Days of Gold (26 page)

Edilean refused to be swayed by the thick, raw mark on Tabitha’s shoulder because she saw a flash in the moonlight. Tabitha was wearing all three of the bracelets from the parure that Edilean had given Angus.

“Those are mine,” Edilean said, nodding toward the bracelets.

Frowning in puzzlement, Tabitha touched the diamonds, then she looked at Edilean in disbelief. “These are real?”

When Edilean said nothing, Tabitha said, “Lord a’ mercy,” and took a few steps backward.

“You stole them from Angus and I want all of it back,” Edilean said.

Tabitha was looking at the bracelets in wonder. “I thought they were pretty but I never thought they were... What? Diamonds?”

Edilean said nothing, just glared at Tabitha.

“You were going to
kill
me to get them?” Tabitha asked, her eyes wide. “You were gonna sneak up behind me and...” She put her hand up to her throat and looked at the man standing behind her.

“I’ll take her into the woods and I’ll make her sorry she bothered you,” the man said.

Tabitha looked at Edilean. “All I have to do is say yes and you’ll be dead—or wish you were—in about ten minutes.” She looked at the man. “Take her and that one out to the road but don’t hurt them. You understand me?”

The man grabbed Edilean’s arm, but she wrenched it away. “I’m not leaving here until you give me back the parure.”

“The what?” Tabitha asked.

“The set of jewels,” Edilean said. “They belong to Angus.”

“So why didn’t
he
come and get them? Why’d he send
you
to do his dirty work for him?”

“He has no idea I’m here or that I know you stole the jewels.”

“He doesn’t know I took them,” Tabitha said.

“How could he not?”

Tabitha gave a little smile. “He likes me. I saw it in his eyes that first day on that rotten old ship. If you hadn’t been around...” She gave a shrug. “They’re mine now.”

“No they’re not!” Edilean yelled, as she launched herself onto Tabitha and knocked her to the ground.

“It’s a girl fight,” the man said under his breath, and the next minute he was yelling, “Fight! Fight!” and the few people who were still asleep came running.

“Get off of me!” Tabitha yelled as she tried to roll away from Edilean.

“If you don’t give me those jewels back, I’ll tear your hair out.”

“Will you?” Tabitha said. “I’d like to see you try.”

In the next second, Edilean gave such a fierce pull on Tabitha’s hair that her head jerked back so hard her eyes watered.

Tabitha kicked out at Edilean’s shin, but she missed when Edilean adroitly twisted her body to one side.

“She’s got you now, Tabby,” came a woman’s voice.

Still looking as though she couldn’t believe any of this was happening, Tabitha said, “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to have to hurt you.”

“You may try,” Edilean said, “but I’m not leaving here until you give me the jewels. And if you won’t give them to me then I’m going to
take
them.”

“You can’t—” Tabitha began but stopped when Edilean’s fist hit her in the jaw. Stepping back, she put her hand to her face and moved her chin about, as though feeling if it was broken. In the next
second, she jumped in the air and went after Edilean, who moved, so Tabitha landed on the ground. Everyone around the two women started laughing.

Edilean had known this was going to happen. She’d lived with women all her life, and she knew that no matter what class they were, when it came down to it, girls could fight as hard as males. She’d told Cuddy that what she wanted him to do was search wherever Tabitha was sleeping and get the jewels. She didn’t think that winning a fight would make these outlaws turn over thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds to her. Her only hope was to create enough of a diversion so no one saw what Cuddy was doing.

Edilean glanced in Cuddy’s direction, and when she saw that he was stirring, was sitting up and rubbing his sore head, she sighed in relief. Obviously, he hadn’t been hurt too badly. All Edilean had to do was keep the entire crowd so occupied by her and Tabitha that they didn’t notice what else was going on.

When she saw the man who’d grabbed her from behind glance in Cuddy’s direction, she doubled up her fist and again hit Tabitha on the jaw. The man looked away from Cuddy.

Tabitha struck out at Edilean, but she moved to the left, then the right, and her fists missed.

“Where you’d learn to fight like this?” Tabitha asked, her fists up and moving from one side to the other.

“Girls’ boarding school,” Edilean said. “And so many men have been in love with me that they’ve taught me boxing and a bit of wrestling.”

“In love with you?” Tabitha said. “Ha! They love your riches, that’s all. Angus told me so.”

“I don’t believe you!” Edilean said as she struck out at Tabitha but missed the punch.

“You know where he told me? In bed. Nice big man, he is. I
knew he wasn’t married to you. He stood too far away from you. Ice Lady. That’s what he calls you. And he
gave
me that jewelry.”

Edilean didn’t think—and that was her mistake. Tabitha’s taunts made her so angry that when she leaped, she missed and hit the ground, her mouth filling with dirt. Before she could roll over, Tabitha was on top of her, and she outweighed Edilean by at least half a hundred pounds.

Tabitha grabbed Edilean’s hair and pulled back hard, then dropped her so her face hit the ground again, but this time a stone hit her chin and she could taste blood in her mouth.

When Edilean turned over and the crowd saw the blood on her face, they started cheering, and money was exchanged as bets were placed.

Edilean was so dazed that when she got to her feet, she didn’t see Tabitha’s fist until it hit her in the jaw just below her left ear. Edilean moved backward, and as she did so she could see Cuddy searching through the belongings inside Tabitha’s makeshift tent.

Edilean began to walk in a circle, each time moving farther away from Tabitha so she got her and the crowd away from the tent and Cuddy.

“Had enough?” Tabitha asked.

Tabitha was bigger, but Edilean was more agile. Edilean stuck out her booted foot, hooked it behind Tabitha’s bare leg, and pulled. Tabitha hit the ground hard, jarring her teeth, and when she looked up at Edilean, she spit out blood.

“Have
you
had enough?” Edilean asked.

“Not nearly enough. Not from you or from Angus.”

At the mention of the name, Edilean rammed her shoulder into Tabitha’s midsection.

A
NGUS WAS AWAKENED
by the sound of someone trying to kick the door to the barn down. “Always in a hurry,” he muttered as he pulled on his trousers. He’d been up late the night before, getting two drunks up to their beds. Every time he’d close the doors to their rooms, they’d come out again and start punching each other. In the end he’d told them that if they did it again,
he
would start throwing punches. That had calmed them down enough that they went to their rooms and stayed there.

So now it was not quite dawn and someone was wanting in the barn. Angus’s room was in the back, next to the tack room, away from the main tavern where the guests slept, and he liked that. It gave him some time off from the eternal demands of taking care of people and animals.

The pounding continued as he was buttoning his trousers. He was cursing under his breath when he heard the man outside say something that sounded like “Edilean.” Angus paused for a moment,
not believing his hearing, and told himself that was absurd. He’d told Edilean he was going to Williamsburg and that’s where she thought he was.

There was another spate of pounding, and he heard a man’s voice saying the word again. “Edilean! Edilean!”

Angus covered the floor in three steps as he reached the door and lifted the bar. In front of him was a young man in workmen’s clothes—and in his arms was Edilean. She was asleep—or unconscious—and her beautiful face was bruised and swollen, her clothes torn and blood-spattered.

Angus slipped his arms under the man’s and took Edilean from him. “What happened?” he asked as he carried her back to his small room.

“She fought a woman named Tabitha for this,” Cuddy said as he pulled a great wad of diamond jewelry out of his pocket. “I hope it was worth it to you. It may have cost her her life.” His voice was angry.

Angus glanced at the diamonds, not sure he understood anything as he bent down to put Edilean on the bed. “Get some hot water,” he said. “And leave those here!”

“I don’t have to—” Cuddy began, but with a look at Angus’s face, he dropped the diamonds into his outstretched hand. “She said an earring and some bracelets are missing,” he mumbled, then turned and ran out of the barn.

“Edilean,” Angus said as he gently moved the hair off her face and tried to assess the damage. When she moaned, he saw that she was asleep. He smelled her breath and it looked as though she’d had some whiskey. Good!

Quickly, before the young man returned, Angus undressed her. He needed to see the extent of her injuries. Were any bones broken? If possible, he didn’t want to have to call a doctor. He’d repaired many injuries in his lifetime and knew what to do.

Once she was nude, he couldn’t help looking at her beautiful, perfect body, at the way her hips curved, her breasts rose. He remembered that she’d offered herself to him and that he’d turned her down. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life. Since that night, he’d thought of little else but her, and there wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t think of going back to her and sweeping her into his arms.

He had to shake his head to clear it of those thoughts as he ran his hands over her smooth, perfect skin, trying to see if bones were broken. He could find none that were. She winced several times when his hands touched a sore place, but when he pressed harder, the bones didn’t give.

She had bruises over most of her lovely body. They were just now turning blue, so it hadn’t been long since she’d been injured. Her beautiful face, neck, and shoulders had the worst of the bruising. There was a small cut on her chin and a larger one on her shoulder, and both her forearms were scraped raw, but he didn’t see anything that would need stitching or that would cause a scar.

“Edilean,” he whispered. “What in the world happened to you?”

He glanced at the pieces of diamond jewelry on the table by the bed and wondered where they had come from. He knew they’d been in his pocket on the day he left the ship, and it wasn’t until three days after they had all parted company that Angus realized the set was missing. He’d cursed his carelessness, but his mind had been on other things... meaning on Edilean. He’d been so despondent after they’d separated that he’d thought of nothing else. He missed her terribly. Several times he found himself turning to say something to her, or smiling at the thought of what she’d say if she were with him. Every time she wasn’t there, he was freshly wounded.

He’d spent whole afternoons outside her town house, watching. He told himself he was protecting her, but every man who entered
was like a stake through his heart. He knew she hosted endless tea parties for the young students who came down from Harvard College. He’d even seen her outside with them, laughing on the steps with four or five young men at a time.

Every day he had one of the waitresses in the bar check the newspaper; he expected to hear that Edilean had announced her engagement to one of them. He figured she’d marry some man who owned so much land that it was going to be named a state. And her husband-to-be would probably be so besotted with her that he’d name the state “Edilean.” Or maybe that was just Angus’s wish. If he started a town, if she was with him, he’d name the place Edilean.

When Angus realized that the jewels had been stolen, he knew there was nothing he could do about it. For all he knew, Edilean had taken them back. He didn’t think she would, but maybe she’d so much wanted him to stay in Boston with her that she’d made it impossible for Angus to leave.

Or maybe that was something he wanted to believe.

She stirred on the bed, groaning in pain.

“Ssssh, lass,” he said. “I’m here now and I’ll take care of you.”

When he heard a man’s footsteps coming toward the door, he covered Edilean’s nude body with a blanket.

“I had to wait until the water got hot,” Cuddy said from the doorway, and when he glanced at Edilean on the bed, his eyes widened. “You took her clothes off?” His anger at Angus and his concern for Edilean were evident in his tone.

“If I hear one more disrespectful word out of you, you will live to regret it,” Angus said, his eyes flashing in threat.

“All right,” Cuddy said as he plopped down heavily on a chair on the far side of the room. “It ain’t none of my business, even if I did nearly get killed while helpin’ her.”

Angus dipped a cloth in the hot water and began to gently wash
Edilean’s face. “I want to hear every word of what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”

Cuddy didn’t like the way Angus was treating him, and he didn’t like the way Miss Edilean had told him to take her to the Scotsman. Cuddy told her that Miss Harriet would do a far better job of patching her up than any man would, but Edilean had insisted. She’d said she’d walk if he wouldn’t take her. Cuddy gave in when Edilean nearly fell from her horse. He got off his and got on behind her and five minutes later she’d fallen asleep against him. He’d been tempted to take her to Miss Harriet, but he didn’t. He went miles out of the way to deliver her to some man who’d stripped her naked on a bed.

Cuddy didn’t like the man, and his tone let him know it. Reluctantly, he told the story about Tabitha, but he didn’t tell Angus how Edilean had sent him, Cuddy, out to look for Angus weeks before.

“So how did she know I was here?”

When Cuddy said nothing, Angus turned to look at him. “Did she send you to look for me?”

Cuddy nodded.

“And you told her in detail about where I was working and how I was living in the barn, didn’t you?”

Cuddy gave a curt nod, and Angus relented. “Don’t worry yourself, lad, she has a way of making men do things that they wouldn’t normally do.”