “He sings with me and we go riding together. And we sit in summerhouses and read together. Sometimes he reads poetry to me. Do you like poetry, Mr. McTern?”

  “Very much,” he said. “Sometimes I read a poem or two before I go to sleep. It helps me get calm.”

  She looked at him hard. “Are you making fun of me again?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “But I mean no harm, lass. The truth is that I’m usually too busy trying to keep thieves from stealing your uncle’s cattle to have time to sit and sing with a girl.”

  “But you have dances. Morag told me about them, and one of the women said you were a good dancer.”

  “But not for the dances that you know,” he said.

  After a while, Edilean quit trying to hold a conversation with him. It always seemed to end in her not knowing enough about... Well, about life, to be able to talk to him. She’d tried different subjects, but he only ended up teasing her and making her feel useless and incompetent.

  She didn’t say so, but she vowed that she was going to do the best she could to make up for causing him to lose everything in his life. She’d asked him why he’d changed her plan of using Shamus, and when he told her about his idea of getting the pastor drunk, she felt even more guilty. In the end, he had tried to save her, and all he was getting for what he’d done was banishment.

  A couple of times Edilean stole looks at him, thinking how she knew her uncle much better than he did. She’d seen the way her uncle pretended to be something he wasn’t when the men were around, and she knew he would never show his true self if any of the Scots were near. They wouldn’t work so hard for him if they saw the way he raised his hand to strike a woman they’d all come to like.

  Edilean knew that Angus—Mr. McTern—seemed to believe that he had some time before her uncle came after them, but he hadn’t seen the man’s greed as she had. Somehow, she had to persuade this Scotsman to go to America with her and James. The plan she was coming up with was to get James to open one of the trunks and give Angus a large helping of the gold. That way, Angus would be able to buy himself some land in America; he could build a house for him and the family he’d start.

  “What’s that look for?” he asked.

  It was midday and she was hungry and tired, but excited too. It wouldn’t be long now before she saw James. “Where will you stay when we get there?”

  “I’m going to lie down in the straw in the stables and sleep for three days.”

  “You can’t do that. You’ll miss the ship.”

  “Oh, aye. The Mary Elizabeth. Is it a big ship, then? Does it have room to spare for a poor Scotsman?”

  She ignored his teasing tone. “I’ll make sure you have a place on the ship even if the captain has to share his cabin.”

  “Spoken like a woman who has had everything all her life.”

  Edilean gave him a hard look, but he didn’t see it. That was hours ago, and they were in the city now and there were other wagons. He’d halted now and then so she could buy them food, and he took care of the horses’ needs, but mostly he plodded on.

  The day turned into night and they were all, including the horses, very tired.

  Just when she was ready to say that she could go on no longer, she saw the sign for the inn. “We are here!”

  “Yes,” Angus said tiredly. “We’re here at last.” He drove the exhausted team into the open doors of the stable, and immediately a man came out from the shadows. He was exquisitely dressed and had a face that Angus thought would look better on a girl.

  “Edilean!” the man said sternly, “I’d almost given you up. I’ve been standing in this filthy barn for hours, waiting for you.