eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
Angus McTern is respected by the men of his clan and adored by the women. He takes his duties as laird seriously and has everything he wants in life—until Edilean Talbot shows up.
Breathtakingly beautiful and born of privilege, Edilean needs Angus’s help to reclaim the gold she inherited from her father. Unfortunately, when Angus tries to seize it, he’s accused of theft, and has to leave behind all that he knows and escape with Edilean to the New World. There they discover almost insurmountable obstacles, and a love as wild and free as the land itself.
Stirring and masterfully rendered, Jude Deveraux “incorporates her trademark sweet and salty characters into a pair of entertaining romances, one past, one present, to create one of her most fun and pleasing tales” (Booklist).
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781439149799 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pocket Books |
| Publication date: | 12/29/2009 |
| Series: | Edilean Series , #2 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Sales rank: | 78,941 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Hometown:
ConnecticutDate of Birth:
September 20, 1947Place of Birth:
Fairdale, KentuckyRead an Excerpt
HAVE YOU SEEN her yet?”
“Nay, I have not,” Angus McTern said for what seemed like the hundredth time. He had just come in from the hills, and he was wet, tired, hungry, and cold, but all anyone could talk about was Neville Lawler’s fancy English niece, come to the old castle to look down her nose at the poor Scots.
“You should see her,” young Tam said as he tried to keep pace with his cousin’s long stride. Angus was usually glad to see Tam, but not if all he could talk about was Lawler’s niece. “She has hair like gold,” the boy said, his voice cracking. He was just coming into manhood, and what the girls said, did, and looked like was everything to him. “She has eyes as blue as a loch, and her clothes! Never did I see such clothes as she has. They’re spun by the angels and trimmed by honeybees. She—”
“But then you’ve never been anywhere to see much to compare her to, now have you, lad?” Angus said—and everyone stopped to look at him in astonishment. They were in the big stone courtyard that had once belonged to the McTern family. Angus and Tam’s grandfather had been the laird, but he was a lazy old reprobate who’d gambled and lost everything to a young Englishman, Neville Lawler. Angus had been just nine at the time, living with his widowed mother, and it had been Angus who the clan turned to. In the sixteen years since, he’d done his best to look out for the few remaining McTerns.
But sometimes, like today, it seemed like a losing battle to try to make people remember that they were part of the once-great McTerns. For the last weeks, all they’d wanted to talk about was the Englishwoman. Her hair, her clothes, each word she spoke, the way she said it.
“‘Fraid she won’t like you?” old Duncan asked as he looked up at Angus from the scythe he was sharpening. “‘Fraid that great, hairy face of yours will scare her?”
The tension that had been caused by Angus snapping at his young cousin was broken and he gave the boy a rough shove on his shoulder to apologize. It wasn’t Tam’s fault that he’d never been anywhere or done anything. All he knew were the hills of Scotland, the sheep and the cattle, and the raids where he sometimes had to fight for his life.
“A fancy lady like her would be scared to death of a real Scotsman,” Angus said, then raised his hands like claws and made a face at his young cousin.
Everyone in the courtyard relaxed and returned to his or her work. What Angus thought was important to them.
He strode past the old stone keep that had once been his family home and went to the stables. Since Neville Lawler thought more of his horses than he did of humans, they were clean, well kept, and the building was warmer than the house.
Without asking, Angus’s uncle, Malcolm McTern, handed Angus a round of rough, thick bread and a mug of ale. “Did we lose many, lad?” he asked as he went back to brushing down one of Lawler’s hunting horses.
“Three,” Angus said as he sat down on a stool that was against the wall. “I followed them but I couldn’t catch them.” Saving the sheep and the cattle from the raids took most of Angus’s time. As he ate, he leaned back against the stone wall of the stables and for a moment closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept in two days and all he wanted to do was wrap his plaid about him and sleep until the sun came up.
When one of the horses kicked the wall, Angus had his dirk out before his eyes were open.
Malcolm gave a snort of laughter. “Never safe, are you, boy?”
“Nor are any of us,” he said good-humoredly. As he ate, the warmth crept into him. He was the only one of the clan who still wore the plaid in the old way. It was two long pieces of handwoven cloth, draped about his body, held at the waist with a thick leather belt, and leaving the lower half of his legs bare. His white shirt had big sleeves and was gathered at the neck. The kilt had been outlawed by the English many years before, and those who wore it risked prison time and whippings, but old Lawler turned a blind eye to what Angus did. For all that the man was lazy, and greedy beyond all reckoning, he understood about a man’s pride.
“Let him wear the blasted thing,” he said when an English visitor said Angus should be beaten.
“Wearing their own clothes makes them think they have their own country. He’ll cause you trouble if you don’t take him down a notch or two now.”
“If I take away his pride, I take away his desire to look after the place,” Neville said and smiled at Angus behind the man’s back.
If Neville Lawler had nothing else good about him, he knew a lot about self-preservation. He knew that Angus McTern took care of the castle, the grounds, and the people, so Lawler wasn’t about to anger the tall young man.
“Go home, lad,” Malcolm said. “I’ll look after the horses. Get some sleep.”
“At my house?” Angus said. “And how can I do that? I lie down there and I have brats crawling all over me. That oldest one ought to have a hand put to his backside. Last time I slept there, he wove sticks into my beard. He said the chickens could use it for a nest.”
Malcolm had to cough to cover his laugh. Angus lived with his sister and her husband and their ever-growing family. By rights, it was Angus’s house, but he couldn’t throw his sister out.
“Go, then,” Malcolm said, “and have a rest in my bed. I won’t need it for hours yet.”
Angus gave him such a look of thanks that Malcolm almost blushed. Since Angus’s father had died when he was just a boy, Malcolm had been the closest he’d had to one. Malcolm was the youngest son of the laird who’d lost the lands to the English Lawler, and Angus and Tam were the sons of Malcolm’s older brothers. He’d never married, saying he had too much to do in taking care of his deceased brothers’ boys to make any of his own.
“Shall I wake you when she goes out for her ride?” Malcolm asked.
“Who?”
“Come now, boy,” Malcolm said, “surely you’ve heard of the niece.”
“I’ve heard about nothing else but her! Last night I almost expected the raiders to turn back and return the cattle they’d stolen just to have word of her. I thought they’d ask me if she wore a blue dress or a pink one.”
“You laugh, but that’s because you haven’t seen her.”
Angus gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Nor do I want to. I’m sure she’s a bonnie lass, but what does that matter to me? She’ll soon go back south and live in a splendid house in London. I don’t know why she wanted to come up here to this great pile of stone anyway. To have a laugh at us?”
“Maybe,” Malcolm said, “but she’s done nothing but smile at people so far.”
“Oh, that’s good of her,” Angus said as he stood, stretching. “And do her smiles get everyone to do her bidding? ‘Yes, my lady. No, my lady’ they all say to her. ‘Let me carry your fan for you, my lady.’ ‘Please let me empty your chamber pot.’ ”
Malcolm smiled at Angus’s impersonation, but he didn’t give up. “I feel sorry for the girl. There’s a sadness in her eyes that you can’t help but see. Morag said the girl has no family left except for old Neville.”
“But she has money, does she not? That’ll buy her a rich husband who’ll give her a passel of brats and she’ll be happy enough. No! I want to hear no more of her. I’ll see her soon enough—or mayhap I’ll be lucky and she’ll go back to London before I have to see her angelic...” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Too much of the angels for me. I’m going to sleep. If I’m not awake by this time tomorrow, check if I’m dead or not.”
Malcolm snorted. Angus would no doubt be up in a few hours and wanting something to do. He wasn’t one for lying about.
As Angus went into the room at the end of the stables, he glanced at the riding horse the niece had brought with her from London. It was gray, with great dapples of a darker gray, and now it raised its legs impatiently, wanting to get out and go. He’d been told that the niece took a long ride every day, always accompanied by an escort, a man who rode far behind her. Over and over, Angus had been told what a fine horsewoman the girl was.
Malcolm’s bed with its rough sheets and big tartan was a welcome sight, and as Angus lay down, he thought that he’d like to see the girl ride as he’d had to these last two nights. The poor pony was tearing across rocks and shrubs as Angus pursued the raiders stealing the cattle. But the thieves had had too much of a head start, and their mounts were fresh so he’d lost them in the hills.
As he fell asleep, he smiled at the thought of the delicate little English girl holding on for her life.
When he awoke, every nerve in his body was alert. An unusual sound had awakened him, and he didn’t know what it was. He’d spent half his life in the stables and he knew every sound, but this one didn’t belong. The rustlers wouldn’t have dared come this close to the house, would they?
Angus lay still, not moving, not even opening his eyes in case there was someone standing at the open door, and listened hard. It was coming from the stall next to Malcolm’s room, the stall the niece’s beautiful mare was in. Was this animal that he didn’t know doing something? No. He heard breathing, then there was a little intake of breath that made Angus shake his head. Shamus. Whatever the sound was, Shamus was the one making it.
Tiredly, cursing in his mind, Angus hauled himself off the bed, went to the rack of pegs on the wall, and moved one of them aside. Only he and Malcolm knew about the ingenious device his uncle had made so he could look at most of the stables without being seen. “Lazy brats!” he’d said to Angus. “When they think I canna see them, I catch them doing all manner of things that are not work.”
Angus looked through the hole and saw Shamus—huge, stupid, mean-spirited Shamus—doing something to the cinch of the girl’s saddle, and Angus wanted to groan. Had the man no sense at all? Was he playing one of his cruel tricks on Lawler’s niece? While it was true that Shamus was a bully and loved to torment anything smaller than he was, he usually had the sense not to go after anyone who had a protector—as he’d learned as soon as Angus grew to be taller and nearly as strong as the older Shamus was.
But here he was, loosening the girl’s saddle. What was his intent? If Angus knew Shamus, it was to embarrass and humiliate her, to make people laugh at her. “That’s all we need,” Angus said as he closed the peg and leaned his head against the wall. For the most part, Lawler was an easygoing master. But he was unpredictable. A man could accidently set fire to a wagon and Lawler would laugh it off, but another day a man could break a rein and Lawler would have him flogged. Sometimes it seemed to Angus that he’d spent half his life arguing with Lawler to save the skin of somebody. As for Angus himself, Lawler had never dared touch him.
Angus, still tired—he figured he’d been asleep only a few minutes—looked at the bed and wanted to go back to it. Why was it any of his business if the girl was laughed at? It might be good for everyone if she were seen as human. On the other side of the wall, he heard Shamus lead the mare out of the stall, and he heard that awful little self-satisfied grunt the man made when he anticipated what was going to happen because of his prank.
“None of my business,” Angus said to himself and went back to the bed. He closed his eyes and let his body relax. Like all Scotsmen, he prided himself on being able to fall asleep anywhere and at any time. Whereas others had to carry blankets with them, Angus just loosened his belt, rolled himself in his plaid, and went to sleep—which was yet another reason the English had outlawed the garment. “They don’t even have to pack their bags when they run,” the English said. “They wear their beds on their backs.”
“Aye,” Angus whispered, and it was a good feeling to cover himself with his own plaid and drift off.
Ten minutes later, he was still awake. If Shamus humiliated, or worse, hurt Lawler’s niece, there would be hell to pay—for everyone. Shamus should know this, but he’d never been known for his brains, just his muscle.
Groaning, Angus got off the bed. Would he never have peace? Would there never come a time when he didn’t have to take care of every problem on what used to be McTern land? By ancestry, Angus was the laird, but since the land no longer belonged to his family, of what use was the title?
Feeling as though he ached in every joint, he made his way out toward the courtyard.
“You’ve come to see her, have you?” asked one man after another.
“No, I have not come to see her,” Angus said half a dozen times. “I want to see her horse.”
“And so do I,” a man called.
Angus rolled his eyes and wished he had more hair and more beard to cover his face. If they kept pushing him, he was going to let them know what he thought of their obsession with this English girl. They’d not been treated to Angus’s temper for months now, so maybe it was time.
Young Tam was holding the girl’s horse, looking as though it was the proudest moment of his life. Holding a girl’s horse! Angus thought. Where was all the training he’d given the boy? Where were all the stories he’d heard about the pride of the Scotsmen? All of it forgotten in a moment at the sight of a pretty girl.
“I will help her on her horse,” Tam said when he saw Angus approach, looking as though he was ready to fight for the right.
“And you may help her,” Angus said patiently. “I just want to check the girth. I saw—”
He broke off because an unnatural hush had come over the place. Usually, the area around the decaying old castle was filled with noises of people and animals at work. Steel beat on iron, wood was chiseled and cut, leather buckets hit the stones. There was always a cacophony of sound. Even at night there were so many people in the courtyard that the noise was sometimes too much for Angus. He liked the open places and the quiet of the hills.
He looked up and she was there, standing just a few feet from him, and he drew in his breath. She was more than pretty. She was beautiful in a way that he could never have dreamed a person could be. She was small, the top of her head reaching only to his shoulder, and she was wearing a black dress with a tight bodice, with a little red jacket over it. Her face was oval, with deep blue eyes, a small, straight nose, and a perfect little mouth with lips the color of raspberries in the summer. Her skin was as fine as the best cow’s cream, and her hair was thick and dark blonde. It was pulled high on her head, but with long ringlets hanging over her shoulders, entwined with red ribbons tied in a bow at the end. Tipped over the front of her head was a little black hat with a tiny veil that almost reached her eyes.
Angus stared at her, unable to speak. He’d never seen or imagined anything like her.
“Excuse me,” she said, and her voice was soft and pretty. “I need to get to my horse.”
All he could do was nod and step back to let her pass. As she came closer to him, he could smell her. Was she wearing a scent or was it her own fragrance? For a second he closed his eyes and inhaled. They were right to mention angels and her in the same breath.
Using his shoulder to push Angus aside, Tam clasped his hands and let the girl put her tiny foot in them as she vaulted onto the horse. The minute she was in the saddle, the horse began to lift its front hooves off the ground, but the girl seemed to be used to that and easily got it under control.
“Quiet, Marmy,” she said to the mare. “Calm down. We’re going. Don’t rush me.” As she lifted the reins, Tam stepped away, but Angus just stared up at her. “If you don’t get out of the way, you’re going to get hurt,” she said to him, and there was amusement in her voice.
But Angus still stood there, gaping, unable to move.
In the next second, the girth on the horse slipped and with it the saddle. It slid around the horse, sending the girl to the left, toward Angus. She gave a little cry and tried to hold on, but with the saddle falling to one side, there was nothing to hold on to.
Emergencies were something that Angus was used to and was good at. The girl’s sound of panic brought him out of his stupor and he reacted instantly. He grabbed the reins and pulled them tight to get the horse under control. Still holding the reins, he tried to catch the girl, but she slid to the other side and fell onto the stones.
By the time she landed, Tam had run forward to help with the prancing horse, moving it forward so that Angus and the girl were no longer separated. He reached down to help her up.
“Don’t you touch me!” she said as she got up by herself and dusted at her clothes. She glared at him. “You did this! I don’t know who you are, but I know you did it.”
Angus wanted to defend himself, but his pride wouldn’t let him. What could he say, that he’d seen a clansman sabotaging her saddle and that he, Angus, had tried to save her? Or would he say he should have checked the girth before she mounted but that he’d been so blinded by her beauty he’d completely forgotten about the saddle? He’d rather be flogged than say such things.
“I am the McTern of McTern,” he said at last, with his shoulders back and looking down at her.
“Oh, I see,” she said, her face pinkened prettily with anger. “My uncle stole your property so now you take it out on me.” She looked him up and down, sneering at his wild-looking hair and his full beard, then her eyes traveled down to his kilt. “Is your protest of my uncle why you wear a dress? Tell me if you want to borrow one of mine. They’re much cleaner than yours.” With that, she turned and went back into the old castle.
For a moment there was no sound in the courtyard. It was as though even the birds had stopped singing, then, in one huge, loud shout, everyone started laughing. Men, women, children, even a couple of goats tied along the wall started a high-pitched laugh.
Angus stood in the middle of it all, and what little of his face could be seen was dark red with embarrassment. Turning, he went back to the stables, and all along the way, he heard the comments that renewed their howls of laughter. “He didn’t want to see her.” “No one could tell him anything.” “Did you see the way he stared at her? You could have cut off his foot and he wouldn’t have felt it.” Angus even heard the women laughing at him. “He’s not so uppity now. He wouldn’t dance with me, but she won’t dance with him. Oh, he deserves this, he does.”
It was as though in a single minute he’d gone from being the lord of his kingdom to the jester.
Passing by the stables, he went out through the gate in the tall wall that surrounded the castle and headed toward his own cottage. He wanted to explain himself to someone, to tell his side of what had happened. It was Shamus who had loosened the girth on her horse and Angus had been about to tighten it, but the girl had startled him so that he hadn’t done it. Yes, that was a good word. She’d startled him. She’d shown up wearing her silly little hat and her bright jacket with the big buttons and he’d been so startled by the sight of such ridiculousness that he’d been speechless. And the ribbons in her hair! Had anyone ever seen anything so foolish? Her clothes were so absurd that she’d not last ten minutes in the hills. Yes, that’s what he’d say he’d been thinking. He was looking so hard at the uselessness of her garb that he’d been speechless.
By the time he reached his cottage he was feeling a bit better. Now he had a story to counteract what everyone seemed to think had actually happened.
But when he got within a few feet of the door, his sister came out and she was grinning. She had a dirty-faced child holding on to her skirt, another one on her hip, and a third one in her belly, and she was smiling broadly.
Behind her, her husband stuck his head out the door. He was still red-faced from how fast he must have run to beat Angus back to the cottage. “Did you do it?” he asked. “Did you loosen her stirrup so she’d fall?”
That was more than Angus could bear. “Never would I hurt a woman,” he said, his voice showing his shock. “How could you think such of me?”
His sister said nothing, but she was laughing.
Angus could only stare at the two of them. What had he ever done to make them think he was capable of something this low? He wasn’t about to honor his brother-in-law’s accusation with an answer. Turning, he started walking away.
He only slowed when he heard his sister call out to him, “Have mercy on me, Angus. My belly slows me down.”
He halted and looked back at her. “I have nothing to say to you.”
When she caught up with him, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Either we sit and rest or you’re going to be delivering this baby by yourself here and now.”
That made him sit on a rock, and Kenna sat by him, working to get her breath while stroking her big belly to calm it. “He dinna mean anything bad,” she said.
“Your husband or Shamus?”
“So it was Shamus who loosened the girth. I figured so.”
“You’re the only one. The rest of them think I did it.”
“Nay, they do not,” she said.
“Your husband—”
“Is sick with jealousy over you,” Kenna said. “You know that.”
“What does he have to be jealous of me about? He has a home, a family, the best wife there is.”
“The home doesn’t belong to him and all he seems good at is producing babies. You run everything.”
“Yet I am the one being laughed at.”
“Oh, Angus,” she said, leaning against him, “look at you. You’ve been a man since you were a boy and our father was killed. By twelve you’d taken on everything that our grandfather had gambled away. People have always looked up to you. There isn’t a girl within a hundred miles who wouldn’t have you, beg for you.”
“I doubt that,” Angus said, but his voice softened.
“Don’t be so small spirited that you begrudge the people a chance to laugh at you. Why canna you laugh with them?”
“They think—”
“That you made the girl fall off her horse? Do you truly believe anyone thinks that of you?”
“Your husband...” Angus trailed off because he well knew that his brother-in-law didn’t really believe he’d loosen the cinch on anyone’s horse. If Angus wanted to hurt someone, he’d do it face-to-face.
“Gavin and everyone else either knows or can guess who did that to the poor girl. And as for what she said to you...” Kenna smiled. “If she’d said it to someone else, you would have fallen over with laughter. I wish you’d told her that you have a sister who’d like to borrow her clothes.”
“Would you like to have a silk dress?” he asked softly. His sister was five years older than he was and the person he loved the most. If the truth were told, there was more than a little jealousy coming from him toward her husband. Since Kenna had married, Angus felt as though he’d been alone.
“Would I like a silk dress? Trade you a bairn for one.”
Angus laughed. “If all of them you produce are as bad as your eldest, you’d have to trade six of them for a length of silk.”
“He’s just like you were at that age.”
“I never was!”
“Worse,” she said, laughing. “And he’s the spitting image of you. Or I think he is, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen your face.” Reaching up, she touched his big beard. “Why don’t you let me cut that?”
He pulled her hand away and kissed the palm. “It keeps me warm, and that’s what I need.”
“If you married, you—”
“I beg you not to start on me again,” he said with so much agony in his voice that she relented.
“All right,” she said as she got up, with Angus pushing on her back to help her. “I’ll leave you be if you promise not to take a girl’s laughter in anger. She bested you with the only weapon a woman has, her tongue.”
“There are other uses for a woman’s tongue,” Angus said, his eyes twinkling.
Kenna stuck out her big belly. “Do you think I do not know all about the uses of a woman’s tongue—and a man’s?”
Angus put his hands over his ears. “Do not tell me such! You’re my sister.”
“All right,” she said, smiling. “Keep your belief that your sister is still a virgin, but please do not let anger rule you over this girl.”
“I will not,” he said. “Now, go back to your husband.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’m going to crawl under a rock and sleep for a day or two.”
“Good, mayhap the heather will sweeten your temper so that when a girl makes a remark to you, you can reply in kind.”
“In kind,” he said. “I will remember that. Now go before I have to play midwife to you.”
© 2009 Deveraux
Reading Group Guide
This reading group guide for Days of Gold includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Jude Deveraux. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Jude Deveraux continues her Edilean series in Days of Gold, set in eighteenth-century Scotland and later in colonial America.
Angus McTern is the laird of a Scottish castle, committed to overcoming his grandfather’s disreputable legacy by looking after each member of his beloved clan, which remains in thrall to the tyrant who won the castle. Angus is a Scot of honor and solitude, revered by men and adored by women.
But when the tyrant’s niece, a young heiress named Edilean, takes refuge within the castle walls, Angus’s life is forever changed as he becomes entangled with the young girl and is unknowingly roped into a mission to keep her dowry out of her greedy uncle’s hands.
As the pair begin to fall deeply in love, Angus and Edilean must weather catastrophe and betrayal, and begin a relationship that spans continents, years, and colonies.
Questions for Discussion
1. Do you think Angus has transformed into an upper-class man by story’s end? Is he still the rough-and-tumble McTern of McTern, or has he changed?
2. Consider the tyrants in the story (Lawler, James Harcourt, and Colonel Austin). Did each villain get what he or she deserved? What did you think of James’s ultimate fate?
3. What did you think Angus was up to in the weeks he was missing after the “disposal” of the body? Were you certain he would return?
4. Discuss the romantic relationships in the narrative: Edilean and Angus, Malcolm and Harriet, Shamus and Prudence. Which romance surprised you the most? Which do you think is filled with the most passion?
5. Consider Edilean’s evolution. Has she transcended her dainty, privileged upbringing by story’s end? Discuss her Bound Girls business, her fight with Tabitha, and her use of artillery.
6. Do you think Angus was justified in leaving Edilean that night in the tavern? Should she have gotten some say before his disappearance? Were you surprised that she forgave him?
7. How did you perceive gender roles in Days of Gold? Consider especially the women in the story, and the various hardships they endure (Edilean is betrayed, Tabitha is branded, and Harriet is blackmailed). Have the women of Bound Girls transcended their lower station in the story? Have the all the rugged Scotsmen been tamed and taken down a notch?
8. What do you think kept Angus and Edilean apart for so long? Why couldn’t they just give in to their love?
9. Will Tam find love in Williamsburg with Abigail Prentiss? Will he return to Scotland to be a laird?
10. What do you think the town of Edilean, Virginia, will be like (prior, of course, to Lavender Morning)?
Enhance Your Book Club Experience
1. Read Deveraux’s Lavender Morning, the first in her Edilean series. Compare and contrast the subjects of these historical romances. Where do you see the narrative connections?
2. Angus sketches Edilean’s dream house during the boat ride to America. Try to make a rendering of your own ideal estate, barns, bairns, and all.
3. Look at some other famous instances of cross-class romance (such as Cinderella or Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth). What recurring themes do you see in literary class struggles? What makes Days of Gold different?
4. Visit www.simonandschuster.com and watch/read the Vook for Jude Deveraux’s Promises. How does the combination of prose and video/picture affect your reading experience? Discuss what the Vook for Days of Gold would be like.
5. Along similar lines, cast your picks for which actors would play which characters in your Days of Gold movie.
A Conversation with Jude Deveraux
Q. Did writing Days of Gold require a lot of research on the period? Describe your process for writing historical romance.
A. Prior to Days of Gold, I’d written several books that took place in that same time period, so I had already compiled a lot of information before I had even started this book. But I had to do quite a bit of specific research, such as about the Ohio Company and markets at the time. And, of course, I had to find places for my characters to live. I have to have floor plans for wherever the people are, whether it’s a mansion, an apartment, or a ship. When they go out the door, I need to know which way they need to turn to get out. It’s the same for roads. If they drive somewhere, what road do they take? What do they see along the way? Sometimes, weeks of work result in only half a sentence of description, but I need the research to be able to visualize what I’m writing about.
Q. Was it frustrating to keep Angus and Edilean apart for so long? Why is Angus so stubborn in allowing his love for Edilean to surface?
A. I felt it was a long period in real time, but not pagewise. Angus truly and deeply loves Edilean, which means that he wants what is best for her, not for him. If it had been up to him, he would have taken her back to Scotland and lived in that tumbling-down old castle. But that would have made her miserable. He just didn’t realize how deep her love was for him. So, no, it wasn’t frustrating at all. They both needed the time apart. And I wanted an excuse for Shamus, Tam, and Malcolm to return to the story.
Q. Which would you recommend reading first in the Edilean series? Days of Gold or Lavender Morning?
A. They are stand-alone books. I don’t like to read books where I feel as though I’ve stepped into the middle of things and don’t know what’s going on. I like to see characters I’ve met before, but I don’t want to feel left out because I haven’t read other books in the series.
Q. Are you working on another book in the series? If so, what period will it be in? If not, what period would you like to write about next?
A. I’ve written two more books in the series, one contemporary, one historical set in the 1800s called The Scent of Jasmine. I just finished Scarlet Nights, which is about Sara Shaw and Tess Newland’s brother Mike. It was great re-visiting the people I’d met in Lavender Morning. Sara’s mother was great fun to write about, and I never did figure out if Mr. Lang was a good guy or a bad one.
I’m now in the middle of a contemporary about Colin Frazier and I’ve written about fifty pages of a historical set in 1893, called The Scent of Jasmine. At the end of that story, Angus’s sons showed up and I was dazzled by them, so I may do some books about them.
I plan to write lots more Edilean books as I really and truly like these people and I want to find out more about them.
Q. Do you feel the women in the story transcend how men perceive them? Was there any sort of historical reference for the Bound Girls?
A. Yes. It always astonishes me that people think the generation before them were chattels to men and never did anything in the way of business. It is so ridiculous! Yes, more women stayed home in the past, but they also ran companies. When a woman’s husband died, whom do they think supported the family?
Q. This story is one of personal evolutions. Do you consider Edilean and Angus to be significantly different by the story’s end? Have they met somewhere in the middle, or simply learned to accept each other for what they are?
A. The big change was that Angus and Edilean had to learn about each other. In a way, Angus was so hung up on Edilean’s background that he couldn’t believe she was capable of loving someone like him. He was a bit of a snob, really. As for Edilean, she thought she was useless, and needed to find out that she could do something other than host a tea party. She needed to transcend her own wealth and beauty.
Q. Shamus, Malcolm, Tam, and Angus all end up in different locales with their respective women by the end of the story. Which is the greater bond: love or clan?
A. Shamus, Tam, and Angus stayed in Edilean and founded the families of the town. Only Malcolm returned to Scotland. As for love or clan, I think they’re both the same. The clan stays together out of love. In a way, the clan moved to Edilean.
Q. Between Angus’s drawings of Edilean’s dream house and Edilean’s renderings of Angus’s shaven/unshaven face, there is a large amount of drawing and illustrating within the story. Do you do any of your own art while writing?
A. My university degree is in art and, yes, I do a lot of drawing for all my books. I have a big drafting table set up in a spare bedroom and I cover it with maps and house plans and sketches that I use in the books. Also, I truly love architecture so that plays a big part in all my books.
Q. Is there more to the reasons behind Angus’s absence in the weeks after James’s death? Are there secrets still yet to be discovered?
A. In a book I finished some time ago, The Scent of Jasmine, about Angus and Edilean’s daughter, I tell that the Ohio Company never paid off. I don’t know if anyone will notice the reference, but it meant that horrible old Colonel Austin went broke.
Q. Which was your favorite character to write? And will Edilean ever see Morag again?
A. I really liked Shamus and Prudence. I was so glad those two misfits found each other. They could have lived truly awful lives if they hadn’t run across each other. That Prudence, whose father was an earl, would marry a nobody like Shamus said a lot about her. I loved the way at the end that Shamus told Edilean the truth, that he would have stolen her gold—and that he never planned to be nice to Angus.
As for Morag, she stayed in Scotland and I think she was too old to be a continuing character. But she may turn up if I send one of Tam’s kids back to Scotland.
