Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“And you needed to get out of Scotland,” she said.

“Aye, I needed to get out of Scotland, but if I’d gone on a ship by myself I would have traveled in the bowels with the sailors, not here, in this.” He motioned to the beautiful windows in the room.

With a sigh, Edilean leaned back in the chair. “What is it that you’re trying to say to me?”

“That I don’t come from your world, and that I don’t know these games you people play. I don’t—”

“What does that mean? ‘You people.’ How am I different from you?”

He took his time in answering her. “I’ll stay with you in this room on one condition, and that’s that you don’t continue playing the temptress.”

“The what?” she asked, already offended by what he was saying.

“A temptress, a woman who entices a man into doing what he shouldn’t do. An Eve with her apple held out to him, tempting him into sin.”

“Why you...” she began, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I do apologize for trying to make you sin. Tell me, Mr. McTern, what can I do to keep you sin-free and pure?”

“It is you I am trying to keep pure,” he said in a low voice. “You’re a beautiful young woman and just looking at you is enough to drive a man mad with desire. I don’t know how I’m going to stand being in this room with you day after day and not... not disrobe you. I’m saying that if I’m to stay so close to you, you must treat me as... as your brother. And I must try to think of you as my sister, although that will be nearly impossible. Am I making myself clear?”

“I, uh...” Edilean began but could think of nothing else to say. Flirting was something she was good at, something that was much done at the houses of the girlfriends where she stayed. In fact, at school she’d often given lessons to her less fortunate classmates on how to flirt. She couldn’t be angry at him for saying what she knew to be true. She had been flirting. And, besides, it was impossible to be angry at a man who was telling her that he thought she was so beautiful he was having trouble controlling himself.

“If you don’t do this, I’ll go below and sleep in a hammock. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. If he’d been any of the other men she’d met in her life, she would have batted her lashes at him and asked if this order meant there were not even to be any kisses. But when she looked at Angus’s handsome face, she didn’t dare. It occurred to her that she was now dealing with a man, while they had been boys.

“I’ll make it as easy for you as I can,” she said. “I’ll behave myself. No laughter, no teasing, no wrestling. Is that what you want me to say?”

“I want you to say...” He looked at her across the table. He felt bad that his words had taken her from wanting to fly because of such sublime happiness to now being so serious. “I’m sorry for my Scots gruffness, lass, but I’m a man and I canna bear being so close to you.”

“I understand,” she said as she looked down at her hands on her lap, then back up at him. “But what if you and I fell in love?”

For a moment, Angus looked shocked, then he smiled at her in a patronizing way. “You didn’t love me when I was wearing what you called a woman’s dress. And not long ago you were saying that you hated me. Do you know what a time I had getting off that roof after you locked me there?”

“No,” she said. “I was too busy trying to keep from freezing in my wet clothes from where you’d thrown me in the horse trough.”

“That’s not a deed I’m proud of,” he said. “But, lass, you must listen to what I’m saying. You look at me now in these fine clothes, with my hair tied back and my face shaved, and you laugh and flirt with me and you talk about love. If you love anything, it’s the clothes, certainly not the man. Under this silk, I’m still just a poor Scotsman and I’d embarrass you in front of your fine friends.”

“I think you’re my—”

“Your savior,” Angus said. “You think I’m the man who rescued you from a fate worse than death. Aye, I know all that, lass, but never forget that I did no such thing. All I was going to do was get the minister drunk and maybe save you from one night. It was an accident that I got on that wagon and found you in that coffin.”

“Nasty, dirty thing,” Edilean muttered. “I think it was half full of sawdust and when I got in it the dust billowed up around me and nearly smothered me. But by then I’d already taken that awful laudanum James had given me, so I could barely stay awake long enough to pull the lid over me.”

“The fright you gave us when you sat up in that coffin!” Angus said. “I swear my heart stopped.”

“You knew who I was, so you knew I wasn’t dead.”

“I thought maybe your uncle’d murdered you to get your dowry.”

“So you thought I was a ghost?”

“I did until you started complaining about the dirt and telling me that I’d again done something you didn’t like.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Edilean said. “I think it was the dust up my nose that woke me, and I heard shouting and my head ached. Then when I woke up and saw you there and not Shamus, I—”

“You could not have chosen anyone worse to help you. If you had combed all of Glasgow and Edinburgh, you could not have found anyone less heroic than Shamus.”

“But you saved me—reluctantly, mind you—but you did save me, and now you tell me I must be careful not to touch you.”