Jude Deveraux - Days of Gold

“I understand,” Edilean said, but she was lying. She was hurt that he could even think she would prosecute Harriet. “I would never do anything bad to her.”

“I know that, but she worries so.”

“But now she has you to take care of her.” Edilean raised her hand when he started to speak. “I think that all this can be hashed out later. Right now we need to do something about this man’s body.”

“You mean to call the sheriff?”

“So he can give Prudence a medal?”

Malcolm blinked a couple of times, then smiled. “That’s the way we all feel, but I wondered, since you once…” He shrugged.

“Loved him? Maybe I did. But I was a schoolgirl and he was beautiful. I can be forgiven that idiocy, can’t I?”

“I think you should be forgiven everything.”

“Now that that’s settled, what do we do with him? My floor is going to be ruined.”

Malcolm laughed. “Between shots fired into it and now blood on it, I think you might have to have this floor replaced. Unless there are more men in your life and we should expect cannon fire at any moment.”

Edilean laughed too, and plopped down onto a chair. “What are we going to do with this body?”

“You have to ask Angus.”

Edilean thought he was making a joke. “So he can dress it up as an Indian and blame them for this? I tell you that these Americans blame the poor Indians for everything. Only last week-” She broke off when she looked at Malcolm’s face. He wasn’t joking.

“All right,” she said at last. “Go get him. And while you’re gone, I’ll pack and get out of here. I may move to that farm in Connecticut permanently.”

“No,” Malcolm said, moving to stand on the other side of James’s body. “You have to go get him.”

“Me? Did you forget that I’m the one who tried to kill him in this very room just three weeks ago? If you can’t go, send Tam. Angus adores his young cousin.”

“Angus is, well… He’s a bit angry at us right now and won’t speak to us.”

“What did you do to him? No, on second thought, don’t tell me.”

“We didn’t tell him all of the truth about why we came to America.”

“There’s more than about my uncle dying?”

“It was Miss Prudence who paid our way here, and she hired us to find her husband.”

Edilean stared at him for a moment. “I don’t know the law that well, but I think you three could be considered an accessory to murder.”

Malcolm shrugged.

“So Angus is angry at your participation in this? Since when did he become a champion of James Harcourt?”

Malcolm glanced at the window. “You know, lass, I don’t mean to rush you on this, but I think you should go right away. It’s hours before daylight, but we may need all that time of darkness. I don’t think that in the morning the maid will keep quiet at the sight of a dead body on the floor of the parlor.”

“Would that be the maid who was transported for grave robbing, or the one who was sentenced because she used a whip on her stepfather?”

Malcolm shook his head at her. “Oh, lass, if only I were younger. But you must go get Angus. He knows this country but we don’t. He’ll know what to do and how to hide a dead man. We’d go, but he said he’d have nothing to do with us until we tell him the whole truth, but we swore to Miss Prudence that we wouldn’t.”

“And Angus has a soft spot for her.”

“Please tell me that’s a jest,” Malcolm said seriously. “Shamus is quite taken with the woman and she with him. If Angus also wants her it will cause great problems. They’ll-”

“How do I know what he wants?” Edilean half shouted, then glanced at the ceiling when she heard what sounded like a muffled cry.

“I must go!” Malcolm said. “And so must you. Angus is at the tavern where he used to work.” He rushed from the room.

“Of course he is,” Edilean said. “Where else would he be? In that same room, asleep in that same bed.” She wanted to run upstairs and tell the men that she could not do this. She would do anything but go see Angus, but then she looked down at the body on her floor and thought about poor Prudence being hanged for shooting someone who so very much deserved killing, and Edilean headed for the doorway. But she turned back and gave James’s rib cage a good swift kick. “That’s from me,” she said, and left the room.

ANGUS!” EDILEAN SAID as she stared down at him in bed. He was lying on that bed, the one that held so many memories for her, and he was smiling. She had no doubt that he was dreaming something good. And why not? He got everything he ever wanted, didn’t he? In the four years that she’d heard nothing from him he must had bedded a hundred women. Maybe a thousand.

She resisted the urge to turn around and leave the room, but Tam was waiting outside the barn, and she figured he’d send her back in. Malcolm had been shocked when Edilean said she’d go to Angus alone.

“Brigands!” he said under his breath.

“We don’t have them in America,” Edilean said, her eyes wide in innocence.

Malcolm had looked at her in shock, but Tam laughed. “She has no intention of going to Angus.”

Edilean gave him a sharp look because that was exactly her plan.

“I’ll go with you and protect you,” Tam said, “even though this new country has no idea what crime is.”

When he said he’d meet her in back of the house with the horses saddled, she’d reluctantly agreed. She went upstairs to dress, and on impulse, she went into Tam’s room and opened the chest at the foot of his bed. At nineteen, he was a foot taller than she was, but he was very slim, so his clothes might come close to fitting her. If she was going to have to sneak through the night, she couldn’t do it wearing thirty-five yards of silk.

Everyone was in the bedroom with Prudence and Harriet, so no one saw Edilean hurry past wearing a large white shirt, a vest that was big enough to hide her breasts, knee britches, and white stockings. She had on her own work shoes, which were plain black leather with big silver buckles. She’d tied her hair at the nape of her neck and let it hang down her back.

When she got outside where Tam was impatiently waiting for her, his eyes widened at the sight of her, but she gave him a look that dared him to say anything. But when she swung up into the saddle by herself, he said, “Good boy!” and rode out of the courtyard ahead of her.

It took them over an hour to get to the tavern where Angus lived, and they found that the barn that held his room was bolted from the inside. It was Edilean who told Tam that he had to hoist her up to the second floor so she could climb into the loft. He managed to stand on his horse and lift Edilean up until she caught the rope that hung down from the pulley over the loft door. She was sure there was a great deal more touching of her backside than was quite necessary, but she said nothing to Tam.

She grabbed the rope, and managed to shinny up it to reach the bottom of the open door. She had to swing forward on the rope, and below her, she heard Tam’s quick intake of breath, but she made it inside, landing on the wooden floor and rolling almost to the ladder down to the floor below. “You’re not worth this,” she muttered as she dusted herself off.

When she stuck her leg out to shake off the hay, she rather liked not having on a corset and not being encumbered with a full, long skirt. With a glance about to make sure no one was looking, she did a bit of a dance on the wooden floor, lifting her knees up to almost her waist.

“Edilean!” came Tam’s loud whisper from outside. “Whatever are you doing? I can hear you jumping!”

With a grimace, she stopped dancing and thought about the days when Tam was so enamored of her that he’d stared at her in fascination. Now he told her to hurry up.