Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“More like coal,” Edilean said under her breath. “When you finish that, I want you to come into the parlor and describe everything you saw, from the look of their camp to what Tabitha and the others were wearing.”

Cuddy looked as though he might be sick. “I didn’t look at what she was wearin’.”

“Did she have on a dress like mine?” Edilean was wearing a gown of apricot-colored silk, embroidered across the bodice with tendrils of lavender sweet peas.

“Not likely.” He was laughing at his own joke.

“So then, you did notice what Tabitha was wearing.”

“I guess I did,” Cuddy said, impressed with his own intelligence.

“I’ll be waiting, but hurry up because Harriet will be back soon.”

“Oh, right, Miss, I’ll be there in two shakes.”

Edilean had to use all her cunning to keep the secret of what she was doing from Harriet. Since Edilean had “lost her mind,” as Harriet put it, and destroyed her room, Harriet kept constant vigil over her. It was as though she thought Edilean was going to go insane at any moment. And all her humming and smiling and keeping busy didn’t fool Harriet a bit. She looked at Edilean suspiciously.

In the end, Edilean had to pay an exorbitant amount to a maid who worked two houses down for a dress that would fit. It was a plain gown with a homespun skirt and a white cotton top. The first time she tried it on she’d been alone in her room and Harriet had almost barged in with the clean linen. Edilean’d had to make up a quick lie about what she was doing behind a bolted door.

On the night when Edilean planned to go out and find Tabitha, she was tempted to put laudanum in Harriet’s tea, but she didn’t. While it was true that she planned to sneak out, she told herself that if she wanted to, she could walk out the front door and not tell Harriet where she was going or why. But Edilean knew that Harriet’s “hmph!” could be worse than being yelled at.

Instead, Edilean arranged with Cuddy to put a ladder up against the house, and she climbed down it just after midnight.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Miss?” Cuddy asked. “Those people are dangerous.”

“You have the pistol?”

“Loaded and ready,” he said, “but that don’t mean I like this. If I told the bailiffs where they were, they’d go out there and round them up.”

“And what do you think would happen to the goods they’ve stolen? Do you think that the robbers who escape would leave it there?”

Cuddy looked at her in shock. “Is that what you want? What they’ve stolen?”

“I want one item,” she said. “And it doesn’t belong to me.”

Cuddy looked at her as though he was putting two and two together, what with having found Angus Harcourt and her asking why he was working for someone else, and now talk about the bound girl who’d stolen something that belonged to someone else.

But Cuddy didn’t say anything. He just raised the lantern and led the way to the carriage house, where two saddled horses were waiting. “Are you sure you know how to ride, Miss?” he asked. “That one you’re on can be feisty. Maybe I should take him.”

“I’ll do my best to hang on,” Edilean said without a hint of humor in her voice. “Do you think you can find this place in the dark?”

“Easy,” Cuddy said as he climbed into the saddle. “You just follow me, Miss, and I’ll try to go slow so you can keep up.”

“That’s kind of you,” Edilean said as she got into the saddle.

“Now, Miss, if you’ll just move over a bit so I can turn around and head out, we’ll get goin’.”

Edilean took the reins in both hands, made a few clicking noises, and backed her horse straight out the door. But once the animal was out in the cool night air, it decided to rear up on its hind legs. “Stop that!” she said, and brought the horse back to earth. “If you keep on like that I’ll cut your oats ration.” Turning, she looked back at Cuddy, who was just coming outside.

His eyes were wide. “I ain’t never seen no girl ride like that.”

“It’s nice to know that someone somewhere thinks I can do something,” she said as she pulled to one side so h

e could lead the way out of the courtyard and into the road.

She’d planned the journey for a full moon so they’d be able to see the road and where the cutoff was that led to Tabitha and her gang of thieves. Maybe Cuddy had been right and she should have gone to the authorities, but Edilean felt that this was something she had to do for herself. And she knew that if she’d even hinted to Harriet what she was thinking about doing, she would have said Edilean was jealous. Harriet would have said that Edilean was angry because Angus had turned her down for some poor, downtrodden girl who would never have what Edilean did. And Edilean wouldn’t be able to defend herself because she couldn’t tell Harriet about the jewels.

As she rode behind Cuddy, her mind strayed back to her own horse, Marmy, whom she’d had to leave behind in England. She thought that maybe, when she was settled, she could somehow get her mare back.