“But, James, with your looks you could have held out for more. You should have got a wife who comes with a wagon load of gold.”
At that, Harcourt laughed so hard he nearly choked. “That’s just what I did. I got trunks full of gold, but I just didn’t take the soldier’s daughter who owned them.”
Angus was staring openly, trying to figure out what the man was saying.
“Here’s to my lady wife,” Harcourt said, “may she sleep well tonight, for at dawn we board ship and sail to the New World.”
Dawn? Angus well remembered that Harcourt said he’d pick up Edilean at midday, but his ship would be long gone by then.
Angus drained his mug of beer, then quietly left the pub. What he had to do was to warn Edilean. He had to— He made himself stop thinking along those lines. What could he do to make her believe him? He imagined breaking into her room and telling her that the man she thought she was to marry was... What? Angus wasn’t even sure of the answer. Maybe he’d misheard Harcourt.
“I am staying there.” The words seemed to echo in Angus’s head. Harcourt had said he was sending Edilean to the same inn where he was staying. Surely, if the man already had a wife, he wouldn’t put Edilean in the same inn. But then, he’d given Edilean that damned laudanum, so maybe he expected her to obey him and sleep all day. Besides, if he was leaving at dawn, when she did wake up he’d be gone—with her gold on board.
Angus started running back the way he came, staying in the shadows so he wouldn’t be seen, but going toward the Red Lion. If Edilean was to walk to it, the Green Dragon couldn’t be far away.
He saw the painted sign with the picture of the dragon from some distance away. It was the middle of the night. How was he going to find out which room belonged to Harcourt’s wife?
He went to the back of the inn and stood in the shadows as he tried to think how to find out, when the door opened and out came the maid who’d escorted Edilean out of the stables.
He quickly stepped in front of her, and for a moment she looked frightened, but then her face changed. “I saw you,” she said, a little smile on her face. “I saw you hiding with the horses and spying on those two.”
“And I saw you,” Angus said, giving her a look up and down. “Harcourt sent me to make sure you got the rooms right, and that you didn’t mix up the women.”
“Can’t mix up those two, now can I? Don’t look much alike, do they?”
“You put the little one on the top floor?”
“I did,” she said and took a step closer to him.
“And the other one?”
“Ground floor, like he said. She ate half a haunch of beef for supper, and I was glad I didn’t have to carry it up the stairs.” She gave him a hard look. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”
“Not me, lass,” he said as he moved into the darkness where she couldn’t see him. She called out for him to come back, but he stayed where he was until she gave a little snort and walked away. He knew he’d made an enemy, but worse, he knew that sooner or later she’d remember that she’d seen him on the handbills that seemed to be all over town.
Angus walked around the inn, looking in the windows, trying to figure out which one was a bedroom. Since there were only two windows with curtains drawn across them, he figured they were a good bet. He tried the first window and it wouldn’t open, but the second one did.
He crept into the room and waited while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could hear someone in the bed lightly snoring. It would be my luck to have walked into the wrong bedroom, he thought, and imagined a man who slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow.
But he was used to the dark, and after a while he could see clearly enough to move about. As he got closer to the bed, he thought he could make out the outline of a woman. There was flint and tinder on the bedside and, taking a chance, he lit the candle. When he looked at the person in the bed, he gave a gasp. It was a woman all right, and she was as ugly as a witch in a children’s fairy story. She had a big, hooked nose that curved over thin lips and a chin that stuck out in a point. Her head was covered by a big cap with a ruffle around the edges.
And her small, dark eyes were open.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said. “I must have the wrong room.”
One second he was standing there looking at her, and the next he was in bed on top of her as she’d grabbed him and pulled him down. She was a big woman, not fat but muscular, with strong arms, and he could feel her huge body under his.
“You’re a treat,” she said as she tried to kiss him. “And I think you have the right room.”
“Ma’am,” he said as he pushed away from her, but he only succeeded in landing on the other side of the bed. Instantly, she rolled on top of him.
“The door’s bolted, so you came in through the window. What did you come for? To rob me? To have your way with me?”
“Well, no, I, uh...” She was sitting on him, her big thighs clutching his hips. She had on a white nightgown that was so low cut he could see most of her prodigious bosom. She wasn’t young, maybe midthirties, and she was very strong.
“So? What did you come for if not for me? For that puny husband of mine?”
“Yes,” Angus said as he grabbed her wrists and held them so they couldn’t reach his head. It was hard to think when a woman who weighed as much as she did was sitting on him. Using all the strength he could muster, he rolled out from under her. When he was again standing and she looked like she was about to leap on him, he put up his hand. “Nay, have mercy, ma’am.”
Sighing, she lay back down on the bed. “What is it? James owes you money and you want to get it before we sail?”
“Aye,” Angus said brightly. “That’s it. So it’s true that he leaves tomorrow? He owes me ten pounds.”
“He doesn’t have it,” she said as she rolled onto her side to face him. “Why don’t you humiliate him by spending the night with his wife?”
“As tempting an offer as that is...” Angus said, trying to smile but still protecting himself. “So he did marry? You’re the earl’s daughter?”
“I am that,” she said, turning onto her back. “And I look just like my father.”
“Oh, well, he must have been proud of that,” Angus said, trying to be polite.
“I’m thirty-six and just got married. What do you think?”
“But now you have a husband,” he said and began inching his way around the bed. On the bedside table was one of those little bottles that James Harcourt was so fond of giving to the women in his life. Laudanum. “If you are an earl’s daughter, then I should go to your father to pay my debt.”
“He has less money than James does.”
“So...” Angus said. He was at the foot of the bed now and about to turn the corner to reach the table. “You married for love.”
The woman laughed at that as she turned toward him. “He married me for the title that will pass to our children. Bastard! He only pretended to love me.” She was looking at Angus by the light of a single candle. “Under all that hair you’re a fine-looking man, aren’t you?” As she said it, her eyes widened and Angus knew that she’d seen the handbills and recognized him.
“I think perhaps you will spend the night with me or I shall start screaming. You wouldn’t like that now, would you?”
“Depends on why you’re screaming,” he said as he moved closer to her.
“Not from my husband,” she said, her eyes alight. “I don’t know how we’ll have brats when he hasn’t much down there, if you know what I mean.”
“I know,” Angus said as his hand slipped around the bottle of laudanum. As he put his knee on the side of the bed, he halted. “How do I know you’re the bride of James Harcourt?”
“You can look in that chest over there. All the documents are in there.”
“Well, then,” he said slowly. “Mayhap I will take the repayment out on Harcourt’s wife after all. But do you have anything to drink? You look like a woman who’s going to
make a man thirsty.”
“There’s a bottle of wine on the table.”
“Ah, yes, I see it,” Angus said as he blew out the candle.
Thirty minutes later, he was outside her door, and in his hand was a leather portfolio full of papers that he’d found in the trunk. On the other side of the door he could hear the woman snoring. In the end, he’d had to put most of the bottle of laudanum in her wine to make her sleep. In the wrestle before she slept—of her pulling at him and Angus pushing her away—his clothes had been torn and were now askew on his body, but he’d found what he was sure were papers that proved her connection to Harcourt.
“She’s not worth this,” he said as he thought of Edilean and tried to straighten what was left of his shirt as he hid the portfolio inside, then he went out the front door of the inn. The next thing he had to do was catch Harcourt and keep him off that ship.
8
ANGUS HURRIED TO the pub and saw that Harcourt and his cronies were still drinking, still laughing. As he looked at him, Angus marveled that a man could live with himself with what Harcourt was planning to do. He’d married one woman to get her title and he was taking the money of another woman so he’d never have to support himself.
And of what use was that title going to be when he got to America? Angus had heard that those people didn’t believe in aristocracy.
Angus was too tired to think about any of it. Right now he had anger pumping through him, which was keeping him awake, but when this was done, when the girl sailed away on her ship, he meant to hide somewhere and sleep for a week.
When Harcourt came out of the pub he was with the other men, but they soon separated.
“Going to your bride, James?” one called in a teasing voice.
“Will you make the first babe tonight?”
“I might have to hire one of these Scots to do that task for me,” he said, his voice slurring as he spoke.
For a moment Angus felt sorry for the woman he’d married. She was big and ugly, and very strong, but she wanted love just like the rest of the world.
When the men left Harcourt, Angus slipped up behind him.
“What do you want?” Harcourt yelled in fear.
“Quiet! I’m the driver, remember?”
“Oh, you. Yes, I remember you. What do you want? I believe you were paid for your trouble, so go away.”
“She wants you.”
Harcourt shivered. “She always does. Morning, noon, and night, she wants more.”
“More than you have?” Angus said under his breath.
“What?”
“Do you want more than you have?” he asked louder.
“What are you blathering on about, man? Out with it!”
“Edilean Talbot wants to see you,” Angus said.
“Tell her I’ll see her tomorrow,” Harcourt said and started into the inn.
He isn’t so drunk that he forgets his lies, Angus thought. “No, sir.” He nearly choked on the “sir.” “She wants to see you now.”
“Oh, I see,” Harcourt said, and he had a look on his face that Angus wanted to knock off with his fist. “Now. Tonight. Yes, I can see that. My last hooray, so to speak. The last time—” He looked at Angus in speculation. “And she sent you to tell me this?”
“She did.”
“And I guess she paid you to do it?”
“Not a cent.” Angus again wanted to hit the man.
“I think I will go to her. You stay here.” He gave Angus a look up and down, then straightened his clothes and went inside.
Angus slipped in behind him, and when Harcourt reached the top floor, Angus was hiding at the end of the hall.
Harcourt used his nails to scratch at the door. “Edilean?” he whispered, glancing at the other doors down the hallway. “Edilean? It’s me, James.”
If she’s taken that drug she’ll never hear him, Angus thought, and tried to come up with another plan to get to her.
But he’d underestimated Edilean. She opened the door a crack and looked out. “James? Is that you?”
“Yes, darling,” he said as he tried not to slur his words. “I couldn’t stay away from you. I want to see you one last—I mean before I sleep. May I come in?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re very nearly my husband.” She opened the door wide, and Harcourt, after a stumble, went into her room.
Before she could get the door closed, Angus slipped inside. In one swift motion, he grabbed a candlestick off the table by the wall, and whacked Harcourt hard on the head with it. He went down in an instant.
When Edilean opened her mouth to scream, Angus looked at her and said, “Don’t.”
She closed her mouth but went on her knees to James. “What have you done? Are you insane? Get me that cloth! He’s bleeding.”
“He’s all right,” Angus said as he sat down on a chair. “This night has been hell.”
Edilean got a cloth from the basin on the table, and sat on the floor to wipe the blood from James’s head. “Did you do this out of jealousy? Is it that you cannot stand to see me marry another man? Any man? Even one who loves me? Or is this about the gold? James, darling James, please wake up.”
Angus shook his head at the ridiculous things she was saying and pulled the portfolio from inside his shirt. “Look in there. I think that should explain my actions well enough.”
“What is this?” She picked it up and opened the buckle, and went through the papers inside. “It’s our passage to America. Everything that James and I need to get on the ship is in here. Even the captain’s name. And here’s our marriage certificate. It’s...” She looked at him. “I don’t understand. This isn’t my name on the certificate and it says James was married last week.”
“Harcourt’s wife’s name is on there because he married her.”
“No,” Edilean said impatiently. “That’s not possible. I am to be his wife.”
Angus put his head back against the chair. Maybe he’d go to sleep right there and then. “He already has a wife.”
Edilean got up off the floor to stand before him. “Angus McTern, so help me, if you go to sleep now, I’ll hit you with the candlestick.”
“Please do,” he mumbled. “Then I could sleep for sure.”
She pulled back her foot and kicked his shin, just as she’d done twice before. But she forgot that she had on her nightgown, and her feet were bare.
The next moment she was hobbling about the room in tears of pain. “I think my toes are broken. Your shin is as hard as stone.” She sat down on the end of the bed to examine her foot.
Angus couldn’t help smiling. She looked sweet in her white nightgown, holding her foot and looking at it. He pushed himself out of the chair, sat down beside her, lifted her foot, and pulled each of her toes. “None of them is broken.”
She looked at him, his eyes red from weariness, holding her small foot in his big hand, and said, “Could you please tell me what is going on? Why did you hit James and who is the woman on the marriage certificate?”
He put her foot down, but stayed seated beside her. In her nightclothes she looked, if possible, even more beautiful. “I didn’t trust him so I followed him, and I heard him talking about his wife who is the daughter of an earl.”
“But my father wasn’t an earl.”
“I know,” Angus said. “That’s the point.”
Edilean was at last beginning to understand. She looked at James lying on the floor, still unconscious. “My friend, his cousin, told me that James was holding out for a woman with a title.”
“But he agreed to marry you for the money,” Angus said softly, looking at her hair in the candlelight. He raised his hand to touch it but dropped it when she turned back to him.
“I heard James tell the men to put the gold on the ship. Was he planning to sail off with his wife and my gold?”
“He was,” Angus said softly.
“But he can’t do that,” she said. “That gold belongs to me, not to him.”
“It’s called thievery and it’s been done for a while now.”
“Will you please stop treating me as though I’m a silly child? What am I supposed to do now?”
“I think you should go to America on your own. Your dowry is already on the ship, and the passage is booked.”
“Alone? I’m to go to a new country by myself?”
He looked at her beautiful face and thought how every fast-talking, dishonest cad in the country would go after her, and she’d fall for the first pair of blue eyes she saw. “Just be careful about the men who will flock around you,” Angus said.
“What does that mean? You make me sound like a pile of oats.”
“Rich oats.”
Edilean leaned back on her arm to look at him. “Why are your clothes torn, and what’s that mark on your cheek?”
“I, uh...” Angus began, trying to come up with a lie.
“You got those papers from his wife, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
Edilean got off the bed and put her hands on her hips. “What enchantment does this woman have that she’s taken the man I love and... and you?”
“Me?” he asked, astonished, but then his eyes began to twinkle. “It’s not so much her virtues as it is... well, lass...” He made a movement with his hands to show a huge bosom.
“That’s it?” Edilean said. “You and James fell for a woman with great—”
When she realized Angus was again teasing her, she shook her head in disgust, then looked at James on the floor. “I can’t go to America alone. I can’t do it. I’ve never done anything alone before.” She looked back at him. “You’ll have to go to the ship’s captain and tell him that I want my gold back.”
“And who should I tell him says that? Mrs. Harcourt? That gold on the ship is under his name, not yours. If you or I tried to take it off, they’d shoot us.”
“But how will I live here without money? I can’t very well go back to my uncle’s house, now can I?”
“No, you canna. You have to do what I tell you and that’s to get on that ship by yourself. Tell them you’re Mrs. Harcourt and that you’re a widow.”