Days Of Gold (2010) by Deveraux Jude

Author:Deveraux, Jude [Jude, Deveraux,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2011-01-14T19:18:19.703000+00:00

15

PLEASE, I BEG of you, on bended knee, I beg you to stop moping,” Harriet said two mornings later as she looked at Edilean sitting at the table, an untouched breakfast in front of her.

“I am not moping,” she said, but then after a glance at Harriet, she sighed. “All right, perhaps I am a bit. But, really, it’s more that I’m... sad, maybe. Rejection hurts.”

“He didn’t reject you,” Harriet said for what had to be the hundredth time. She’d made Edilean tell her every word of what happened so she could talk to her and not let Edilean know she’d been listening outside the door. “He has very good reasons for what he did.” Harriet didn’t tell her that she thought Angus was right.

But no matter what was said to her, Edilean was still in pain. For days, she’d gone over and over what had happened. Maybe Angus was right and she’d been spoiled all her life. Maybe she’d had it too easy with men. She knew they liked her. They liked the look of her, the way she smiled at them, and, yes, they liked that she came with a dowry that could support them comfortably all their lives.

But when she’d finally made up her mind about a man, he’d rejected her. “And that makes two,” she whispered.

“What, dear?”

“Two men. I’ve chosen two men and they’ve both rejected me.”

“Edilean, no one has rejected you,” Harriet said. “If you want to hear rejection, let me tell you about my life.”

Edilean looked at Harriet. She was going through the morning’s post, perusing the many invitations in it. If anyone in Boston gave a party, they were sure to invite the beautiful Miss Edilean Harcourt. As she looked at Harriet’s tall, lean figure, at the gray in her hair, and when she thought about how Harriet had been shuffled from one relative to another in her life, Edilean shuddered. Would she end up like her? Alone, unwanted by any man? Or would Edilean have to settle for a man she didn’t like as well as she did Angus?

She got up from the table and went upstairs to her bedroom. Two men, she kept thinking. First James had betrayed her in a spectacular way, and if it hadn’t been for Angus—She didn’t like to think what her life would be like now if James had succeeded in his diabolical plan. She would have had to go back to her uncle and live on his charity for the rest of her life. After all, if men she fell in love with didn’t want her when she had a dowry of gold, who was going to want her when she had nothing?

She looked at her bed, now freshly made up and looking so calm, but she remembered the way she’d thrown herself at Angus. Harriet had told her how her former fiancé had done everything to get her in bed with him, but she’d refused.

“But not me!” Edilean said out loud. “Not me. I offered myself to two men, but neither of them wanted me.

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