Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“Sounds it too,” Shamus said. “If we have a war, which side will you be on?”

“The only war is going to come when Edilean sees me again.”

Tam looked down at his own clothes, which were rough to begin with and were now dusty and frayed. “She won’t like us.”

Angus shook his head. “Her quarrel is with me. You’ll be all right. Shall we go and get this over with?”

“Yes, we shall,” Shamus said in his version of an imitation of Angus’s accent, but it came out sounding like a foreign dialect—and it made the four of them laugh.

“Come on, lad,” Malcolm said. “It can’t be as bad as you think it will be. My guess is that by now she’s forgotten all about whatever it was that made her angry in the first place.”

“Perhaps,” Angus said, but he didn’t think that was true.

They piled into a hired carriage and went to the town house where Edilean lived with Harriet Harcourt. At the last moment, Angus felt his knees weaken, but Shamus delighted in pushing him out of the carriage so hard that Angus almost hit the ground. He recovered himself, but his nerves were such that he didn’t even reprimand Shamus.

The three Scotsmen surrounded Angus so he couldn’t escape, and they moved forward up the steps to the front door. As Malcolm pulled the cord for the bell, he put his hand on the small of Angus’s back to steady him.

A pretty maid answered the door.

“We’re here to see Miss Edilean,” Malcolm said, but she just stared at him in consternation.

“Miss Edilean,” Angus said in his English accent.

“Is she expecting you?” the young woman asked, blocking the double doorway.

“We have some fruit to sell her,” Shamus said, then louder. “Fruit, girl! Apples.”

“Ah, yes, fruit. Won’t you come in and I’ll get her.”

She led them into a large, sunlit room with a marble fireplace in one wall. Before it were two high-backed chairs on one side and a settee covered in yellow silk on the other. On the floor was a large carpet with wildflowers woven into the border. It was a truly beautiful room, and the three Scotsmen stood in the doorway staring at it but not entering.

“Come on,” Angus said impatiently. “She won’t want to meet us in the hallway.”

Shamus and Malcolm sat down on the settee and looked about them nervously, while Tam and Angus took the chairs.

“You’ve changed,” Tam said, looking across a little table at Angus.

“Fancy clothes don’t change who a man is inside,” Angus said.

“Then maybe you were like this before you got the clothes.”

“Like what?” Angus asked, frowning.

“Like this room. Like this house. You fit in here.” Tam raised his hand. “And it isn’t just the clothes and that way you can talk. It’s something else.”

Angus wasn’t sure what Tam meant, but he didn’t think that now was the time to ask him more, for he heard Edilean’s voice in the hallway.

“You didn’t ask them who they were?” they heard Edilean say.

“No, ma’am, I forgot.”

“From now on, Lissie, don’t let people into my house unless you know them. Oh, heavens! Don’t look like I’m going to beat you! Go to the kitchen and let Harriet talk to you.”

As they heard the girl’s footsteps retreat, they looked toward the doorway in expectation.

As for Angus, he sank back against the chair, letting the high sides of it hide him from the doorway. He hadn’t been prepared for what the sound of her voice would do to him. It was all he could do to keep from running to her and gathering her in his arms. He didn’t realize how very much he’d missed her! Just plain, old-fashioned missed her. Her humor, her no-nonsense approach to life, her strong likes and dislikes. He remembered how she’d won the battle that he was going to America with her. And she’d

been right. If he’d stayed in Scotland he was sure that by now he’d be in prison.