Days of Gold (Edilean 2)

“Up there,” Angus said, nodding toward the path to the cave. Shamus went up, but Angus stood where he was, with his arm firmly around Malcolm’s shoulders.

“You must let me go, lad,” Malcolm said gently. “I’m not a ghost and I’m here to stay.”

“Ghost,” Angus said, smiling. “You didn’t come here in a coffin full of sawdust, did you?”

“No,” Malcolm said slowly, “but why would you ask that? Is that how you sneaked into this country?”

“No,” Angus said, his smile widening. “I came here as an English gentleman.”

“I want to hear every word of this story,” Malcolm said.

“I’ll be glad to tell it to you.”

21

NO, NO, NO, no!” Angus said, his words echoing off the cave walls. “I will not do it. I refuse. And that’s the last time I’m saying it.”

Last night, a fire had made the cave almost homelike. Mac had taken Angus’s horse and was on his way back to the fort to get help, while T.C., Matt, and Naps had stayed with Angus. Thanks to Matt’s surgery and the plants that T.C. had found, Naps was resting comfortably, passing drowsily in and out of consciousness from the brew that T.C. had given him.

Tam, Shamus, Malcolm, and Angus sat around the fire and talked in the Scottish burr that the other men couldn’t quite make out.

They’d spent hours exchanging stories. Angus made them all laugh uproariously with his account of how he got rooked into helping Edilean escape her uncle’s treacherous plan. The first time he said her name, his breath caught and he didn’t know if he could go on, but the second time was easier. By the time he was well into his story, he was smiling and remembering it all fondly.

He started telling the men about James Harcourt’s wife’s ugliness and how she’d tried to get him to stay in bed with her, but Malcolm cut him off by sending a burning branch flying. When they got it cleaned up, Malcolm asked about James, so Angus told of hitting James on the head with a candlestick. “And Edilean shaved me,” he said in an almost dreamy voice.

“She shaved your beard off?” Shamus said. “I knew there was something different about you.”

Throughout the story, Shamus kept shaking his head and muttering, “A wagonload of gold. The trunks were full of gold.” He sounded as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing—and what he’d lost.

Angus told of dressing in James’s clothes and boarding the ship. For a few moments he was silent as he let himself remember the time with Edilean on the ship. He thought of tying her corset, of teasing her, of making her laugh. He could see it all so clearly that it was almost as though he could touch her.

“Angus!” Tam said, bringing him back to where he was.

Angus smiled, even though he hardly recognized him. Tam had grown until he was as tall as Angus. He was no longer the boy who trailed after his bigger, older cousin. In the four years that they’d been separated, Tam had become a man, and Angus regretted that he’d not been there to see him grow and change. But then, Angus wondered if his going was the reason that Tam had grown up so quickly. With Angus gone, Tam was now the one to inherit... What? Angus thought. There was nothing left of the McTern clan to inherit but the responsibility.

“I’ve entertained you enough,” Angus said at last. “You didn’t come all the way across the ocean just to hear my stories. What have you come for?”

“We—” Shamus began, but when Malcolm gave him a hard look he closed his mouth.

“Kenna thanks you for the silk dress you sent her,” Tam said.

“And how is she?” Angus tried to keep his voice steady as he thought about the sister who’d once been so close to him. “How many children does she have now?”

“Six,” Malcolm said. “She liked that the dress you sent her had...” He didn’t quite know what to say.

“An expandable front,” Angus said.

“Ah, so that’s what she meant,” Malcolm said, then sipped his coffee and was silent.

“What are the lot of you up to?” Angus asked suspiciously. “How did you even find me?”

“That was easy enough,” Shamus said. “What with your picture everywhere, there were a lot of people with information about you.”

Angus grimaced.

“That’s true,” Malcolm said slowly. “But it’s also true that we wanted to see you.” He glanced at the leather clothes Angus had on. “This country suits you.”

“When you can stay alive,” Shamus said.