Days of Gold

by Jude Deveraux

  When Mrs. Harcourt stood on tiptoes to look over the side of the ship, both the captain and Mr. Jones held their breaths. She looked so small and she was leaning over quite far. She must have worried Mr. Harcourt too because he put his hands on her waist and held her so she wouldn’t fall. When she turned and said something to him, he shook his head no. She spoke again and he shook his head more vigorously. When she frowned at him, Mr. Harcourt’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but then he lifted her up so she could see farther over the side. She held her arms straight out for a moment and let the wind hit her in the face.

  When Mr. Harcourt put her down on deck again, the captain and Mr. Jones let out their pent-up breaths.

  “She does get her way, doesn’t she?” Mr. Jones said.

  “I think perhaps that young man would do anything in the world for her. Walk into fire, throw himself in front of a cannon. Whatever she needed, he might do it.”

  “So would I,” Mr. Jones said. “If I had a wife who looked like her I’d—”

  “Mr. Jones,” Captain Inges said, “I’m not talking about looks, I’m talking about love.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Jones said. “Excuse me, sir.”

  The captain left the deck and went below.

  “My wife told me that she can sing but I’ve never heard her,” Angus said to the captain as they sat at the dining table with him and Mr. Jones.

  “Haven’t heard your own wife sing?” Mr. Jones asked in astonishment, and looked at the captain.

  “We married quickly,” Angus said.

  “Yes,” Edilean said. “Our first meeting was memorable and our second was explosive. We’ve rarely been apart since then.”

  Angus put his napkin to his lips to cover his smile at her words, and his eyes twinkled. In spite of his misgivings and apprehensions—none of which he’d told Edilean—he’d done well at the captain’s dinner. There were just the four of them, the kindly captain, young Mr. Jones, and Edilean and Angus. He had been concerned about holding up his end of the conversation and being able to keep up the English accent he was using. Sometimes he forgot himself and lapsed back into his natural Scottish burr.

  But he needn’t have worried, for Edilean kept the talk going. As he watched her, he saw that she was adept at drawing people out. It had been his experience that pretty girls came to think that they didn’t have to do anything but sit still and be seen. And due to some extensive traveling he’d done in his youth, he’d seen several lady hostesses.

  He watched her as she got Mr. Jones talking about himself, then pulled the captain into the conversation. Angus was sure that by the end of the meal both men knew more about each other than they had before they sat down.

  And Edilean didn’t forget him. She could hardly go three sentences without saying “my husband.” “My husband knows about horses.” “My husband has spent a great deal of time in Scotland.” “My husband is quite good at that.”

  Angus couldn’t help it, but every time she said “my husband” he found himself smiling.

  By the end of the meal—which was excellent—she started talking about the plans she and her husband had. “We want to buy some land and build a house,” she said.

  “Then you’re going to the right country. The soil is rich and fertile,” the captain said. “Leave a plow in the earth for two weeks and it will sprout leaves.”

  “That’s what we want to hear, isn’t it?” she asked Angus.

  He blinked at her. “My...” He hesitated over the word. “My wife is the gardener, not me. I don’t know a weed from a stalk of wheat.” Did they grow wheat in America? he wondered.

  “True,” Edilean said. “My father died when I was young, so I was at the mercy of my school friends when I was growing up. If they didn’t invite me to their houses for the holidays I had to stay at the school with whichever teacher was made to stay behind with me. I lasted through one of those holidays and I can tell you that after that I learned how to make friends.”

  Mr. Jones and the captain laughed at her story, but Angus stared. Maybe what had happened to her was the reason why, even though she was so beautiful, she knew how to make an effort to be liked.

  “You must have had many invitations,” the captain said. “I can’t imagine that you were left behind very often.”

  “Not after that first lonely time. No one has a worse temper than a young teacher who’s had to cancel her own holiday to stay with the only girl in school who has nowhere to go. But after I learned to be a friend, I got to visit some of the best houses in England. I loved the gardens and used to sketch them in the hope that someday I’d have my own land to design.”

  “And will you give it to her?” the captain asked Angus.

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “I plan to give her her own town to create.” He smiled as he said it, but when he bent his head, the smile left him. What did he have to give Edilean? If she hadn’t given him jewels, he wouldn’t even be able to buy himself some land.

  “And your house?” the captain asked.

  “I shall design that also,” she said. “I know exactly what I want. Tell me, Captain, have you seen much of America?”

  Angus noted that she never let the conversation stay on herself for too long before she started asking others for information about themselves—and her interest made them feel comfortable. Angus listened as the captain told about his own life and how he and his wife used to sail together.

  “But after the children came, she stayed home with them. Next year I expect her to be back with me.”

  “How wonderful for you!” Edilean exclaimed. “You must miss her so very much.”

  “I do. And seeing you two together has made me miss her even more.”

  Edilean put her hand on Angus’s and held it for a moment. “My husband and I want to spend all our time together too. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  That’s when Angus interrupted by saying he’d been told that Edilean could sing.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Mr. Jones said. “Captain Inges loves to play his mandolin and he laments the fact that I can’t tell one note from another.”

  “What music do you like?” she asked the captain, and her eyes seemed to say that she’d never heard anything more interesting than that he could play a mandolin.

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a musician,” he said. “I just pick and strum to entertain myself.”

  “He’s being modest,” Mr. Jones said. “Sometimes he plays with the men and we dance on board.”

  “And now you have the women to dance with,” Edilean said, and the three men looked at her blankly. “The women downstairs.”

  “Oh.” Mr. Jones looked at his plate.

  The captain straightened his shoulders. “This is the first time I’ve had prisoners on board. I’m not quite sure what to do with them.”

  “Let them have some fresh air,” Angus said instantly. “They can’t stay below for the entire voyage.”

  “When they recover,” Captain Inges said. “Now all but two of them are under the weather.”

  “Seasickness,” Mr. Jones said.

  “You seem to be a good sailor,” the captain said to Edilean. “No sickness? Either of you?”

  “We’re too happy to have escaped to be sick,” Edilean said, then when they looked at her in question, she said, “I mean we’re happy to have escaped our well-meaning friends and relatives who never hesitated to call at our house in London to wish us well on our marriage.”

  “Ah,” Captain Inges said, “am I right in guessing that this is your bridal tour?”

  “Yes,” Edilean said. “A belated one.” Again she reached for Angus’s hand.

  “Perhaps, Mrs. Harcourt, I could persuade you to sing for us,” the captain said. “And I will try my hand at the mandolin.”

  “I would love to,” she said, pushing back her chair as the steward came in and began to clear the table. “What would you like? Psalms? A bit of opera? Or perhaps a folk song from the English countryside?” />
  “What about a Scottish ballad?” Angus asked. “Something that we might all know.”

  “I’m not sure I know any Scottish songs,” Edilean said, looking at him in curiosity before turning back to Captain Inges. “My husband has an uncle who lives in Scotland, and he used to spend his summers with him in a romantic old keep set on a hill, so my husband knows a lot about Scottish ways.”

  “I thought I detected a bit of a burr in your voice,” Captain Inges said. “You’re lucky that you aren’t in Scotland now, as there is a murderer on the loose. Perhaps you saw the flyers with his picture when you were in Glasgow.”

  “We did,” Edilean said. “He looked quite dangerous, although I did see something of kindness in his eyes. Or perhaps it was just the expertise of the artist that put it there.”

  Angus gave her a look as though to say he didn’t know whether to laugh or grimace.

  “I thought the drawing looked rather ordinary,” Mr. Jones said. “I think it was a bit out of proportion, but, worse, he made the blackguard look almost handsome. It’s my true belief that what we are shows on our faces. A man that bad could not be anything but as ugly as sin.”

  “I agree,” Angus said, smiling broadly.

  It was obvious that the captain had planned to play after dinner, as his mandolin was nearby, and he opened the case to lovingly remove the beautiful instrument. “Now, what shall you sing?”

  Before Edilean could speak, Angus said, “Do you know the tune to ‘Greensleeves’?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, pleased.

  He began playing quite skillfully, and the music of the old melody filled the small room. Edilean knew the ancient ballad, reputed to have been written by King Henry VIII, but just as she opened her mouth for her first note, Angus surprised her by starting to sing. His voice was rich and deep and beautiful. Edilean sat still and listened to him.

  He sang what was probably an ancient song about a young lord whose father sent him away to school in the care of a servant. As soon as they were out of sight, the servant showed his true nature by sending the young lord out into the world penniless and in dirty, torn clothing, while the servant took his place and met a beautiful princess.

  When Angus got to this part, he looked at Edilean; he was singing to her. The princess’s father wanted her to marry the man who said he was a lord, but she begged him to wait. In the meantime, she fell in love with a stable lad—who was the real lord.

  At this, Angus took Edilean’s hands in his and held them. He told how the boy had sworn not to tell his true story or the servant would kill his family, so the clever girl persuaded him to tell his horse.

  Edilean laughed. A prince in the clothes of a workman and a fine horse had played a part in their lives.

  After the princess heard the story, she wrote the young man’s father, and he came with an army and told the truth about who was the rightful prince. At the end, the servant was executed, and the young lord married the beautiful princess.

  When Angus stopped, the captain played a bit of a flourish, and they all laughed and applauded.

  “I do say but that was good!” Mr. Jones said. “A story and a song in one. Perhaps we could have another one.”

  Angus started to speak, but Edilean gave a yawn that she ostentatiously covered with her hand. “I’m afraid not,” he said as he offered Edilean his arm. “It looks like my wife has had enough for one day. If you will excuse us.”

  Once they were outside she kept her hold on his arm. “That was wonderful. Truly beautiful. Your voice is so good you could have a career on the stage.”

  “Maybe that would be better than chasing after stolen cattle,” he said.

  “Or better than farming?” she asked.

  When they got back to their own cabin, they saw that a hammock had been hung up and the trunks had been repacked. Edilean watched as Angus checked that the box of jewels was still where he’d hidden it, and smiled when he saw it was still there.

  Minutes later, she asked him to untie her corset laces, and he groaned. “You’ve made rules that I cannot touch you, but I have not said the same to you,” she said.

  “Take that back or I’ll let you sleep in that cage all night.”

  Smiling mischievously, she said, “Then I’ll have to go to that adorable Mr. Jones and ask for his help.”

  “You are a truly wicked woman,” Angus said as he quickly untied her laces, then went to the far side of the room.

  Edilean undressed slowly as she thought about the evening and how it felt to belong to someone. Since her father died, she’d always been someone’s guest. She’d always had to “sing for her supper” as she thought of it. She’d had to walk when she didn’t want to, talk when she wanted to be quiet. She’d been a guest, never the owner of the house—and the worst had been in her own uncle’s house. There, she’d been a prisoner.

  But now it was nice to think that she had her own husband and they were going to a new world and would build their own house. Even if it wasn’t quite the truth, she liked to think of it.

  Minutes later she was in bed and lay in the shadows, watching Angus struggling with the hammock. He rolled from one side to the other and seemed about to fall out.

  “I want to hear you say my name,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she said. “You’ve never said my name to me and I’ve sometimes wondered if you even know it.”

  He took a moment before he spoke. “Edilean,” he said softly. “Edilean... Harcourt.”

  “I guess it is. If the captain has seen the handbills of you he may have heard of the missing Miss Talbot. And you are Angus Harcourt.”

  “That I am—for now anyway. Maybe when I get to Virginia I’ll name my place McTern Manor.”

  “So you want to go to Virginia?” she asked, her voice quiet. She could hear the ocean outside, and inside she could hear Angus breathing. “I’m not sure, but I think Virginia is a long way from where we’re landing in Boston.”

  “I like the sound of this Virginia.”

  “So do I,” Edilean said sleepily. She’d had no sleep the night before when she’d cut Angus’s hair and shaved him, and today she’d met people and had many new experiences. When she fell asleep, it was so deep that she didn’t hear Angus when he fell out of the hammock and hit the floor hard. Nor did she awaken when he pulled the quilt over her and stood looking at her for a long while.

  He used the blankets from the hammock to make a pallet on the floor on the far side of the cabin and settled down to sleep. As he dozed off he remembered that he’d said he’d like to give her an entire town to design. “Edilean, Virginia,” he whispered just before he slept, and he liked the sound of it.

  12

  NO, NO, NO!” Angus said as he stood up from the chair and backed away from her. “I’m so sick of this I’m going mad. You hear me? Mad! Insane!”

  Edilean looked at him in consternation. It had been raining hard for four days now, so they’d stayed inside the cabin and she’d started teaching Angus how to read. The process would have been easier if he’d bothered to apply himself, but he kept looking out the window at the sea. One time she asked him what he was thinking and he told her he was remembering Scotland and his family.

  When he’d said that, Edilean moved away to sit on the bunk and let him have his own thoughts. She was glad that she was leaving no one behind who she really cared about. She had a few friends from school she’d like to exchange letters with, but there was no one she would really miss.

  Too often, she thought of James and wondered how he liked his life with his new wife. She was glad that since he was now married, he’d never again have a chance to fool some schoolgirl into thinking he was in love with her.

  But she didn’t miss him, the man. In fact, as she got to know Angus, she realized that she’d never known James. In the few days she’d been with Angus she’d learned what he liked to eat—meat—and what he hated—seafood or anything that looked what he called
“suspicious.” She knew how easily he was embarrassed, and how his sense of humor was always just under the surface. When he got frustrated at trying to learn his letters, she’d seen that if she could make a joke, he’d get his good humor back.

  She’d thought about what he’d told her about not flirting with him and acting as though they were brother and sister, and she’d done the best she could. It hadn’t been easy. Leaning over him hour after hour as she corrected his work had been difficult. Sometimes she inhaled the fragrance of his hair and closed her eyes, the physical pleasure of the scent of him nearly overwhelming her.

  In the days they’d spent together, they’d developed habits that now seemed second nature to them. She got out his clothes each morning while he shaved—he’d refused to let her do that task for him—and she tied his cravat, as he could never seem to do it correctly. And he helped her with her corset morning and night—and was already so used to it that he often yawned while pulling and tying.

  For Edilean, the days had been wonderful. They were as close as she’d come to having a home and family since her father died. But now Angus was saying that he’d hated those days.

  “Why are you trying to make me into him?” he asked, glaring at her.

  “Into who?” She stepped back from him.

  “Harcourt. You’re trying to make me into that peacock you were so in love with.”

  “I’m doing no such thing,” she said. “I’ve never tried to make you into James.”

  “Oh? And what is this?” he asked as he took off the beautiful blue silk jacket he was wearing and flung it on the chair. “And this?” He untied his cravat and tossed the snowy white tie on top of the jacket.

  “Are you planning to remove any more of your clothing?” she asked as coolly as she could manage. “If you are, I want to make myself comfortable so I have a clear view.”

  “You canna make light of this,” he said, not smiling at her joke. “I’m Angus McTern, not your dancing boy who trails after you.”

  Edilean sat down on the chair and looked up at him. “So now you’ve decided that all this is my fault?” she asked softly.