Jude Deveraux - Days of Gold

In the past, Tabitha’s innuendos had made Edilean angry, but not now. “It takes a man time to recover from a night with me,” she said, and turned and left. Tabitha’s laughter echoed behind her.

By the fourth week of Angus’s absence, the others seemed to have accepted that he was never returning. Even Malcolm had lost his faith that Angus was going to come back to them.

One day Edilean overheard him talking to Harriet and saying that he was disappointed in Angus, that he’d misjudged the boy. It was all Edilean could do to keep from giving him a piece of her mind, but she didn’t. They’d see, she thought. If Angus was alive, he was going to come back to her.

It was at the end of the sixth week, while Edilean was at the market inspecting the produce stands that had made her company so prosperous, that a closed carriage stopped near her. It was an ordinary carriage, black, worn along the footings, obviously hired, but when she moved, it moved. When she stopped, it stopped. The fifth time it halted, she knew Angus was inside the carriage.

“Excuse me,” she said to three women who worked for her and were overseeing the big produce cart. “Would you tell Harriet that I might not be home for dinner but not to worry about me?”

“Of course,” the young woman said. She’d been transported for stealing a silver bowl from the earl who owned the house where she’d worked since she was nine. That the man had been raping her since she was thirteen meant nothing to the court.

As Edilean started walking toward the carriage, the girl called out, “Where shall I tell her you’ve gone?”

“To paradise,” Edilean said over her shoulder just as the door opened. It was dark inside, but she could see Angus, and he was wearing the tartan he’d had on the first time she saw him.

He leaned forward just enough that his hand was at the door. She took it, stepped into the carriage, and shut the door behind her, and they started moving. She took the seat across from him and stared at him, almost afraid to speak for fear that he’d disappear and it would all be a dream.

“I guess you thought I’d left you again,” he said at last, looking at her in the dim light, his eyes devouring her.

“I did for the first two weeks, but not after that.” Her heart was beating hard in her throat and her fingertips seemed to vibrate with wanting to touch him. Was his skin as warm as she remembered?

Angus gave a little smile. “You knew that I’d come back for you?”

“Certainly.”

His smile broadened. “You trusted me?”

“As far as I can throw you,” she said.

Angus laughed, and for a moment their eyes locked, and in the next second, she propelled herself into his arms. His mouth took hers and kissed her with longing and hunger. “I missed you,” he said, his lips on her neck. “I thought of you every second of every day.”

“I never thought of you once,” she said, her eyes closed, her neck arched. When his mouth moved down her neck to her shoulders, she leaned farther back, letting his strong arms hold her. He pulled the neck kerchief away with his teeth, and moved downward to her breast.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Do you care?” His hand was moving up her skirt.

“No, I don’t,” she said, her hands moving over his body. “Angus! You have on nothing beneath your skirt.”

“Kilt. Move your hand to the side. No, the other side.”

“Oh,” she said as she put her hand around the part of him that showed how much he wanted her.

With a groan, Angus put his head back against the seat. “You are better than I remembered.”

Abruptly, the coach halted and there was a knocking on the roof. “Sir!” a man’s voice said. “We have arrived.”

“Kill him for me,” Angus whispered.

When Edilean felt the movement of the carriage that meant the driver was getting down, she removed her hand from under Angus’s garment, sat up, and picked her scarf off the seat. “He’s going to open the door.”

“Let me die now,” Angus said, his eyes still closed.

She pulled his kilt down so the bottom half of him was covered and smoothed her hair. When the driver opened the door, they were sitting on opposite sides of the carriage and looking quite proper.

Edilean looked outside and saw that they were at Boston Harbor. “Why have you taken me here?” she asked Angus. “I think we should go home and-”

She broke off and stared ahead of her. There in the harbor was the Mary Elizabeth, the ship she and Angus had traveled to America on. She looked back at him. “What…? How…?”

Angus recovered himself enough to breathe again. “I had some business to do and I happened to hear that Captain Inges was making a trip back to Glasgow, so I thought we might go with him.”

“Back to Scotland?” she asked. “Oh. To see your clan.” It looked as though he’d changed his mind about remaining as the laird. She had a vision of the derelict old keep and all the people who looked up to Angus-and how she’d be the lady of the castle. Would she ever see America again? This new country was where she’d shown everyone, including herself, that she was worth something.

“No, you don’t see,” Angus said as he got out of the carriage and helped her down. “You don’t see at all. I need to go back home to pass the clan on to Tam. We have to do it legally.”

He held out his arm to her, and she took it. Angus, in his old-fashioned kilt with his knees bare, was causing a bit of a stir. Both men and women were staring at him, but it was the women whose eyes sparkled.

When he led her toward the ship, Edilean pulled back. “Did everyone else know about this? You told them and not me? Is everything packed and on board?”

Angus halted. “If by ‘them’ you mean Malcolm and Tam and-”

“And Harriet and Prudence and Shamus.”

“Yes, the entire lot of them. Might as well have the whole clan here. The answer is no, I didn’t tell any of them anything. They know nothing.”

“Which is exactly as much as I know.” Edilean put her heels down firmly on the ground and looked at him. “I want to know what’s going on. Where have you been?”

Angus looked as though he was contemplating picking her up and carrying her up the gangplank to the ship, but then seemed to think better of it. “If you must know-not that I wasn’t going to tell you, just not here in public-I went back to the fort.”

“But that’s-”

“A long way away,” Angus said. “I gave up sleep and food, but I did it. I sold my shares in the Ohio Company to Captain Austin.”

“Oh, yes, the man who’s in love with a girl you wanted.”

Angus gave her a look.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m only repeating what I was told.”

“I do wish you’d stop listening to gossip.”

“When you stop running off and leaving me to deal with it alone, I will.”

Angus gave a smile, took her by the shoulders, and looked as though he was going to kiss her, but then he glanced at the people around them and didn’t. “I promise that I’ll tell you everything when we’re on board, but in private.”

“Angus,” Edilean said, “you really can’t expect me to board a ship sailing for Scotland without any preparation. I need clothes and books and gifts. I can’t visit your family empty-handed. And did you forget about my business? Who can run it without me? I know you think I’m worthless, but I have many people to look after, and they-”

“Captain Inges said that this time we couldn’t travel with him unless we were properly married, so he’s waiting with his Bible to perform the ceremony.”

She blinked at him.

“At last I’ve said something that you can make no reply to,” Angus said in wonder. “Now, do you want to go on board and get married, or do you want to go back to that house of yours and gloat to those people who think I’ve abandoned you and sign papers for that business of yours?”