Days of Gold (37 page)

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 can
not
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 talk about it,” Angus said from under the couch.

It was Malcolm who stopped it all. Suddenly, he stood up and was staring at Harriet.

Shamus looked up at him. “What’s wrong with you? If you don’t sit down, you’ll make all this stop.”

Edilean looked from Malcolm to Harriet, then back again. “Harriet,” she said softly, “why don’t you take Malcolm into the kitchen, patch up his wound, and get him some more of those little tarts you made?”

Harriet and Malcolm just stood there, staring at each other.

Edilean turned to Tabitha, who was watching everything with a wide grin on her face. “Would you please help those two into the kitchen?”

Angus nodded across the room to Tam, who pushed the chair over. In the confusion of the noise, Angus quickly slipped out of the room and put himself between Edilean and the weapons, but he didn’t touch her. “Are you over your hissy fit now?”

Edilean’s face showed her rage; her fists were clenched at her side. “If I had a knife I’d cut your throat. I want you to get out of my house and never return.”

“Tam has something he wants to say to you.”

“Tam may stay. In fact, all the rest of you may spend the night. But you”—she glared at Angus—“
you
must go.”

“Edilean, I know you hate me and maybe you have a right to, but—”

“Maybe?” she said, her voice nearly a screech.

“All right, you
do
have every right to hate me, but please listen to what they have to say. And please know that I’ll do anything to help them.”

Before she could say anything else, he took the few steps toward the door. Tabitha was looking at him in amusement, while Harriet’s eyes blazed hatred. Angus bent toward Harriet and said softly, “How is your brother? Living well?”

In a second, Harriet’s face went from anger to fear, and she glanced at Edilean, as though terrified that she’d heard him.

Angus left the house, the door was slammed behind him, and he hurried down the stairs. There was a crowd of people outside, all of them having heard the shots.

“What’s going on in there?” a man asked.

“Gun cleaning,” Angus said as he made his way through them. He hitched a ride on a milk wagon and went back to the tavern where he’d once worked. He knew that Malcolm would want to know where he was staying, so it would be better to be somewhere known. Besides, Dolly kept her ears open and she’d know as much as anyone, and Angus wanted some information.

When Malcolm had told him that Harriet was paying her brother James to stay away from Edilean, Angus had been so concerned about having to confront Edilean that he’d not thought about it much. But now it was taking over his mind. He’d only mentioned the matter to Harriet as an afterthought. He hadn’t liked the way she’d been looking at Malcolm. What was the woman after by throwing herself at his uncle?

But when Angus had mentioned James, Harriet’s anger had changed to fear. So, he thought, Edilean didn’t know anything about the payments going to Harcourt. If Harriet was taking care of Edilean’s money as Tam had said she was, did that mean she was embezzling from Edilean?

If Edilean knew nothing about Harriet’s treachery, then how did Malcolm know? When it came to that, exactly what had they been doing in America for three whole months? And who had paid their passage across the ocean, and their room and board once they got here?

Angus knew that there was a great deal more to why Malcolm, Tam, and Shamus were in this country than just signing some papers—and Angus meant to find out what they weren’t telling him.

H
ARRIET WAS MOVING
quickly around the dining room, putting out the best china, polishing the silver with her apron, checking the glasses for smudges.

Edilean was sitting at the end of the table, reading the newspaper, and finishing her tea. “Harriet, will you please stop fidgeting? I’ve seen where those men live, and I can assure you that they don’t know Wedgwood from Limoges. They’d be happy if you dumped all the food on a slab of bread.”

“There is such a thing as lineage, and even though the men have no money, their bloodline still tells.”

“Bloodline? Whatever are you talking about?”

“Tam is to be the laird of the McTern clan,” Harriet said. “Didn’t you know that? When Angus relinquishes the title, it will belong to young Tam.”

“And if anything happens to Tam, it goes to Malcolm,” Edilean said softly. “Are you thinking of being the laird’s wife?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harriet said as she turned away, but not before Edilean saw the blush that rose in her cheeks.

“I hope a bloodline doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to your brother.”

“Why would you mention him?” Harriet said, turning back to look at Edilean. “Have you heard anything from him?”

“No,” Edilean said. “I merely mentioned him because your love of bloodline reminded me that he chose an earl’s daughter over me. Are you interested in Malcolm because of his ancestry?”

“Interested in him? I have no idea what you mean,” Harriet said haughtily.

“You—” Edilean began but stopped herself. Harriet was so mad about Malcolm that they caused giggles wherever they went. All the girls who worked for Edilean’s company saw it and tittered behind their hands. Harriet was what one thought of when an old maid was mentioned. She had a look about her of someone who had dried up inside. But since she’d met Malcolm three weeks before, she’d begun to blossom. She was like a plant that hadn’t been watered in forty years, but at the first drops of rain it was coming back to life.

Harriet had always been stern with the girls who worked for them, but they’d found that under her harsh-seeming ways she had a good heart. In public she might berate one of them for not keeping a good account of her expenses, but they knew that in private she often slipped them a pound or two when one was in desperate need.

And it was Miss Harriet who met the ships and bought the contracts of the young women who arrived in America. Some were frightened, some looking forward to adventure, but some were hardened criminals looking out for what they could get. Miss Harriet had a good eye as to which ones to employ and which to leave to their own fates. She took care of the women, arranging where they were to live and often overseeing their health. Sometimes the conditions
on board the ships were so bad that they arrived barely alive. Harriet saw to it that they were given good food and a clean room. When they were well, they went to work on the farms.

Because of her kindness to them, they were happy for her to have found Malcolm. They loved to see her nearly skipping with happiness, and they smiled when they saw Malcolm pick a flower and hand it to her.

As for Edilean, she’d only returned last night. After that day when she’d thrown Angus out of her house, she and Malcolm had spent hours together, and he told her about her uncle dying and their plan of making Tam the laird. Edilean had readily agreed to return the property her uncle had stolen from them, but she felt sick at the idea of appearing before a judge and saying nice things about Angus. She’d have to say that she willingly ran off with him, that he’d treated her well, and that he’d never used any force on her. Malcolm said she’d probably be asked to embellish the story so it sounded as though Angus had done her a good deed, that he was the best of men, and deserved to be released from an unfair accusation.