Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“You?” he’d asked with so much humor that he’d roused from his sleepiness.

“Why do you persist in telling me that I can do nothing?”

“You have sawdust on your nose,” he said.

“Oh!” Edilean exclaimed, rubbing it hard. When she looked at Angus, she narrowed her eyes. “You’re making fun of me.”

“It keeps me awake,” he said. “Does Harcourt tease you?”

“No,” Edilean said. “He loves me so much that he never teases me.”

“Doesn’t he make you laugh?”

“He sings with me and we go riding together. And we sit in summerhouses and read together. Sometimes he reads poetry to me. Do you like poetry, Mr. McTern?”

“Very much,” he said. “Sometimes I read a poem or two before I go to sleep. It helps me get calm.”

She looked at him hard. “Are you making fun of me again?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “But I mean no harm, lass. The truth is that I’m usually too busy trying to keep thieves from stealing your uncle’s cattle to have time to sit and sing with a girl.”

“But you have dances. Morag told me about them, and one of the women said you were a good dancer.”

“But not for the dances that you know,” he said.

After a while, Edilean quit trying to hold a conversation with him. It always seemed to end in her not knowing enough about... Well, about life, to be able to talk to him. She’d tried different subjects, but he only ended up teasing her and making her feel useless and incompetent.

She didn’t say so, but she vowed that she was going to do the best she could to make up for causing him to lose everything in his life. She’d asked him why he’d changed her plan of using Shamus, and when he told her about his idea of getting the pastor drunk, she felt even more guilty. In the end, he had tried to save her, and all he was getting for what he’d done was banishment.

A couple of times Edilean stole looks at him, thinking how she knew her uncle much better than he did. She’d seen the way her uncle pretended to be something he wasn’t when the men were around, and she knew he would never show his true self if any of the Scots were near. They wouldn’t work so hard for him if they saw the way he raised his hand to strike a woman they’d all come to like.

Edilean knew that Angus—Mr. McTern—seemed to believe that he had some time before her uncle came after them, but he hadn’t seen the man’s greed as she had. Somehow, she had to persuade this Scotsman to go to America with her and James. The plan she was coming up with was to get James to open one of the trunks and give Angus a large helping of the gold. That way, Angus would be able to buy himself some land in America; he could build a house for him and the family he’d start.

“What’s that look for?” he asked.

It was midday and she was hungry and tired, but excited too. It wouldn’t be long now before she saw James. “Where will you stay when we get there?”

“I’m going to lie down in the straw in the stables and sleep for three days.”

“You can’t do that. You’ll miss the ship.”

“Oh, aye. The Mary Elizabeth. Is it a big ship, then? Does it have room to spare for a poor Scotsman?”

She ignored his teasing tone. “I’ll make sure you have a place on the ship even if the captain has to share his cabin.”

“Spoken like a woman who has had everything all her life.”

Edilean gave him a hard look, but he didn’t see it. That was hours ago, and they were in the city now and there were other wagons. He’d halted now and then so she could buy them food, and he took care of the horses’ needs, but mostly he plodded on.

The day turned into night and they were all, including the horses, very tired.

Just when she was ready to say that she could go on no longer, she saw the sign for the inn. “We are here!”

“Yes,” Angus said tiredly. “We’re here at last.” He drove the exhausted team into the open doors of the stable, and immediately a man came out from the shadows. He was exquisitely dressed and had a face that Angus thought would look better on a girl.

“Edilean!” the man said sternly, “I’d almost given you up. I’ve been standing in this filthy barn for hours, waiting for you.

Couldn’t you have at least tried to hurry?”