Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

The man’s name was Shamus, and she saw the way others got out of his way when he walked by. If she was going to get away from her uncle, she would need someone like him.

As the days passed, she stopped fighting with her uncle and began, instead, to ask him questions. What she wanted to know was when the gold was coming in and how it was going to be transported. He wasn’t fooled by her questions and told her to get away from him.

More days passed and there was still no word from James. Had she mistaken him? Did he not want her and her dowry? Was he shrugging his broad shoulders and letting her go?

She seemed to be at the depths of her depression when a man she’d never seen before, a man as tall and as big as James, but with thick black hair that he didn’t tie back, and a beard that looked as though it had never been cut in his life, loosened the cinch on her horse and sent her flying onto the stones. Wasn’t her life bad enough without some man playing hurtful tricks on her? She looked at the shortness of his outrageous garment—something she’d never seen before—and spat some cutting remarks at him. She was glad that when she walked away everyone started laughing at him.

Later, she was angry about what the man had done, but she didn’t tell her uncle about him. She liked the Scots and didn’t want to betray them. Because there was one bad apple didn’t mean that the others were rotten. Besides, everyone she spoke to told her who the man was and that he would never hurt her. They wouldn’t say who had cut her cinch, just that it wasn’t the bearded man.

For days Edilean’s life stayed in the routine she’d developed. But every day she grew more nervous and more frightened as she waited for some word from James. Had he received her letter? Maybe he was in France now and the letter was waiting for him in London. Maybe when he received it, she would already be married.

When it got down to four days before her birthday and there was still no letter, Edilean was so jumpy that she nearly screamed at every sound. Morag asked her what was wrong, but Edilean couldn’t tell her.

When she went out for her ride, her escort was the man Shamus, and she was glad of it. Maybe she could talk to him and tell him... She didn’t know what she could tell him. She was sure he could get her away from there, but then what? She had no relatives to go to, and her friends were still in school, too young to help.

As she sat in the bushes and sketched, as she did every day, she was nearly scared to death by the hairy-faced man jumping out at her. When he shouted, “You are found out!” Edilean wondered why she didn’t die from shock right then and there. She thought he meant that her uncle had found out that she’d written a letter to James.

After the man jumped up and yelled at her, he ran away as though he were five years old. She’d called for Shamus and he came running, but he only saw the man disappearing into the bushes.

“He’s the man who made me fall off my horse,” she said.

“Oh, aye, that he is. A tru

e terror with the women. I wouldn’t get too near him if I were you. He’s not right in the head, if you know what I mean.”

“Where’s he going now?”

“Back to the keep to tell everyone how scared you looked when he jumped out at you. He wants to make them laugh at you.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” She started running for her horse, Shamus right behind her. He easily lifted her onto the saddle, and she took off, using trails that she’d persuaded Tam to show her. He’d been told to keep to the road, but Edilean had smiled and coaxed him into showing her the more secret ways.

When she got back to the keep, the man was already there, and she was pleased to see that no one was laughing at having heard how she’d jumped when he’d leaped from the bushes. She slid off her horse and it was as though weeks of frustration and rage came out and she unleashed them on him. She was so angry she could think of few words to say, but she kicked him hard in the shin, then hit him with the whip. She’d meant to hit his arm, which was covered by a thick shirt, but he’d bent and the whip hit his neck, cutting him.

She was on the verge of feeling sorry for having done it when he picked her up and dropped her into a horse trough. Yet again, the only consolation she had was that the people seemed to be on her side. Dear Morag helped her up the stairs and Edilean went straight to her uncle to tell him what the man had done to her.

She didn’t know what she expected from her uncle, but for him to laugh at her and side with the hairy man wearing what Edilean considered women’s clothing was not it. She left the room, trying not to let the laughing men see her tears.

But the man who was making her life worse than it already was followed her to the roof. She didn’t know what it was about him, maybe because it was so close to her birthday, and because the man was the chief of the McTerns, but in spite of Shamus’s warning, she blurted out the truth about everything and asked him to help her escape.

To her horror, the man started laughing at her.

She ran from him, slammed the door behind her and bolted it, locking him on the roof. She was so angry that if she could have, she would have thrown him off the roof and watched him splatter on the stones below.

The next morning she awoke with the words “three days” in her mind. It was just three days until her birthday and the end of her life as she knew it.

And now, as she sat on the floor, wanting her life to be over, the door opened and Morag entered. “It’s here,” she said as she handed Edilean not just a letter from James but a package.

“Does anyone know?”

“No one. The letter was given to me and only I saw it. You go on and read it now. Mayhap it will cheer you.”

“Yes,” Edilean said, but she didn’t open the package until Morag left the room. Inside was a little bottle with a stopper in it and a red wax seal.

“Darling,” James wrote. “I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you, but I’ve put a plan in motion. It has taken me a long while to find out what I needed to know, but I did it. You shall repay me for this with kisses.”

Edilean held the letter to her breast for a moment and closed her eyes. He did love her!

“You must do exactly as I tell you,” he wrote. “You must follow my instructions exactly or the plan won’t work. You can’t vary it by even an hour, as everything is timed precisely. Do you understand me?”