Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“Now what have I done?” she asked aloud as she picked up his drawing. “He should train as an architect,” she whispered and immediately had an idea of the two of them living together in the house he’d drawn. He’d work in the big room upstairs, surrounded by rolled-up sheets of drawings. And he’d ask her opinion about every building. “You know that you’re better at interiors than I am,” he’d say. And, “What color do you think I should paint these walls?”

Edilean could see herself in a blue silk dress, her hair in curls about her neck—and a baby in her arms and one standing, his little hands on her skirt. The vision was so clear that she could see the faces of the children. The older one was a boy and he looked like Angus, and the baby was a girl who looked like her.

Getting up, she went to the windows and looked out, trying to rid herself of the vision, but it stayed with her. Maybe it was his drawing of the house that was making it all so clear to her, but it was as though she were looking into a crystal ball and seeing the future.

But that was ridiculous! Angus McTern had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her once they were in America. She was on her own.

Turning, she picked up one of the books the captain had lent her and set her mind to reading it.

Angus stood by the ship’s rail, looking over the side. Part of him wanted the ship to slow down and another part wanted it to hurry up so he could get the good-byes over with. The captain said that if the weather held, they’d be landing at Boston harbor in about a week.

And that would be the end, he thought. That would be the last time he’d ever see Edilean. “Edilean,” he whispered, with only the sea to hear him.

The last days of her coolness had been difficult for him, but he’d been glad for her anger. He knew that if they’d kept on in the way they had been, he would have gone insane with wanting her. Wanting not just to touch her but also to make her smile, to laugh, to come back at him with one of her little rejoinders that made him want to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

But he couldn’t do that. Oh, he knew that she was beginning to think she was in love with him, but that had happened before with other girls. What was different was how he felt about her. No other woman had come close to making him feel as she did, as though he could do anything. It wouldn’t surprise him if she told him she believed he could fly. And when she looked at him with such wonder in her beautiful eyes, Angus thought maybe he could develop wings and soar away.

No, he couldn’t do that, he thought. She was just a girl, barely past eighteen, while he was, at twenty-five, not old, but compared with her, he felt as though he’d lived a thousand years. He’d never told her, but her uncle had sent him on many errands, some of them a great deal less noble than protecting some sissy Englishman as he drew pictures of old castles.

Angus knew Edilean thought she’d had a difficult life because she’d not had a mother and father to tuck her in at night, but he knew she’d been sheltered and taken care of. Her father’s money had been there, even if he hadn’t been there in person. So she spent a week or two with some girl she didn’t like. What horror was that?

She’d not seen her father die before her eyes, as Angus had. She’d not seen her mother waste away from too much work and the loneliness of her life. And Edilean hadn’t been told since the day she was born that she was responsible for the health and well-being of an entire clan of people. More than once, Malcolm had taken him by the shoulders and said, “The fate of Clan McTern rests with you, lad. It’s all up to you. You must undo what your grandfather—my father—did.”

All his life, Angus had heard in detail what a nasty piece of work his grandfather had been. He’d raided other people’s sheep during the night, had stolen from everyone within a hundred miles. He’d been caught often and several times had escaped death by mere minutes. When he was thirty a young woman, a lover, had rescued him from the gallows. Three days later his wife gave birth to Angus’s father. But his wife forgave him for whatever he did. It was said that all the women forgave him for anything.

Maybe his wife forgave him, but his three sons didn’t. The eldest one lived to adulthood, but he was killed when his son, Angus, was only five. The second son had tried to follow his father, to be as “tough” as he was, but he couldn’t. He died in a nighttime raid and a month later his young wife gave birth to Tam. Only Malcolm survived his father’s treachery.

Angus’s father had done his best to hold the clan together, but too much hatred had been created over the years. During a raid on McTern sheep, Angus’s father was stabbed in the stomach by a man hiding in the bushes. He’d lived long enough to get home, but died soon after, with his wife and young son beside him. His last words had been to his little son, telling him he had to take care of the McTerns. “Don’t do to them what my father does.” He’d held the hands of his wife and son. “I’m glad I won’t see the old bastard as I know he’ll go to hell.” He’d smiled at the words, then closed his eyes and died.

It was said that on the night Angus’s grandfather gambled away everything on one cut of the cards, the moon was full and the wolves came out to howl in protest. No one knew what happened to the old man after that. He’d laughed off every bad deed he’d done, every tear—and every death—he’d caused, but losing his family’s past as well as their future was too much even for him. Three weeks later, he was found sitting in a chair in a pub in Edinburgh, dead.

Angus’s mother died a few years after that, leaving Angus and his sister alone.

“And why that sad look?”

Turning, he saw Tabitha standing close to him, her dark eyes giving him suggestive looks. Had he met her a year ago, he would have liked the way she looked at him.

“You have another fight with the missus?”

When he gave her a look that said he was going to tell her nothing, she laughed.

“I’m going to find out the truth between you two,” she said.

“There is no hidden truth,” Angus said. “We are what you see.”

Tabitha gave a little laugh to let him know she didn’t believe him. “Will you set up a house together in America?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, gritting his teeth. The woman really was an annoying creature. He’d seen her three times since the first day and she was always prying into his life—and nearly always right. She saw what others did not. “If you’re so perceptive, how did you get caught by a man?”

“Love,” she said quickly. “You can’t help what love does to you, now can you?”

He didn’t bother to answer but turned back to look at the sea. Behind them a man yelled that the women were to go back down below.

“They’re afraid we’ll corrupt the men,” Tabitha said.

“And haven’t you?”

“Any corruption I’ve done has been mutual,” she said as she went to where the other women were gathering and grumbling about having to go down again.