Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

Angus looked back at the sea and thought about how Edilean was so jealous of Tabitha. At even a hint of the woman, Edilean’s eyes flashed fire and she looked like she wanted to attack someone.

Love, Angus thought. Tabitha said she’d had an affair with her employer because of love, and Angus knew that Edilean was beginning to think she was in love with him. But she wasn’t. She was just scared of being alone in a new country. And alone she had to be. Or at least separated from him, from Angus McTern.

It was tempting—oh, so very, very tempting—to make a few advances toward her, to “accidentally” touch her hand, to look at her in a way that would let her know what was in his mind. He knew that if he did, it would take only minutes before she fell against him, before she gave herself to him.

But then what? he thought. He had to close his eyes as he imagined delicious weeks, perhaps even months, of lovemaking. They’d have quiet dinners that they’d never finish because they’d be on each other’s bodies.

But somewhere in there he knew that their true selves would begin to show. Edilean had spent her life in school, while Angus couldn’t read. Edilean loved silk dresses and afternoon tea; Angus liked to roll in a tartan and sleep on the ground.

There was no common ground between them. Now, on the ship, with Angus wearing another man’s clothes, and using a false accent, it was almost as though they were equals. He saw the way her beautiful face lit up when she saw he could do something besides run through the heather.

But that wasn’t him. He couldn’t spend his life trying to be someone else. It wouldn’t take long before people saw through him. Even Tabitha, a woman who’d lived in the dregs of society, had seen through him. She knew he was an imposter.

Angus had a vision of some handsome young man who had a degree from a university making Edilean laugh about some French poet. And that night she would look at Angus with contempt.

What if they married? He could see her telling their children not to ask their father. “He knows nothing,” she’d say. Or no, she’d be too polite to say it, but they’d know. He’d be in the midst of a family that laughed together over poetry and stories written in Greek, and Angus would be left out of it.

Even now he could imagine his anger at being so treated. What would he do? Have an affair with a woman like Tabitha? While his wife and children were at home in their pure, innocent beds, would he be like his grandfather and spend his nights out with loose women? Would he need them to feel like a man?

Angus ran his hand over his face to clear away his ugly thoughts. All he knew for sure was that he could not continue to be with Edilean after the voyage ended. He knew that when they docked she’d no doubt look at him with her “save me” eyes. They’d be near to tears, and she’d be so beautiful that he’d be ready to grab a sword and lead an army into war for her. But he had to resist her!

If he knew anything in life, it was that if he stayed with her, married or not, they’d come to hate each other. She would hate him, or worse, come to despise him, because underneath the elegant clothes he was no gentleman. And he’d hate her be

cause he couldn’t make himself into what she wanted him to be.

He took a few breaths and tried to strengthen his resolve. No matter how she looked at him, no matter what her eyes said—he doubted that her pride would let her say the words—he wouldn’t give in to her. For all that she loved to think she was a grown woman, she wasn’t.

When they got to America he’d stay long enough to make sure she was set up in a society of her own, then he’d leave. For all that she said good things about Virginia, he couldn’t see her living anywhere but in a city, and from what he’d heard, Boston was as bristling as London.

Angus pushed himself away from the railing. If he ever needed strength in his life, now was the time.

13

ON THE DAY they were to reach Boston, Edilean awoke feeling calm. She hadn’t slept for the three nights before as she lay awake, worrying about what was coming, but last night had been different. It was as though her fate was sealed, there was nothing she could do about it, so she resigned herself.

But she couldn’t say the same thing about Angus. As far as she could tell he was a nervous wreck. Yesterday as she’d been packing, he’d hovered over her, asking if she had everything, was she sure she wasn’t leaving something behind?

“Captain Inges said he would be in Boston for weeks, so if I do leave a hairpin behind I can return to the ship and get it,” she said patiently. “Why don’t you sit down and draw something? Or go up on deck and dance with those women?”

“Are you sending me to Tabitha? Or maybe you’d like for me to go down into the hold to see her?”

“If you’re trying to make me jealous, you aren’t even coming close. Once we get to America, you’re a free man. You can go after Tabitha and buy her for all I care.”

“Buy her? Oh, her bondage papers. Yes, I could do that,” he said, still looking about the cabin and pacing now and then. “And maybe I will marry her. She’d make a good wife.” When Edilean said nothing to that, Angus kept on. “She’s already proven that she’s fertile.” As he spoke, he looked at Edilean as she knelt by the trunk, putting away the clothes that Margaret had remade for her.

“Has she?” Edilean asked without much interest. “How nice for you. Did the father keep the baby?”

“It was stillborn.”

“If it ever existed.”

“What does that mean?”

Edilean got up to get a book off the table where they’d eaten breakfast together every morning of the entire voyage. Angus was right behind her. “You sound like you don’t believe that Tabitha had a baby.”

She put the book in the trunk. “I’m sure she’s done what it takes to create a baby.”

“As you have not,” Angus said, looking at her.