Jude Deveraux - Days of Gold

Sighing, she turned and went down the ladder to the ground floor and tiptoed to Angus’s door. When all the horses moved to the front of their stalls to look at her, she was tempted to stay with them, and she’d tell Tam that Angus wasn’t there. She’d say that he was probably with another woman. Maybe she’d tell him that-

The memory of James Harcourt lying on her parlor floor brought her back to reality. Angus’s door was closed and she thought about knocking, but she was afraid someone might hear. They hadn’t heard the many noises she and Angus had made on the night they’d made love in that room, but maybe he’d arranged that.

She tried the latch, it opened, she went inside, and a moment later she was looking down at his sleeping face. Quickly, she lit a candle, and the fact that she knew where it and the flint were made her more angry.

“Angus!” she said. “You have to wake up!” When he didn’t stir, she went closer to him-and he reached out one of his long arms and pulled her on top of him. Before she could stop him, he tried to kiss her, but she pushed away. “I don’t have time for this!” she said into his ear. “There’s a dead body in my front parlor.”

“It’s probably mine,” he said, his eyes closed, “because I’m in Heaven now.”

She pushed at him harder, but his arms still held her on top of him. “Will you stop it! I’m serious. James Harcourt is in my house and he’s dead.”

Angus opened his eyes and looked at her. “Harcourt?”

“Oh, so you can hear me.”

“I heard you leaping about upstairs. Edilean, it’s one thing to shoot at me while, of course, being careful to miss, but it’s something altogether different to actually kill someone.”

“You idiot!” she said as she gave a major push that got her off of him so she was standing by the bed. “I didn’t kill him.”

He rose up on his elbows. “But you seem to enjoy shooting at people. All right,” he said at her look. “Who did kill him?”

Edilean put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean, that I was careful to miss you? I tried to hit you but you kept leaping around. You’re worse than our goats!”

“Goats?” Angus ran his hand over his face. “Edilean, what in the world are you talking about?”

“I’m trying to make you listen to me. It’s never happened before, but I’m still trying. James Harcourt is dead, and he’s bleeding on my parlor floor. We have to get rid of the body and Malcolm sent me to get you. He said that you know how to do every underhanded, lying, sneaking, illegal thing there is, so you’d know what to do to keep Prudence from being hanged.”

After staring at her in silence for a few seconds, Angus threw back the blanket, got out of bed, and began to dress. “Prudence? Is she one of your slave girls?”

“They’re bound girls, not slaves. But no, she’s not in my employment. You should know who she is, as you tussled with her in bed.”

Angus groaned as he pulled on his breeches. “Not your jealousy again!”

“Jealousy?!” Edilean’s fists clenched at her sides. “I have never been jealous of you, no matter how many women you’ve had.”

“Oh? Then why did you hire Tabitha if not to keep her away from me?”

“Why you vain, arrogant-” She started to kick his shin, but he moved back.

Angus smiled. “You won’t catch me like that again.”

Edilean put her hands over her face as though she were crying. “Oh, Angus, I’m so very frightened. James was… It was awful.” The minute Angus stepped near her, she kicked him in the shin, and he yelped in pain.

“I’m tempted to turn you over my knee for that.”

“Try it,” she said.

“It would be too easy.” For a moment they glared at each other. “Who is Prudence?!” he said at last.

“James’s wife.”

“His wife?” Angus looked puzzled for a moment, then understood. “Oh, yes, his wife.”

Edilean gave him a cold little smile. “So you do remember her. I remember that you wouldn’t let me see her, but you let me believe she was so beautiful that you envied James.”

“I did not!”

She glared at him.

Angus tried to suppress a smile. “Perhaps I did. Would you like to kick my other shin? It’s not bleeding.”

“You’re not going to get ’round me, Angus… What is your name now?”

“Harcourt.” He shrugged. “It was easier than thinking up a new name. Shall we go? Or do you want to stay here and argue some more?”

“I don’t want to do anything with you.”

Angus opened the door to his room and let Edilean leave ahead of him. In the close quarters of the room he’d not been able to see her clearly. “What in the world are you wearing?” he asked, his voice showing his shock.

“Tam’s clothes.”

“Ah,” Angus said coldly. “Tam. Is he still staying with you?”

“As if you don’t know everything there is to know about my life,” Edilean said as Angus lifted the latch on the barn door. Tam was just outside, mounted, and holding the reins to Edilean’s horse.

Angus looked at Tam. “If I do this, I want to be told everything.”

“We made a vow to Miss Prudence, but I think it’s gone past that now.”

Edilean put her foot up to the stirrup of her horse, but Angus picked her up by the waist and set her aside. “What do you-?” she began but cut off when Angus swung up into the saddle, and offered his hand down to her. “I’d rather ride with Tam,” she said.

Angus started to get off the horse.

Edilean muttered a curse word under her breath, and put her hand up to his, and he pulled her onto the saddle in front of him. It wasn’t two seconds after they started moving that he began talking to her, his mouth close to her ear.

“I left you that morning because James showed up at the tavern. He hung up handbills of me. I didn’t want you to love a man who was to be executed.”

“Is that supposed to make me forgive you?” Edilean was trying to sit up straight and stay away from his big, warm body. She had on only a cotton shirt and a vest, and it was cold out.

“I did think that if you knew my reason for leaving you that night you might feel more kindly toward me.”

His breath was warm against her face, and she well remembered the sweet smell of it. “I’m to feel good that you decided my entire future in a second? Without asking me what I wanted to do? You had your way with me, then you left me there to rot! Tabitha walked the streets, and she was never treated so badly.”

Angus leaned away from her, his back stiff. “You told her about me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You told Tabitha, one of your bound girls, about you and me?” His voice showed his disbelief.

Smiling, Edilean said, “Every word. And for your information, Tabitha and I have become good friends. I have to bail her out of jail now and then, and I’ve had to dock her more than a year’s wages to repay the people she steals from, but when you overlook that quirk about her, she can be pleasurable company. She knows everything about snaky men.”

“Snaky? Oh. As in snakes.”

“Lying, cheating-”

Angus sighed. “I get the idea. So tell me what happened about James-if you can drag yourself away from reciting all my faults, that is.”

“It will be difficult, but then I’ve had years and years and years to think on your faults.”

“That would be six, but I was away only four.”

“Six what?” she asked.

“Years. One ‘years’ plus another ‘years’ plus-” He stopped when she twisted in the saddle to look at him. “Sorry. You were about to tell me about Harcourt and his wife. I don’t know anything about them together.”

“Except that she killed him.”

“Yes, I do know that, but why did she kill him?”