Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“And how do I do that? Ask him to stop? Perhaps I should say please.”

Malcolm was a foot shorter than Angus and twice his age, but he looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I have boxed your ears and I can do it again.”

The statement was so absurd that it made Angus smile. “All right, but I’ll stay far away from her. I don’t think Shamus will harm her. And you should send someone to tell Tam to stop drinking whatever Shamus hands him.”

“I did that this morning,” Malcolm said, his face serious.

Angus lost his smile. He’d meant his words as a jest when he’d hinted that Shamus had poisoned young Tam, but maybe it was true. “I’ll take Tarka,” Angus said, referring to his favorite pony, one that could cover the rocky terrain easily, and he’d stay off the trail that the girl would most likely take with her elegant city horse.

It wasn’t long before Angus found them. She was riding in front, her back straight, looking ahead to the easy, flat trail, seeming not to have a care in the world. Well behind her, Shamus rode one of Lawler’s big hunters, looking bored and half asleep. He didn’t seem in the least interested in the young woman riding ahead of him.

Angus thought of turning and going back. If she saw him, he didn’t like to think what she’d believe. That he was following her? He stayed well hidden in the rocks, trailing the two of them as though they were cattle thieves, but he saw nothing suspicious. Maybe someone had told Shamus that it was in his own best interest not to do anything the girl could report to her uncle. Maybe they’d all misjudged him when they thought he’d given Tam something to make him ill. Maybe—

Angus’s head came up when he saw the girl halt. Turning her horse, she motioned for Shamus to come forward and help her down. The big English sidesaddle she rode was difficult for a woman to climb onto, and it was a long drop to get off of by herself.

Angus thought that if Shamus was going to do something, now was the time. Angus got off his pony and moved down into the rocks to watch them. When he realized that if Shamus did try to do something to the girl, he was too far away to stop him, Angus stealthily made his way through the grass to get closer. He moved on his stomach, the stiff branches and the rocks scraping his bare legs, but it was the way he sometimes stalked a deer, so he knew how to move silently.

“Thank you,” he heard her say when Shamus helped her down. “I want to walk.”

Acting like a good servant, Shamus nodded, and the girl began to walk, leaving him to hold the reins to her horse. He wasn’t sure why, but Angus thought her actions were suspicious. It was almost as though she were sneaking off somewhere and didn’t want to be seen. Was she meeting someone? Was that why she was leaving her chaperone with the two horses and going off by herself?

Angus felt sure he’d found out the cause behind her fights with her uncle. Lawler probably knew she was secretly meeting someone, and he was angry about it.

Angus slithered through the bushes on his belly, being as quiet as a snake, not moving too quickly, so he didn’t scare up a flock of birds and give her warning that she was being watched. He wanted to see who she was meeting. It couldn’t be someone from the McTern clan; he’d know if it was.

But then, since she’d arrived, no one had treated him in quite the same way as they had. Since she had caused them all to laugh at him, no one had come to him to tell of something they were worried about, or to report something they suspected.

He moved slowly, quietly, then as he went over a little ridge, he could just see the top of her ridiculous little hat. She was bending now and he felt sure he saw someone else. There was a flash of something white—a man’s shirt? Then he saw her arms move. She was in a love tryst! No wonder Lawler was angry at her.

In the next moment, Angus stood up. He was just a few feet from her and he planned to use surprise to expose her illicit behavior.

His movements were quick. He rose, towering above her, and said, “You are found out!”

What he saw was her sitting on a patch of heather, a little white sketch pad in her hands, and she was drawing some quail—all of which flew away at the sight and sound of Angus.

“You!” she said, standing up to face him. “You great, ugly, woolly beast of a man, you’re spying on me! Shamus!” she shouted. “Help me!”

Angus didn’t think, he just turned and ran back to his pony. As he ran, his head filled with the sound of the laughter that was going to come. Never in his life would he live this down! He could live to be a hundred, no, a thousand years old, and this was what would be remembered about him. He’d be known as the man who was sneaking about in the bushes and spying on some English girl as she drew pictures of birds.

Angus jumped on the pony and headed back to the castle as fast as he could. Perhaps it would be better if he went away for a while, a year maybe. He had some money hidden in the stables. He’d get that and—

He was halfway back before he realized that she was on her horse and coming after him. Her big mare would beat his pony in a flat-out race, but he knew secret ways to get back to the keep before she did. As he snaked around on the paths that elk had made, now and then he could see her below him, and he couldn’t help but marvel at how fast she was going. She wasn’t taking the flat trail back but was going down a road that had been made long ago, and he wondered how she’d found it. Had Tam shown her that way?

His eyes widened in admiration when she and her mare sailed over an old fence, then a minute later leaped across a ditch. Whatever else that was said about her, she could ride!

Angus was so enthralled in watching her that he almost forgot about his own necessity for speed. However, he directed the pony over a stream, across a few gulleys, and got to the castle well before she did. When he was back in a place he’d known all his life, he thought better of running away. He’d fought battles with cattle thieves and had spent his life hunting and living with danger. Why should a girl scare him so that he ran away from his own home?

When she got back, he’d tell her the truth, that Malcolm had asked him to look after her, and that he’d thought she was in trouble when her head disappeared in the bushes. How was he to know that she was sneaking about to draw a bunch of birds? No one had told him that’s what she did when she went out. Or had they? Now that he thought about it, he seemed to recall someone mentioning that. But how was he supposed to remember everything he’d been told about her?

She came into the courtyard just minutes after he did and when he saw the state of her mare, he decided to give her a good scolding for working it into such a lather.

When she stopped close to him, he held his ground. She threw her leg over the tall pommel and slid to the ground in front of him. “You’re disgusting,” she said. “You are—”

She broke off when she saw that Angus was smiling at her. This time he wasn’t going to let her beauty make him lose his sense of self. “You are a despicable man!” she shouted. When he kept smiling, she drew back her hard-soled riding boot and kicked his shin. Angus bent with pain and she lifted her riding crop to strike his shoulder, but he moved so the little whip hit him across the neck. He grabbed his neck, and when his hand came away bloody, he lost all conscious thought. Behind her was a big stone horse trough. Without a thought, he picked her up and dropped her into it.

She went under, her little hat slid down over her face, and she came up sputtering.

Angus put his hands on his hips and looked about him. He knew that everyone was there, their eyes glued to what was going on, and he expected them to laugh at the ridiculous sight of her, but no one did. Instead, there wasn’t a sound, and no one would look at him. Angus turned his head one way then the other, but no one would meet his eyes, not even Malcolm, who had come out of the stables when he heard the silence.