Days of Gold (16 page)

When they got back to their own cabin, they saw that a hammock
had been hung up and the trunks had been repacked. Edilean watched as Angus checked that the box of jewels was still where he’d hidden it, and smiled when he saw it was still there.

Minutes later, she asked him to untie her corset laces, and he groaned. “You’ve made rules that I cannot touch you, but I have not said the same to you,” she said.

“Take that back or I’ll let you sleep in that cage all night.”

Smiling mischievously, she said, “Then I’ll have to go to that adorable Mr. Jones and ask for his help.”

“You are a truly wicked woman,” Angus said as he quickly untied her laces, then went to the far side of the room.

Edilean undressed slowly as she thought about the evening and how it felt to belong to someone. Since her father died, she’d always been someone’s guest. She’d always had to “sing for her supper” as she thought of it. She’d had to walk when she didn’t want to, talk when she wanted to be quiet. She’d been a guest, never the owner of the house—and the worst had been in her own uncle’s house. There, she’d been a prisoner.

But now it was nice to think that she had her own husband and they were going to a new world and would build their own house. Even if it wasn’t quite the truth, she liked to think of it.

Minutes later she was in bed and lay in the shadows, watching Angus struggling with the hammock. He rolled from one side to the other and seemed about to fall out.

“I want to hear you say my name,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said. “You’ve never said my name to me and I’ve sometimes wondered if you even know it.”

He took a moment before he spoke. “Edilean,” he said softly. “Edilean... Harcourt.”

“I guess it is. If the captain has seen the handbills of you he
may have heard of the missing Miss Talbot. And you are Angus Harcourt.”

“That I am—for now anyway. Maybe when I get to Virginia I’ll name my place McTern Manor.”

“So you want to go to Virginia?” she asked, her voice quiet. She could hear the ocean outside, and inside she could hear Angus breathing. “I’m not sure, but I think Virginia is a long way from where we’re landing in Boston.”

“I like the sound of this Virginia.”

“So do I,” Edilean said sleepily. She’d had no sleep the night before when she’d cut Angus’s hair and shaved him, and today she’d met people and had many new experiences. When she fell asleep, it was so deep that she didn’t hear Angus when he fell out of the hammock and hit the floor hard. Nor did she awaken when he pulled the quilt over her and stood looking at her for a long while.

He used the blankets from the hammock to make a pallet on the floor on the far side of the cabin and settled down to sleep. As he dozed off he remembered that he’d said he’d like to give her an entire town to design. “Edilean, Virginia,” he whispered just before he slept, and he liked the sound of it.

N
O, NO, NO
!” Angus said as he stood up from the chair and backed away from her. “I’m so sick of this I’m going mad. You hear me? Mad! Insane!”

Edilean looked at him in consternation. It had been raining hard for four days now, so they’d stayed inside the cabin and she’d started teaching Angus how to read. The process would have been easier if he’d bothered to apply himself, but he kept looking out the window at the sea. One time she asked him what he was thinking and he told her he was remembering Scotland and his family.

When he’d said that, Edilean moved away to sit on the bunk and let him have his own thoughts. She was glad that she was leaving no one behind who she really cared about. She had a few friends from school she’d like to exchange letters with, but there was no one she would really miss.

Too often, she thought of James and wondered how he liked his life with his new wife. She was glad that since he was now married,
he’d never again have a chance to fool some schoolgirl into thinking he was in love with her.

But she didn’t miss
him
, the man. In fact, as she got to know Angus, she realized that she’d never known James. In the few days she’d been with Angus she’d learned what he liked to eat—meat—and what he hated—seafood or anything that looked what he called “suspicious.” She knew how easily he was embarrassed, and how his sense of humor was always just under the surface. When he got frustrated at trying to learn his letters, she’d seen that if she could make a joke, he’d get his good humor back.

She’d thought about what he’d told her about not flirting with him and acting as though they were brother and sister, and she’d done the best she could. It hadn’t been easy. Leaning over him hour after hour as she corrected his work had been difficult. Sometimes she inhaled the fragrance of his hair and closed her eyes, the physical pleasure of the scent of him nearly overwhelming her.

In the days they’d spent together, they’d developed habits that now seemed second nature to them. She got out his clothes each morning while he shaved—he’d refused to let her do that task for him—and she tied his cravat, as he could never seem to do it correctly. And he helped her with her corset morning and night—and was already so used to it that he often yawned while pulling and tying.

For Edilean, the days had been wonderful. They were as close as she’d come to having a home and family since her father died. But now Angus was saying that he’d hated those days.

“Why are you trying to make me into him?” he asked, glaring at her.

“Into who?” She stepped back from him.

“Harcourt. You’re trying to make me into that peacock you were so in love with.”

“I’m doing no such thing,” she said. “I’ve never tried to make you into James.”

“Oh? And what is this?” he asked as he took off the beautiful blue silk jacket he was wearing and flung it on the chair. “And this?” He untied his cravat and tossed the snowy white tie on top of the jacket.

“Are you planning to remove any more of your clothing?” she asked as coolly as she could manage. “If you are, I want to make myself comfortable so I have a clear view.”

“You canna make light of this,” he said, not smiling at her joke. “I’m Angus McTern, not your dancing boy who trails after you.”

Edilean sat down on the chair and looked up at him. “So now you’ve decided that all this is my fault?” she asked softly.

“And who else’s fault is it? If you hadn’t come to my home I’d be there now. I’d be in the heather this very minute and tonight I’d see my nephews and Malcolm, and I’d—” He took a breath and lowered his voice. “Instead, I’m here on this ocean, going to a foreign land, with no friends or family. And you’re trying to make me into something that I’ll never be. What is it that you want? To create a man you can show off to your highborn friends?” He was getting angry again. “Shall I be your trained monkey that you dress up and display? You’ll say, ‘Look what I did! I made an illiterate ruffian into a gentleman.’ Will your snooty friends applaud you?”

Edilean was so taken aback by his words that she could hardly speak. “What friends do I have in this new country?” she asked. “I was teaching you to read because I thought you wanted to learn. Forgive me.”

“Why do I need to read? What good will it do me? I’ll buy some land and work the soil. No more hills and heather for me. Yet you’re trying to—” He broke off and in the next moment he left the cabin, slamming the door behind him and leaving her alone in the room.

“I will not cry,” she said. “I will not cry.” But she did. She flung herself down on the bed and cried hard. She hadn’t felt so bad since her uncle dragged her from school and later told her that the only thing he wanted from her was money.

She knew that Angus was right. When she thought of what he looked like when she first met him and what he looked like now—all because of her—she wanted to beg his forgiveness. She hadn’t consciously tried to make him into the man she thought James was, but she’d done it. Angus was what she’d wanted in James. Angus was as beautiful as James, and nearly as well spoken when he put on his English accent. He could even sing, and he was certainly well liked by everyone. One day when the rain had stopped for half an hour, they’d gone up on deck and when a rope got stuck, Angus had helped the sailors pull it loose. Since then, he’d been a favorite of the men as well as the officers on the ship. At night, both Mr. Jones and Captain Inges asked him to sing one of his Scottish ballads. They liked them better than when Edilean sang an aria from an opera.

“But I’ve not changed,” she said, sitting up on the bed and wiping her eyes. She was exactly the same as when she’d met Angus. And she had to face it that she was someone he didn’t like. He never had liked her, and it seemed that he never would. He didn’t like the world she’d been raised in, and he thought that she was a useless person—which he’d told her one way or the other many times.

She glanced out the big windows and saw that the rain had let up. Captain Inges said they’d sail out of it soon, and he’d been right. Edilean smoothed her dress—the only one she’d been able to cut down from the huge gowns that were in the trunk—and decided to go up on deck. Maybe if she apologized to Angus, he’d forgive her. She didn’t like for him to be angry at her.

As soon as Angus stormed out of the cabin, he regretted every word he’d said. Being near Edilean day after day was too much for him. Her kindness, her constant desire to please, the way she looked after him and noted what he did and did not like, was more than he could bear.

Why couldn’t she be the snooty, arrogant snob he’d first thought she was? Why couldn’t she order him about as the underling she must think of him as? He remembered how justified he’d felt when he’d thrown her into the horse trough. But Angus knew that he’d judged her based solely on what he thought she was like. He’d not listened to anyone when they’d said Lawler’s niece was sweet and kind. He remembered making fun of that idea to Malcolm.

At the thought of that name, Angus went up the ladder to the upper deck. He needed to get some air to keep himself from going insane. Just weeks ago his life had been laid out before him. He knew what his duties were and where he fit in the world. But now all he knew was confusion about what his future was going to be. And his very soul seemed to be torn by a very young, very beautiful girl who was making him forget all that he knew about himself. She was a woman he could never, never have—but wanted oh so very much.

For the first time, six of the women prisoners were on deck. He was glad to see that their leg irons had been removed, but three of them still looked sick. It seemed that most of the sailors had come onto the deck and were doing tasks that didn’t need to be done while they gave the women surreptitious glances.

Usually the scene would have amused him, but not now. Angus walked to the far side of the ship and looked over the rail.

“Have a fight with the little miss?” asked a woman’s voice, and he turned to see the pretty one who’d stared at him when she’d come aboard. “I’m Tabitha.”

“Angus Mc—” He hesitated. “Harcourt,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Angus Mc... Harcourt,” she said, her eyes teasing.

When he said nothing else, she leaned back against the rail on her elbows and looked at the other women. “We’ve had a hard time of it, what with most of them puking up their guts for days.”

“And you didn’t?” Angus asked, still looking out at the sea.

“Naw. The sea don’t bother me at all.” She turned back to him. “So did you have a fight?”

Angus gave her a look that said his personal life was none of her business, but his expression made her laugh.

“I used to work for a woman like her. Such fine manners. Had to have everything just so, but I couldn’t please her no matter how hard I tried.”

“So you stole from her?” Angus asked idly. He didn’t really care what she’d done. His mind was on his argument with Edilean. Or was it a true argument when he’d yelled and she’d said nothing in defense of herself?

“No,” Tabitha said quietly. “Her husband stole from me the only thing I had that was mine alone.”

At first he didn’t know what she meant, but then he realized she was talking about her virginity.

“His wife kicked me out when she saw I was carrying her husband’s child. No references, no money. I had just the clothes on my back and the child in my belly. I stole a loaf of bread to survive and I was caught. By that time, I was too tired to run and prison looked good.”

She was taking his attention away from his own problems, and he liked hearing her Scottish accent. He glanced at her flat stomach.

“Stillborn,” she said. “Poor little fellow wanted nothing to do with this world, and I don’t blame him. The judge let me off easy
with just this banishment to America. It wasn’t like I left a country that had been good to me. So why did you leave?”

“To build a new life,” he said without thinking. “My wife and I want to buy land and...” He trailed off, unable to add to the lie.

Tabitha smiled at him with a knowing little smirk. She’d seen the way he looked when he’d stepped on deck minutes before. Only a person close to you could make you that unhappy. “So what did you fight about?”

“My wife and I—” he began, but stopped. He was so sick of lying! “I want more; she wants less. What else do men and women fight about?”