Days of Gold (41 page)

Harriet reached out and squeezed Prudence’s big hand, and Angus realized that they were sisters-in-law, and it looked as though they were friends as well. “I think I should start,” Harriet said as she looked at Edilean. “Remember about four years ago when you returned from your meeting with Tabitha?”

“Meeting?” Edilean asked. “You mean when I fought her nearly to the death, then spent the night—” She glanced at Angus. “I do believe that I remember that night. After that you were so nervous you jumped at every sound.”

“That’s because James had shown up the day before with papers saying you were his wife.”

“His what?” Edilean asked. “I never married him!”

“I know, but he had marriage papers with
your
name on them. He told me that he was going to a lawyer to make a case that you and he were married in England, but you’d used his name and his gold to run off with your lover to America.”

“He couldn’t have got away with it,” Edilean said.

“He also had a sworn statement from the captain of the ship you two sailed on that you traveled as Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt. You still used the name Harcourt.”

“But—” Edilean began.

“He had your uncle’s backing,” Prudence said. “I didn’t see it, but I was told that there was a letter from your uncle certifying that you were the wife of James Harcourt.”

Edilean fell back against the cushioned seat. She couldn’t comprehend such outright lies.

Angus took her hand in his and held it. “And what about you?” he asked Prudence. “What happened to you after that night you and I uh... met?”

“I went back to my father’s house, and I’m glad to say that he was happy to see me. Without me there, the few servants we had were running the place, and my father couldn’t even get a decent meal out of them. I put it all back in order and we never spoke of my husband or what happened.”

Angus looked at Harriet. “And you paid James off.”

“It was the only thing I could think to do.”

“Why didn’t you tell
me
?” Edilean asked. “I could have handled James.”

“You were so unhappy about whatever had happened that night.” Harriet cut her eyes at Angus. “I couldn’t bear to add to your misery. And you were overwhelmed with the business you were just starting. I couldn’t put more burdens onto you.”

“So you paid him off instead,” Edilean said. “How did you do it?”

Angus squeezed Edilean’s hand, but she didn’t stop looking at Harriet.

“I made a few adjustments in the accounting books. It wasn’t so difficult to do.”

“How much did you give him?” Edilean asked. “Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be enough for James, since he thought he was entitled to
all
of it.”

“We can talk about numbers later,” Angus said as he looked at Prudence. “What I want to know is how you got back into this and how my family became involved.”

“James killed me,” Prudence said.

Both Angus and Edilean stared at her.

Harriet’s eyes filled with tears as she held Prudence’s hand with both of hers. “It was all my fault.” She looked at Edilean. “You’re right about the money. James kept wanting more and more. I...
you
paid the rent on a town house in New York and you bought him clothes. You paid his liquor bills. You—”

“For how long?” Edilean asked.

“Until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Three years.”

“I don’t even want to think about how much it totaled,” Edilean said. “Is James the reason our profits were down in the third year of the business?”

“Yes,” Harriet said as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Edilean, I’m so sorry. You trusted me completely, but I betrayed that trust. I—”

“You saved her,” Angus said impatiently. “How did James—?” He looked at Prudence and softened his voice. “How did he ‘kill’ you? And why? If you were in England, what harm did you do him?”

“When I stopped paying James,” Harriet said, “as you can imagine, he went wild with anger. We had a terrible fight and he swore that he would get me back. He said he was going to go to Edilean’s uncle and get him to help. Remember that Edilean was still under her uncle’s guardianship when she ran off with you.”

“Did he go?” Angus asked.

“Yes,” Prudence said. “I don’t know the full details of that meeting, but I think Lawler laughed at him.”

“That sounds like the man,” Angus said.

“What I do know,” Prudence said, looking at Edilean, “is that
your uncle told James that there was nothing he could do because he was married to
me
.”

“Show them,” Harriet said, looking at Prudence.

After a slight hesitation, she untied the scarf at her bodice and pulled it away. Edilean gasped at the sight of the scar on her throat. It was deep and red and seemed to encircle her entire neck.

“I had just been to the home farm that day,” Prudence said, “as we had a new calf born during the night. I was walking back and two men on horseback came thundering along the road. I stepped to the side, out of their way, but they came so close that I fell backward onto the verge. When I heard one of them dismount, I shouted at him to watch where he was going.”

Harriet held Prudence’s hand tighter.

“The man was large, bigger even than my Shamus.”

At the endearment, Angus tightened his grip on Edilean’s hand but gave no outward sign that he’d heard.

“He... He...” Prudence stopped talking and turned her head away.

“The man put a knotted garrote around her neck and proceeded to strangle her,” Harriet said. “He twisted and pulled until Pru passed out and he thought she was dead.” Harriet took a breath. “While my brother sat on his horse and watched.”

Edilean gasped. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Prudence. “This is all my fault. I was fascinated with James because he wasn’t like the others. He was the only man who didn’t pursue me. If I hadn’t—”

“I’m not going to let you blame yourself,” Harriet said. “Even as a child, my brother was horribly spoiled. Our mother used him against our father.” She waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“You recovered,” Angus said to Prudence.

“I did, but only by accident. I’d forgotten the cake the farmer’s wife had baked for my father, and she came hurrying down the road
in her little pony trap, trying to catch me. I think she’s why James and his hired killer didn’t stay to make sure I was dead. They must have heard her because by the time she saw me lying by the road, they were gone.” She took a breath. “For three months afterward I could drink only liquids. Everything had to be mashed up for me, and it was nearly a year before I had full use of my voice.”

Harriet looked at Angus. “The strain of it all caused her father’s heart to give out.”

“After he died,” Prudence said, “I had to sell everything to pay off the debts. The house, the home farm, all of it was sold. It’s where my family had lived for four hundred years, but it’s gone now.”

“So you came to America to find James,” Angus said.

“No. First, I went to your uncle,” she said to Edilean.

“But why? You couldn’t have thought that he’d help you. He wasn’t a man who believed in justice.”

When Prudence didn’t answer the question, Angus asked, “How did you know of him?”

“That day,” Prudence said, shaking her head. “That day when everything changed.” She glanced at Angus with a look that almost made him smile, but Edilean was watching him intently, so he didn’t. Prudence meant the day when Angus and Edilean had foiled James in his attempt to escape to America with the gold. “I slept all that day and only woke when James came into the room. He was staggering about from the drug, but he was lucid enough to be in a rage. He had on only his underclothes.” Prudence put her hand to her mouth, as though to stifle a giggle. “The only clothes he had were what he had on; the rest of them were on the ship—and on you.”

Prudence looked at Angus’s waistcoat. “I believe that one was James’s favorite.”

“Was it?” Edilean said. “I like it the best too. But then, I always did like James’s taste.”

“He charged everything to you,” Prudence said.

“I know, I saw the bills. But I didn’t have to pay them,” she said, smiling.

“What did he do after he found out the ship had sailed?” Angus asked.

“Went insane with rage. He’d planned it all so carefully.”

“He told you about what he’d done?” Angus asked.

“Not straight out, not as though he was talking to me.” Prudence tightened her mouth so that what lips she had couldn’t be seen, and her pointed chin almost came up to touch the tip of her nose. “He raged about how he’d married something like me to get the gold of the beautiful one, but that you”—she glanced at Angus—“you stole everything. James said I was—”

“I think we can all guess what James said,” Edilean said loudly. “Did you leave him that day?”

“Yes,” Prudence said. “I took the public coach to my father’s house, and I didn’t see or hear from James again until three years later when I was being strangled—and he was sitting on a horse looking down at me and smiling.”

“But when you healed, you went to see Lawler,” Angus said.

“I wanted to know if he knew where
you
were,” she said to Edilean.

“Me?” she asked and moved back in the carriage. She may have been able to fight off Tabitha, but Edilean knew that if this woman attacked her, she wouldn’t win.

Angus gave Edilean’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’s my guess that you were looking for something that Edilean had.”

“Yes,” Prudence said, looking hard into Angus’s eyes.

Edilean said nothing, but she sat up straighter in the carriage. The parure. That’s what Prudence was after. But that was long gone. Angus had taken it with him on the night he’d left Edilean.

“What you want is safely in a bank vault here in Boston,” Angus said.

“What?” Edilean said. “I gave those to
you
. Are you telling me that after all I went through to get those back from Tabitha’s thieving hands that you put them in a bank and didn’t sell them?”

“They were never mine,” Angus said. “How could I take such things?”

“Would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?” Harriet asked.

“The whole set is safe?” Prudence asked, and when Angus nodded, she started crying loudly. “It hasn’t been sold? Didn’t go to James to pay his gambling debts? You still have it?”

From above them, Shamus looked through the window to the inside of the carriage and glared directly at Angus. “You make her cry and I’ll tear you into pieces.”

“It’s all right, Shamus, dear heart,” Prudence said, sniffing, and blowing her nose loudly into the handkerchief that Harriet handed her. “It’s fine. I’ll tell you everything later.”

After another look of warning at Angus, Shamus sat back up on the driver’s seat.

Angus reached between the two women and slid the window shut. Prudence grabbed his hand. “You are a good man.”

“Sometimes,” Edilean murmured.

“I would really like to be told what everyone is talking about,” Harriet said, so Edilean told her.

“A parure? An entire set of jewelry?”

“Diamonds,” Edilean said.

Prudence nodded. “My father told me about them just before he died. I didn’t know he still had them, and neither did the bank. He told me that he’d kept them for his daughter’s wedding and that’s what they were for.” She blew her nose again. “He could have sold
them and paid off a lot of debts but he didn’t. He saved them for me and had them secretly placed in my trunk. He didn’t let me see them before the wedding, for fear that James would steal them. He rightly guessed that James would never look inside my trunk. We didn’t have a marriage of intimacy.”

“When we get this done, I’ll give you the entire set,” Angus said. “An earring is missing, and some bracelets but—”

“I have all the pieces,” Edilean said, and they all looked at her. “My footman found them after the man who stole the diamonds from Tabitha sold them.”

“And why did you want the rest of the set?” Angus asked. “I’d think that if you hated me, you’d want nothing to do with any of it.”

Edilean kept her eyes on Prudence and didn’t answer him. “I guess you met Malcolm when you went to my uncle.”

“Yes,” Prudence said, and her face softened. “And it was there that I met Shamus. He knew a great deal about you, about where you’d gone, and who you went with, and about the wagon full of trunks of gold. Oh!” she said.

“What is it?” Harriet asked.

“The trunks of gold. James talked of little else when he found out that you’d sailed without him and now... Now...”

“He’s inside one of the trunks,” Angus said, and whispered, “be careful what you wish for.”

“You got Malcolm, Shamus, and Tam to help you,” Edilean said.

“Yes,” Prudence answered. “I had some money from the sale of my family’s estate, so I paid our way to America.”

“So you were on the ship with Shamus?” Edilean asked.

“I was,” Prudence said, and her entire face took on a glow.

“How lovely,” Edilean said.

“How strange,” Angus muttered, then moved his leg away from Edilean before she could kick him.

“He’s such a kind man, but he’s been ill treated all his life. Shamus wants to start over, where people don’t judge him by what his father did.”

“Like loosening the cinch on a girl’s saddle?” Angus muttered.

“He would
never
do such a thing! He’s a kind, thoughtful man.” Prudence gave Angus a look that let him know what Shamus had told her of
him
.

Angus glanced at Edilean as though for sympathy, but she’d always liked Shamus. Angus moved aside the leather curtain over the window and glanced outside. “We’re almost there.” He looked back at Prudence. “I want you to tell me how you came to shoot James.”

Everyone in the coach was quiet, their eyes fixed on Prudence.

“I didn’t mean to,” she began. “I was... Shamus and I were...”

“In Cuddy’s room over the carriage house,” Harriet said impatiently. “We all know that, and, by the way, I think you paid Cuddy much too much for the use of his room.” Harriet looked at Edilean. “Ever since he helped you that night when you and—” She broke off for a moment. “Anyway, I think Cuthbert takes too much liberty on himself.”