Read Online Gold Fever by Vicki Delany - Free Book Online Page A

supposed to represent a classical Roman toga. I wore an expensive set of pearls with the sheet—Alveron’s great-grandmother’s pearls.
    They’d come in handy not too many months later when I’d sold them to secure Angus a place at a good school. The memory of my somewhat less respectable days did nothing to improve my mood, and I grumbled heartily as I stomped through the house to my rooms, tore off my hat and washed my hands and face. The water was cold, slimy with the residue of the morning’s soap scum; Mrs. Mann had not yet changed it. Fortunately my hat was unscathed. It had cost almost as much as the dress. I struggled into my old day dress with no easing of my temper. The dress didn’t go with the nice hat or the paste-sapphire earrings I’d carefully selected for the ensemble. Dawson was proving to be hard on my wardrobe.
    If I ever sold the Savoy, I might consider going into ladies’ apparel. I bravely faced myself in the mirror as I tore out hairpins and attempted to repair my hair.
    My anger began to dissipate under the slow, rhythmic action of the brush against my hair. I’d been afraid Euila would notice that my son carried my maiden name. I didn’t give a whit about my reputation, and most of the townsfolk of Dawson would care even less, but I had led Angus to believe I’d been married to his late father. When he was born, I didn’t even consider giving my son his father’s—if I weren’t a lady, I would spit on the floor—name. Angus MacGillivray had been my father’s name, and a kinder, gentler man I had yet to meet.
    Fiona was my mother’s name. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and concentrate very hard I can hear my father’s voice saying “Fiona” in his rich Scottish brogue. He was full of adoration for my mother, full of fun towards me. Regardless of where I happen to be, whenever I hear that rough, beautiful accent, I fly through space and time back to our crofter’s cottage on Skye. It’s a cold winter’s evening, snow blowing outside, peat fire burning in the hearth, Father bouncing me on his knee and asking my mother if I weren’t the bonniest wee lass.
    When I calmed down at last, under the steady stroke of my hairbrush, I realized I was worrying for nothing. Euila had probably never known my surname. Even the house servants only called me Fiona. Euila hadn’t met my parents in all the years they’d lived on her family property, other than to nod a polite but distant good day as she passed. There were people from London and Toronto who would no doubt still be searching for me—thus, I tried, most unsuccessfully, to keep a low profile—but none of them would be able to trace me through Euila.
    I sighed happily. All would be resolved. I had recently joked to Richard Sterling that I expected everyone from the king of the Zulus to our own dear Queen to pass through Dawson one day. But I hadn’t expected Euila Forester.
    I tucked the last strands of wayward black hair into their pins and chewed on my lips to bring up a bit of colour, deciding to drop in on Euila for old times’ sake. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to let my son anywhere near her.
    I took the sheet back out to the laundry shed. A wave of steam erupted from a huge cauldron over the fire. “I’m returning the sheet I borrowed, Mrs. Mann,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face. “How’s my dress?”
    She stepped out of the steam like the fairy maid of legend emerging from the mists of Avalon. Although Arthur’s Lady was unlikely to have had hands and face so red. “It will come clean like new,” she said. “With good soap.”
    â€œDo you have good soap?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhere would you get good soap?”
    â€œMrs. Bradshaw on Harper, near Seventh Avenue. She keeps a small supply of good soap for special customers.”
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