Days of Gold (20 page)

But Edilean knew that her choices weren’t going to be so easy. By her manner and dress, she’d be able to have only one type of man, meaning someone like James. But Angus had made her not want a man like James. Whereas once she’d thought of James as elegance personified, now when she thought of him he seemed rather useless.

But she knew she wasn’t to have a choice in what she was to do with her life. Because of the trunks of gold in the hold of the ship—which Angus had checked on four times—her life had been decided for her. She was where she was now not by choice but because of gold.

When Angus returned to the cabin a couple of hours later, he was sweaty and in a much better mood.

“Dancing again?”

“Rope climbing and betting,” he said. “I won.”

Smiling, she wished she could have seen him. No doubt the sailors thought that Angus was, well... as unlike James as it was possible to be. “The sailors must have been surprised at what you could do.”

“Aye, they were,” he said as he sat down at the table and picked
up the quill and began to draw. Since he’d made the sketches of the house, he hadn’t stopped drawing. Out of curiosity, she’d asked him to draw something besides buildings, and she’d even posed for him to do her portrait, but he couldn’t. He’d turned out something little better than a child would. “I think I’ll stay with my buildings,” he’d said, and she’d agreed.

I can’t think about this, she told herself. If she thought about leaving and never seeing Angus again, she knew she’d start crying and never stop.

Now, as she woke and, as she always did, glanced over at Angus, she felt more calm than she had in days. It had taken him a week, but he’d finally learned how to sleep in the hammock without falling out of it. When she looked, he was staring at her, and his eyes were so red that he looked as though he hadn’t slept all night.

“Are you all right, lass?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine,” she said and meant it. Surprisingly, she was all right. In fact, she was feeling a bit of excitement running through her as she thought about what was to happen today. They were to disembark in a brand-new country.

It was Angus who was the nervous one. “What if there’s not a house ready for you?” he’d asked yesterday. “What if Harcourt didn’t make provision for you?”

“You’re the one who said he would have made arrangements for himself, so I’ll just use them as long as I can. Please stop fretting so.”

“I have never ‘fretted’ in my life,” Angus said, looking affronted, and she had to hide her smile.

Hours later, when the ship had at last dropped anchor and they were in the harbor of Boston, Edilean was sure she’d never seen so much hustle and bustle in her life. She’d spent a lot of her life in London, but this place was different. It was louder, dirtier, and bigger. She could see people and wagons and animals far down the
streets. But for all the noise and dirt, there was an excitement that she’d never felt in ancient London.

“It’s wonderful,” she said to Angus, who was standing close beside her.

“It smells bad.” He took her arm in his and held it tightly.

“No more than London,” she said.

“That’s what I said. It stinks.”

She laughed, then pulled away from his arm. “Come on, we have to oversee that the trunks are brought up. I want to count them to make sure that no one runs off with one of them.”

“Too heavy,” Angus said grumpily, but he followed her away from the rail.

Minutes later they were back in their cabin and Edilean was having a last look around. “I think we got everything. I don’t think we left anything.” She started for the door, but Angus caught her arm and pulled her close to him.

“Lass,” he said, looking down at her. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, I’ll come to you. You know that, don’t you?”

She put her small hands on his chest and looked up into his eyes. “Yes, I know that, and if
you
need anything, I’ll help you.”

“Me? What could I need?” he asked, his voice full of amusement.

“If you marry Tabitha you’ll need a lot of everything. Be sure she doesn’t steal you blind.”

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” he said, smiling, his arms loosely about her waist.

“Let me go,” she said and pushed against him. “The captain will want to say good-bye to us, and I need to see if anyone is waiting for me. Do you think it will be a man?”

“A man?”

“Yes,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “A man. You’ve heard of
them, haven’t you? If I’m to stay in this country I think I’m going to need a husband. I don’t like living alone.”

“A man,” Angus said.

“Will you stop repeating that? What did you think I was going to do when I got here? Sit in my parlor doing my embroidery and pining away for you as you romp with Tabitha or someone of her ilk?”

“I think I should see any man you want to marry,” he said, his jaw set in a firm line.

“But you don’t need to do that,” Edilean said. “You’ve spent these weeks teaching me what is valuable in a man. I won’t fall for a pretty face again, and I won’t fall for a man who just wants my money. I’m going to hold out for a man who likes me, one who doesn’t see me as a nuisance of a child as you do.”

“You have been a sweet companion,” he said, looking at her as though trying to memorize her face.

“And you have been...” She hesitated. “When you weren’t making a fool of yourself over Tabitha’s bosom, you’ve also been a good companion.”

“A fool of myself?” he asked, repeating her words under his breath as though he couldn’t believe them.

“Shall we go?” she said, looking at the door, waiting for him to open it.

“Yes,” Angus said as he held the door for her.

As soon as her back was to him, Edilean let out her pent-up breath. She congratulated herself on carrying that off as well as she had. It hadn’t been easy to pretend to be unaffected by their parting. For all that she felt excitement at the prospect of a new life, the idea of leaving Angus was about to split her in two. If she let herself go she would have thrown her arms about his neck and begged him to stay with her. But she knew that he’d tell her something about
their not being of the same class or the same education or some other nonsense, then he’d put on his “hero face” and do whatever he thought was noble and good—and leave her. Since there was no hope at all that she’d be able to make him change his rock-hard, stubborn mind, she wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing how she felt about him.

“Mrs. Harcourt,” Captain Inges said as soon as they were on deck. “It has been a pleasure. I hope we meet again.”

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe we’ll see each other here in town or in Virginia. Maybe—” She broke off because the captain had turned to look at the dock.

“There it is!” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if the letter your husband sent me was correct or not.”

“Letter?” she asked.

“When he booked the passage. Surely, he told you.”

“Yes, of course,” Edilean said, “but I guess I forgot.”

“A woman in your condition can be forgiven lapses in memory,” he said, sounding like an adoring grandfather.

Edilean had almost forgotten that she’d told Mr. Jones she was with child. All that seemed so long ago. Right now Angus was belowdecks supervising the removal of the trunks of gold and whatever else James had arranged to be shipped to the new country to use for his comfort and enjoyment. “What exactly was in the letter that you’re referring to?” she asked.

“The green carriage. There it is.” He looked down at her and saw her lack of comprehension. Quickly, he glanced about, obviously looking for Angus. “I do hope I haven’t ruined a surprise. Your husband’s sister is to meet you here, and I was told to look for a dark green carriage with the crest of an earl on it. I can’t make out what it says on the side of that carriage, but I think it looks like the one, don’t you? But then, I’m sure you’ll recognize your sister-in-law.”

“No,” Edilean said. “I’ve never met her.”

“Oh, dear, I really have spoiled the surprise. I do apologize.”

Edilean could only stare in fascination at the carriage. What did she do now? The gangplank hadn’t been put into place, so she couldn’t run. James’s sister? She hadn’t known he had a sister. A sister would know everything about her brother’s wife and about the gold and maybe, somehow, she was going to know that Edilean had drugged her brother and left him on a hotel floor. And, worse, she might somehow know that Angus was wanted for kidnapping.

Edilean felt a strong hand on her shoulder and knew without looking up that Angus was there, and he knew what was going on.

“Be calm,” he whispered. “We’ll fix this. We’ll get out of it.”

She looked up at him. “I think you should go,” she said. “I think you should take the jewels and get out of here. I’ve done nothing wrong. I just took what belonged to me, but you stand accused of kidnapping, and I don’t think the court will believe me when I say that I went with you willingly. Go!”

Angus didn’t move but stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder as he stared at the green carriage. It was so rich-looking that he wouldn’t be surprised if he were told it was the best one in all of Boston. He’d seen carriages like it before, and he was sure it had been made in England.

“I’m not leaving you,” Angus said at last, his fingers tightening on her shoulder when the carriage door opened.

Out stepped a woman who was tall and thin, and from the gray in her hair, she looked to be much older than James Harcourt. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand as she looked up at the ship, scanning the faces of the people standing at the side. Instinctively, Angus and Edilean stepped back out of her view.

“You can’t go with me,” Edilean said, her hands on his chest.
“You can’t let her see you. If she calls the authorities you could be put in jail.”

Angus knew the truth of her words, and he also knew that if he had any sense at all, he’d take what he could carry in his hands and leave. But even knowing what could happen wouldn’t make him leave Edilean unprotected.

“It may not be as bad as you think,” he said, “so I’ll stay with you until you know for sure what’s happening.”

“You wouldn’t like to hire a wagon and take me and my gold with you to Virginia, would you?” she asked, only half in jest.

“Nay,” he said softly and raised her hand to kiss the palm. “But know that I will miss you most dreadfully.”

“Angus...” she began, but he wouldn’t let her finish the sentence.

“We’ll walk down the gangplank together, but not touching. You can tell her that I’m a fellow passenger who looked after you during the voyage.”

“And what do I say when she sees that her brother isn’t with me?”

“Tell her he was delayed. If she knows him at all, she’ll know that he probably ran off with his drinking friends and wanted nothing to do with you.”

“He might have let
me
leave alone but not with the trunks of gold.”

Angus smiled. “You’re right in that, but maybe she doesn’t know that. My sister thinks that whatever I do is good, so maybe this woman feels the same way about her brother.”

“But you do tend to do good,” she said, “so that means your sister knows you as you are.”

Angus shook his head at her. “I will miss you every day. I will especially miss the way you look at me. Now, go! You must get to her
before she meets the captain. See if you can tell one of your stories and make her think that all this was James’s idea.”

She held on to Angus’s arm, not wanting to leave him. He thought she was kidding about the wagon and running off to Virginia, but she hadn’t been.

“Come on,” Angus said. “You can do this. Remember that you hid in a coffin. That was worse than this is now.”

“I was drugged,” she said, then her eyes brightened. “Do you have any more of that laudanum left? I could take some now and you could tell her that I died on the voyage over. You know, like in
Romeo and Juliet
. But wait! You probably don’t know that story. Why don’t we go back to the cabin and I’ll tell you the whole thing?”

While she’d been talking, he was leading her to the gangplank. When they got into view of the carriage below, he took his hands off of her. “Straighten your back,” he said under his breath. “Margaret is not as good as I am at tying your corset strings. You should have let me continue to do that.”

“Margaret leaves enough room for me to breathe, and you were enjoying it all too much for my taste.”

Chuckling, Angus gave her one last push to go down the gangplank. He was just a few steps behind her but trying to look as though he barely knew her.

The woman was standing at the bottom, looking up at her, watching every step Edilean took—and she was frowning.

“You’re not the earl’s daughter,” the woman said when Edilean was in front of her. She was a handsome woman, midforties, much taller than Edilean, almost as tall as Angus, who was hovering nearby, looking with interest at the crates that were being unloaded. “You look more like the other one.”

“I think I am,” Edilean said, then drew in her breath. She’d
spent most of her life with females and out of necessity she’d learned to size them up quickly. “I’m the pretty one with the gold.”

Edilean heard a soft groan of horror from Angus, who had his back to her.

The tall woman gave a little smile. “So how did you get your gold out of my brother’s sticky hands?”

“There are always men willing to rescue pretty girls with trunks full of gold.”

“Such as this one who’s hovering around you now? Here! You. Yes, you,” she said when Angus turned to look at her. “You can go now. I’m not going to hurt her.”

“She’s—” Angus began but the woman cut him off.

“She’s here and I’m going to take care of her.” She looked back at Edilean. “Did you bring the gold?”

“Yes.”

“Good! I have a wagon to transport it to a bank vault. Everything is arranged.” She walked ahead to the carriage, then stood still as a uniformed footman held the door open for her. “Come along, I don’t have all day. There are people waiting.”

“I think there’s been a mistake,” Edilean said, and went to the woman so she wouldn’t have to shout. “I’m not married to your brother,” she said quietly. “He married someone else. She—”