In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (5 page)

“Thank you for coming,” he said, reaching out and taking her gloved hands in his.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lennox, I wouldn’t have missed it. I’m so glad dear William has been recognized at last. I just wish Hamish had been here to see it.”

He nodded. Hamish MacIain and William had been long-standing friends. Hamish’s death had been felt at Hillshead as well.

“It’s a lovely celebration,” Eleanor said, looking around. “You’ve done a magnificent job.”

“That’s Mary’s doing more than mine,” he said. His sister had spent weeks in planning for tonight. The last few days had been filled with frenetic activity. “I was looking for Glynis,” he told her.

“Glynis has taken the air, I believe,” Eleanor said, smiling. She put her hand on his arm, gave him a gentle shove. “You look as if you could do with some fresh air as well.”

He was left without anything to say. He left Eleanor and made his way to the terrace door.

Any thought of continuing his conversation with Glynis abruptly vanished when he saw her talking to Matthew Baumann.

Did she know he was a Union spy? The man hadn’t made any secret of it from the first. A month ago he’d come to the yard and introduced himself.

“I’m a representative of the United States government, Mr. Cameron,” he’d said. “As such, I need to know if you’ve accepted any commissions from the Confederacy.”

Baumann then produced a document, a letter of introduction that looked perfectly legal and absolutely useless. He didn’t care who Baumann represented. If he thought he could march into Cameron and Company and demand to know confidential details of their business dealings, he was wrong.

“Mr. Baumann,” he’d said, “I’m sure you can understand that I don’t discuss my business with anyone.” Even his designers didn’t know about the ships currently under negotiation until all the points of the contract had been finalized.

The man’s mustache twitched as he smiled. “In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”

“It’s not any of your business, Mr. Baumann.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Cameron. It is my business. It’s the War Department’s business. It’s my nation’s business.”

He could have sworn the man puffed up like a banty rooster.

“That might be so, but I’m a Scot, Mr. Baumann. Cameron and Company is a Scottish firm. We’re neutral in your war.”

On May thirteenth last year, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation of neutrality forbidding British subjects from taking part in the American Civil War.

Lennox prided himself on being a Scot and only minimally British. London didn’t have to know everything he did.

Baumann studied him for a moment. “We’d be very appreciative, Mr. Cameron. Very appreciative.”

He’d wanted to tell the man where he could put his appreciation but he smiled instead.

“I’m not amenable to either bribery or coercion, Mr. Baumann.”

“I’m disturbed that you would consider my words either, Mr. Cameron.”

“How are you liking your first visit to Glasgow?” he’d asked, changing the subject and hoping the man got the hint. He wasn’t going to surrender any information to the Union operative. Not now and not in the future.

“An interesting city,” Baumann had said.

He’d invited him here tonight for one reason only. He wanted to know what Baumann would do, with whom he would speak. Who, in Glasgow, was his friend?

He hadn’t considered that the man would talk with Glynis. Or that they would know each other.

What was Glynis doing talking to a Union agent? For that matter, why had she come home now?

“G
o to bed,” Lennox said to his sister.

She ignored him and directed one of the grooms to a tray piled with food. Tonight they’d feast in the stable and in the kitchen. What wasn’t consumed by the servants would be dispensed to the poor.

The garlicky smell of mutton vied with roast beef and the fragrant, warm yeasty aroma of Cook’s brioche, a recipe she swore was given to her not by a French relative but an Irish one. Above all the other scents was the odor of candle wax as servants extinguished the hundreds of candles in the chandeliers.

Mary moved to the other side of the room, giving orders to the maids as she went. His sister directed everyone with militaristic precision, a general with a full complement of troops at her disposal. Her voice, however, was husky with fatigue.

He grabbed a nearby tablecloth, wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the basket to be taken to the laundry. A maid grinned at his perfect aim.

When Mary returned to his side of the ballroom, he grabbed the stack of plates in her hand.

“Go to bed,” he told her again.

Mary glanced at him in surprise. “Nonsense,” she said. “There’s still too much to do. The best dishes must be packed up and put away.”

“Mrs. Hurst and the staff can do that.”

She nodded. “Yes, but the carpets should be swept and the floor damp-mopped.” She glared down at the floor. “There are spots where the wax dripped. Those must be repaired tonight.”

“You don’t need to do it. If the maids have any questions Mrs. Hurst can’t answer, I’ll tell them to come to me.”

“When did you get so domesticated, Lennox?” she asked, glancing up at him with a smile.

“I’ve been watching you all these years,” he said. “The chores can be ably managed by Mrs. Hurst. Isn’t that why we employ a housekeeper? Or, if not her, they can wait until morning.”

“It won’t take long to finish.”

“Do you mind caring for Father?”

She glanced at him in surprise.

“Why would I mind?” she asked. “Hasn’t he always cared for us?”

He nodded. “But in the last two years you’ve changed,” he said, the first time he put his concerns into words.

She walked to a side table, occupied with gathering up the silver.

“The accident was a terrible thing to happen,” she said, glancing over at him. “I can’t imagine how awful it must be to be able to see one moment, and the next to be blind.”

“You didn’t cause it, Mary,” he said.

She just sent him a look, gathered up the soiled napkins and dropped them in the basket at the end of the table.

“I can finish the rest of this,” he said. “You should go to bed.”

She smiled at him. “I’m not tired. Tonight was a very successful evening, don’t you think?”

“Thanks to you.”

His sister acted as the heart of Hillshead. Everything ran perfectly because she was at the core of the house, planning, organizing, ensuring he and his father were comfortable.

Didn’t she want her own home? A question he’d never asked and one startling him now. She had never given any hint of wanting a husband or a family, but shouldn’t she?

Perhaps if she weren’t so involved in running Hillshead she could devote herself to her own life.

“I want you to take Father to Bute for the waters.”

She turned to him, her eyes widening. “Bute?”

He nodded. “People come from all over Scotland to stay at the hotel. The water comes from a mineral spring. It will be good for him.”

She folded another napkin, the task evidently requiring her full attention.

“I don’t think—” she began, but he cut her off.

“Please, Mary.” He came and took the napkin from her. “It would do both of you good to get away.”

She stared straight ahead. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“You’ll meet new people.”

She sent him a quick glance. “Do you think I need to broaden my social horizons, Lennox?”

“I think you need to stop catering to me and Father so much. What about you, Mary? Don’t you want your own life? Your own family? Don’t you want to find someone to marry?”

A shadow flitted over her face. “My life is fine,” she said, walking to the final table to be stripped.

The clink of silver, the murmur of the maid’s voices behind them, the soft sigh of wind through the open terrace doors supplied the only sounds for long moments.

Evidently, he shouldn’t offer suggestions to Mary about her life.

“I was surprised that Glynis came,” she said, gathering up the last of the silver from the table. “She’s been home for a week and hardly anyone has seen her since she arrived. Of course, being a widow, she wouldn’t socialize much.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Why do you think she came tonight?” she asked.

“A gesture of friendship? Our families are close.”

“I always thought she was a beautiful girl. She’s not a girl any longer but I think she’s even more beautiful.”

He would be wiser not saying anything.

“Don’t you think so?”

He nodded.

“There’s something about her, though.” She stopped placing the silver in the box and turned to him. “I don’t think she’s very happy.”

He braced himself against the wall, folded his arms and regarded his sister.

“She’s a widow. She’s not supposed to be happy.”

She shook her head. “Glynis was always basically happy. That was her nature. Remember when the mare she loved died?”

He nodded again.

“She cried for days and she mourned for weeks, but grief didn’t change who she was. I think the woman we met tonight isn’t the Glynis we knew.”

She’d been talking to Matthew Baumann. That encounter still troubled him.

“I’ve always wanted to be more like her, fearless and daring. But tonight she didn’t seem the same, did she?”

“No,” he said, compelled to answer. “She didn’t.”

“Do you think marriage changed her?”

He didn’t respond.

“Perhaps she adored her husband and grief has made her listless.”

He was not going to discuss Glynis’s dead husband. He didn’t want to talk about Glynis at all.

Thinking about her, however, was a different matter.

G
LYNIS WAS
different, and it was a change Baumann couldn’t put his finger on, something disturbing and fascinating at the same time. Until tonight he thought he knew Glynis Smythe very well. Evidently coming back to her homeland had given her a dimension she previously lacked.

Tonight she stood her ground, leveled that pointed chin at him and insulted him, something she hadn’t done in Washington. He felt like a boy being upbraided by his schoolmaster.

Being in Scotland had made her brave. It fascinated him to see her in a different environment. Glynis had always had her share of courage, but she’d never defied him.

She’d been wasted on that bastard she married. Richard Smythe had been an opportunist who knew how to take another’s work and claim it as his own. He was a master at exploiting his wife’s talents. Any success he had at the legation was due to Glynis. She had a natural ease with people and was well liked, something Smythe was not.

At least she was no longer wearing full mourning, but he still didn’t like to see her showing respect for Smythe. The man didn’t deserve it.

He’d asked for this assignment. Not only to follow Glynis back to Scotland, but to investigate what he could about Cameron and Company.

The War Department was correct. From every indication he’d had, Lennox Cameron was more than happy to build up the Confederate navy all on his own. Not only was Cameron building steamships, but
they were iron-hulled behemoths that could turn the tide of war.

He was damned if he was going to let that happen.

O
NCE THEY
were home, Duncan bent to brush a kiss on her cheek.

“Lennox thought you looked beautiful,” he said.

Before she could comment, he was ascending the stairs.

She watched him, wishing her heartbeat hadn’t spiked at the news. She wasn’t a child to be assuaged by compliments. Nor did she quite trust them anymore. In Washington, nothing was ever adequate, sufficient, or commonplace. No, a dress, a reticule, a hair style must be described as exquisite, magnificent, glorious, or superb. Anything less implied an insult.

Beautiful?

Who was Lennox Cameron to note her appearance at all? Seven years ago he hadn’t known she was alive.

“Are you all right?” her mother asked, removing her shawl and hanging it on the hook beside the door.

Glynis nodded, turning to Eleanor. “I’m fine.”

“Was tonight so difficult?”

She shook her head. “I had to see him again.”

Now she could put a checkmark beside that duty: encounter Lennox. Smile and be pleasant to him. Express not one emotion in his presence. She’d done that, too, hadn’t she? She’d been a sawdust figure with a sawdust smile.

“He looked well, I think.”

“Yes.” He hadn’t changed. If anything he’d grown more arresting. The intervening years had given him authority; there was no doubt who was the head of Cameron and Company. She suspected that Lennox
would have risen to the position early even if Mr. Cameron had not been injured.