In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (13 page)

She’d catch herself, make herself think of anything but Lennox. And she should do that now. She didn’t come here to lust after Lennox. She should stand, right now, and go back to her revised plan of calling on him at the yard. But the past lured her, trapped her in a silken web. She didn’t want to move or face the reality of the present.

For a few moments she wanted to be young again and innocent.

“I was thinking of all the times you and I sat on this bench,” she said. “It feels like forever ago. Those were quieter times, weren’t they?

“I’m not certain they were quieter,” he said, coming closer. “We were children. We had few responsibilities. Everything looks easy when nothing is expected of you.”

Expectations—she’d heard the word often enough in the last seven years. For a little while, she didn’t want to be reminded. Let her be a child for a time, if only in her memories.

“Do you remember when I put the beehive in your boat?” she asked, smiling.

“And returned the same day with your mother’s ointment. Your tricks would have been better if you hadn’t always regretted them.”

“I knew, almost immediately, that I shouldn’t have done it. I spent a great deal of my childhood regretting the things I did.”

“And not your adulthood?”

She wasn’t going to answer that question.

“You never retaliated for the nettles in your jacket and I always wondered why.”

“I was forbidden to,” he said. “First of all you were a girl. Secondly, you were five years younger than me, and maybe the most important reason, Duncan was your brother. I was under an oath to Duncan.”

She glanced at him, surprised. “Were you?”

He nodded. “I was to think of you like Mary,” he said. “Since Duncan was always a gentleman around my sister, I was to remember it.”

Had he remembered that oath in the anteroom? Did he still consider her Duncan’s little sister?

“I might admit to being a hoyden,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you were. A trial. A terror.”

She sent him a chastising look. “You weren’t perfect, Lennox.”

“I was the epitome of patience when it came to you,” he said.

She couldn’t say anything to counter his words because he was right.

“I remember when we used to sit here and watch the stars,” she said. “You told me about the great ships you’d build.”

“You told me how you wanted to work at the mill, become your father’s bookkeeper,” he said, coming to sit beside her.

She smiled. “I miss those days,” she said. “The future looked so promising.”

“Have you spent the last seven years making up for your childhood, Glynis?”

There was more truth to the comment than he knew. From the day after her wedding, Richard had put her through her paces, almost like a thoroughbred. She had a succession of teachers, people who informed her husband she was woefully lacking in ladylike manners.

Pride made her adept at all her lessons from the social graces—most of which she’d thought she mastered well enough at home—to memorizing the titles and names of everyone at the British Legation.

There wasn’t time to be a hoyden. Or to be rebellious, either. She learned because it was expected of her. Richard was the only person she knew on their voyage to Cairo, and he disapproved of her making friends among the passengers.

She had nothing to do all those miserable days but study. Yet the greatest lessons had nothing to do with Cairo, the diplomatic service, or the proper way to address heads of state. The most vital things she learned in that first year were personal: how selfish she’d been, how petty, spoiled, and insular.

The discoveries she made, however, had come much too late for anything but regret.

“Y
ou haven’t said why you’re here, Glynis.”

There were certain times when nothing but truth would serve, as bluntly as possible.

“We need help,” she said. “The mill will close without an infusion of cash. We’ve no cotton and we can’t spin cloth out of straw.”

When he didn’t say anything, she stared off into the garden. The air was heavy with mint and onions, a curious combination.

“Give Duncan a loan.” She turned to him. “Aren’t you friends, Lennox? He’d help you if you needed it.”

“I’ve already offered. Duncan won’t take the money.”

She should have known he wouldn’t have turned his back on Duncan. Her brother’s pride was becoming an irritant.

“Then give it to me. I’ll say it’s an unexpected bequest from Richard’s estate. Something no one realized was there.”

He didn’t say anything. Had she been too abrupt?

“I wouldn’t ask, Lennox, but the mill isn’t just about us. Hundreds of people are employed there. If they lose their jobs, where will they go for their next meal? How will they pay their rent?”

“It’s a test of character you’re giving me, is that it, Glynis? Either I let the mill close or hide my benevolence behind your sainted husband?”

His comment startled her so much she retreated into silence.

“Richard wasn’t sainted,” she finally said. She took a deep breath. “I have no assets, Lennox, or I’d sell them.” She stood. “If you don’t want to help, then hire me as an accountant. My father trained me. I’m very good.”

He still sat there, one arm draped over the end of the bench. It was too dark to see his expression. She really should have gone to his office at the yard.

“Did he leave you nothing, Glynis?”

“Only regrets,” she said. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

“Did you love him?”

“Is that important?” Did he want the truth in exchange for a loan? How much was she willing to sacrifice for the mill?

“Why did you marry him?”

She was not going to tell him she’d married because of a rumor, one that had sent her from Glasgow in tears.

“Does it matter?” she said. “I was his wife.”

He stood, approaching her with a grace he’d always had. She remained where she was, only tilting her head back when he stopped less than an arm’s length away. He’d been tall since he was sixteen, a man still in a boy’s body. Now he was all man.

“Duncan said you were engaged,” she said. “Why didn’t you marry?”

He didn’t respond. Lennox had always been exceedingly loyal. Perhaps he still felt that way about his once fiancée.

“I can’t imagine why a woman with any sense would break her engagement to you.”

“She didn’t break the engagement,” he said. “I did.”

“Whatever did she do?” she asked.

He studied her, making her wish she could read his expression again.

“Does it matter?” he asked, repeating her words.

She strode past him to stand at the juncture of the garden paths. In the past, the Camerons had put lanterns on poles on summer nights, illuminating the garden. Now the moon performed the same task.

“I missed you,” she said. A comment she’d not expected to make. Once uttered, however, she could not call it back.

She turned and faced his shadow.

“When things were difficult I would imagine myself talking to you. I’d find myself asking, ‘What would Lennox advise me to do?’”

“I remember your never taking my advice as a child.”

She smiled. “I did, more often than you knew. I just never told you.”

“What was difficult for you, Glynis?”

He really shouldn’t use that tone of voice. Gentle, almost tender, as if he truly cared about her life in the last seven years. As if he cared about her.

Pride stiffened her spine and banished the hint of tears.

“I have to do something, Lennox. The mill is going to close. If that happens it will destroy Duncan.”

“I’ve tried to help,” he said, approaching her. “A half-dozen times at least.”

He was much too close. She took a step back.

Yet she’d been brave once, hadn’t she? She’d kissed him and remembered it for years.

Without giving herself a chance to talk herself out of it, she closed the distance between them. Placing her hands flat on his chest, she stood on tiptoe and placed her mouth on his.

His hands traveled from her elbows up to her shoulders and then down her back, settling at her waist.

Delight spread through her like a fast moving burn, carrying effervescent bubbles to every part of her body. She was lighter than air itself. She was laughter and joy and only his touch anchored her to the ground.

There was something elemental in kissing Lennox. His hands pressed against her back, slowly sliding up and down, making her conscious of two things: her skin tingled beneath his fingers and delight was being replaced by need.

Oh beloved.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.

She wasn’t that removed from her ancestors. A few generations earlier she would have been attired in a skirt made of plaid, her clan’s brooch pinned on a fold of cloth. Strong, fearless, and proud, she would claim her mate with a glance. He would bow to no man, but he might well surrender to her.

But she wasn’t a Highlander. Instead, she was a woman newly returned to a bustling, industrious city, stuffed into a corset and protected from touch by a swinging hoop and layers of clothing, most of it silk and none of it tartan. She was a civilized creature, for all she sometimes wished she weren’t.

Lennox was as much a product of the nineteenth century as she was, but in this moment they allowed themselves to be wild and untamed.

His lips were hard yet soft. Her tongue stroked his bottom lip, coaxing a response. His arms pulled her closer, pressing her breasts against his chest. His mouth turned hot, his tongue brushing hers. Stars sparkled behind her eyelids.

Her body was turning molten, the sensation so indescribably delicious she wanted it to last.

She pressed both hands on his cheeks, his skin warm to her touch, the bristles of his almost-beard
abrading her palms. It had been a lifetime since she kissed him, but that kiss had been a pale imitation to this one.

His fingers trailed along the back of her neck as he deepened the kiss. She angled her head, widened her mouth, tasting him. She inhaled his breath as his tongue darted with hers, his teeth nipping at her bottom lip.

Long moments later they separated.

She blinked open her eyes, startled to realize her hands were linked behind his neck, her fingers threading through his hair. He was breathing as hard as she was.

What had she done?

She’d revealed too much without a word spoken.

Dropping her hands, she stepped back.

A great deal had changed in the last seven years. She could mask her emotions quite well. She knew how to leave a charged situation with aplomb. She had practice in mustering her momentary devastation and fusing it into a smile.

She’d been married to a man with perverted tastes, placed in a city thrumming with intrigue and expected to fail. Instead, she’d succeeded. She’d charmed, pleased, and cajoled men and women of staggering power and influence.

Who was Lennox Cameron in comparison?

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said, grateful for the calm of her voice. She shouldn’t have kissed him. She shouldn’t have given in to the temptation.

Without a backward glance she turned and walked away.

“
I’
M SURE
I shall dislike Nassau intensely,” Lucy said. “Is it absolutely necessary for me to travel with you?
After all, you’re going to be busy doing what you want. Why can’t I do what I want, stay home in London surrounded by my family and those things I hold dear?”

Gavin Whittaker turned from the armoire and faced his bride.

He had to find another way to try to explain that the future of his home was in jeopardy and that’s why he was so set on running the blockade. If the Confederacy lost the war, the Union wouldn’t hesitate in decimating the South. There wouldn’t be anything left to the way of life he and his fellow southerners had always known.

Lucy’s life had been spent in a stable monarchy. She had no concept of a country struggling to identify itself. Nor could she grasp why being the captain of the
Raven
was so important to him.

So far he’d failed in explaining his mission, but he wasn’t giving up.

He approached her where she sat in the chair beside the window. If he was too bold, she would hold up both hands, give a little shudder, and plead with him.
No, Gavin, please. Must you always be touching me?

But she was acting as a lady would, and he couldn’t fault her. Men, he’d always been told, enjoyed passion, while their women folk merely endured it.

“You’ll be safe enough in Nassau, honey,” he said. “There are a lot of English people there. You’ll make friends, and I’ll visit you when I can. I couldn’t do that if you were in London.”

“You could come and get me when this awful war is over,” she said.