Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“When would I have gone to school to learn reading and writing?”

Edilean paused with a cherry in her mouth, her hand on the stem. She chewed a bit, and removed the pit. “Then I will be your teacher.”

“I do not need you to be my teacher,” he said, his face contorted into a scowl.

“Isn’t it interesting how your humor completely leaves you when you are not in charge? Why does the idea that I—worthless, good-for-nothing me—could teach great, glorious you something infuriate you?”

Angus bent his head closer to his plate, but she could see that the scowl was gone. “Glorious, am I?”

“In your own eyes, you seem to be,” she said. “Wait! You can’t take the last of that fruit!”

“Do you think not?” he said as he grabbed a handful of cherries and turned away from her.

“You pig!” She ran around the little table to reach for them.

Angus held them aloft and she grabbed his wrist—just as he transferred them to his other hand.

“You selfish... Scotsman!” she said, reaching for the cherries.

He was laughing. “Is that the worst you can think to call me? Did you learn nothing in that rich school you went to?”

“Not anything that I’d tell a man,” she said, then made a lunge at him that landed them chest to chest as she reached up to his hand to get the cherries.

His face was less than an inch from hers and she could smell the lather she’d used to shave him. And there was another smell about him, that of Man.

“Are you asking for more than you can handle?” he asked softly, then he moved a bit as though he meant to kiss her.

Edilean turned her head, as though she were going to accept his kiss, but then she grabbed the cherries and sprinted away from him. “These are sweeter,” she said as she put a cherry in her mouth.

“How do you know what a fruit that you haven’t tried is like?”

“Great imagination.” She finished the cherries. “Mmmm, so delicious.”

Angus started to go after her, but he stopped himself. Instead, he sat there looking at her with serious eyes.

“I’m so happy to be away from all of it that I feel that I could... I could almost fly.” For a moment she put her arms out and danced about the small room. “I’m not married to any of those awful men and I’m going to a whole new country.” Stopping, she looked at him and saw that he was frowning.

“Nay,” he said, “this canna be.”

She sat down on the chair across from him. “What can’t be?”

“This,” he said softly. “This teasing, this... this playing and grappling, and touching.”

“You don’t like it?” she asked, smiling at him through her lashes.

“I like it too much.”

“Well, then, what could be the problem?”

“Stop it!”

“Stop what?” she asked, looking at him.

“I am not one of your dandies who you can flirt and tease to your heart’s content. For all that you have me dressed as a popinjay, I’m still Angus McTern, a man who’s spent more time outdoors than I have inside a house. And I’ve never spent any time in the fancy houses that you’ve lived in.”

“So now I’m a snob?” she said. “Shall we add that to the list of things you’ve found wrong with me? According to you, I can do nothing, have no talents that are of any use to anyone, and now you tell me you think I’m a snob.”

“Please don’t pretend to misunderstand me,” he said, leaning toward her, his face serious. “It was your idea that I travel with you as your husband, and I agreed because there was no time to do anything else.”