by Karen Ranney
“What do you mean, his hobbies? Was he unfaithful, Glynis?”
In Duncan’s voice was the same incredulity her father might have expressed. The MacIain men were Scots to the core, and a Scotsman was faithful to his code of honor, his country, and, not the least, his wife.
“I didn’t mind,” she said, another bit of truth she offered to him. Until she knew exactly what his proclivities were, she’d been grateful Richard was visiting some other bed.
Perhaps everyone needed to learn some difficult lessons. She was more fortunate than most, having learned them so young. She would never again allow someone to rescue her, especially not because she’d been stupid. If she acted in a foolish manner, she’d face the humiliation. If she erred, she’d stay her ground and accept the consequences of her own behavior.
“He had such great visions of his career,” she said. “After that first year in Cairo, I knew Richard would always be a second tier attaché. He’d be sent to those legations people didn’t want to go to, given duties no one else wanted to assume. He wouldn’t rise in the ranks partly because he was too obsequious, too much a toady.”
That was only one side to his character. There was another side she wouldn’t comment upon to her brother. Richard had a core of cruelty. The more he was overlooked by men he admired, the greater his cruelty.
Duncan stood. For a moment she thought he was going to speak, utter some castigation of Richard’s behavior. But Duncan had never been foolish. Why criticize a man who had been dead for nearly two years?
“Are you glad you came home, Glynis?”
She looked up at him, not speaking for a moment, realizing the question was a deeper one than it seemed. He wasn’t asking about the joy in seeing him or their mother again.
“Why didn’t Lennox ever marry?” she asked. “Why didn’t you?”
“Time,” he said with a small smile. “That’s my excuse.”
“And Lennox?”
Was he going to be loyal to Lennox? He always had been. The two of them had been inseparable since they were boys. Whenever one of them got into trouble, the other was there to either take the blame or try to explain.
One summer, the fathers agreed to let both boys go to Russia for several months. When Duncan returned, he was changed. He was no longer a boy, but a man who set about learning the trade providing the family’s income. He began in the looms, worked his way through various jobs at the mill. When their father died, he had been ready to step into his place, only for circumstances beyond his control to threaten the mill.
“He was engaged once, Glynis.”
She nodded. “I know, to Lidia Bobrova. But it wasn’t really an engagement, was it? Just a lot of gossip.”
He frowned at her. “Who are you talking about?”
“The Russian girl,” she said. “You met her.”
He shook his head. “The girl wasn’t Russian,” he said.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Then who was it?”
“A Glasgow girl. Rose something or other. I can’t remember her last name.”
“Why didn’t he marry her?”
He shrugged. “One moment he was engaged. The next he wasn’t. You’ll have to ask him for the details.”
From what she knew about men, experience she’d gleaned from diplomatic circles, they didn’t pry about each other’s personal life. She doubted any of Richard’s superiors had known about his perversions. Or the sad state of his marriage.
They discussed a man’s dislike of alcohol, his affinity for cheap cigars, his way of avoiding looking a servant in the eye, or staring down at the floor when talking to a woman. They talked about how a man cared for his horses, his dogs, and his servants, but they rarely broached the subject of how he mistreated a wife.
In Washington, she’d been almost masculine in her friendships. She didn’t confide the details of her personal life to another woman. Firstly, because the atmosphere at the Washington British Legation was poisonous. The stress of trying to remain neutral in an emotionally charged country meant people used information as ammunition.
Secondly, if the poor state of his marriage—and the reason for it—was known, Richard might have been forced home early. A man was judged by his ability to control his impulses. In the last two years in Washington, it seemed like he was doing the utmost to ruin his life, while she was attempting to make everything look normal and ordinary.
The patterns of Washington came to her aid now as she shook her head. She wouldn’t ask Lennox about his engagement. It was enough to know he’d found someone, a woman he’d cared enough about to ask to be his wife.
What had happened? Why hadn’t he married after all?
“What are you going to do?” she asked Duncan, determined to push Lennox to the back of her mind. “You can’t keep the mill running with no cotton.”
He nodded. “I know,” he said, spearing his hand through his hair. “Give more people the sack.”
“Would it make a difference?”
“Not against the greater hemorrhage of cash,” he said. “I’ve sold the Edinburgh house, and I’ve got the land in England for sale. There are a few more parcels outside of Inverness, but after they’re gone, there’s nothing else to sell.”
He walked to the window looking out over the mill buildings. Once, the noise from all the looms made it difficult to hear someone speak, even in this office. Now it was eerily quiet.
“I wish I could help,” she said. “But by coming home I’ve only given you one more mouth to feed.”
He glanced at her and smiled. “You don’t eat much, Glynis.” His smile slipped. “The bastard didn’t leave you anything?”
“A stipend,” she said. “It ran out in Washington. Wouldn’t Lennox help?”
He gave her such a fulminating look she almost withdrew the question.
“I’ll not take charity from my friends, Glynis.”
If they didn’t find a way out of this mess, they would be forced to beg for food, another comment she didn’t make to her brother.
She tilted her head and studied him. “You have an idea, though, don’t you?”
He shrugged again.
“Tell me.”
“I will, when it’s time,” he said.
And that was that. She knew herself to be stubborn at times, but Duncan was intractable. He would speak only when his plan was complete and not before.
Chapter 11
Glynis entered her room, slowly untied the ribbon of her bonnet and sat heavily on the end of the bed, clasping her hands on her knees.
On her return to Glasgow she’d been speechless at the sanctuary her mother had created of her room. Not one thing was changed. On the bureau were the miniatures of animals she collected as a child. A few treasures had been here for years: a smooth rock with her initials carved into it by Duncan, a tiny sailboat Lennox had given her when she was eleven, a threadbare stuffed rabbit she’d had since she was a baby. Her dolls, including one poor creature with a missing eye, sat on top of another chest as if waiting for the child she’d been to come and claim it.
The view from the window was of the hill and the house topping it. How many hours had she spent sitting there, her attention on Hillshead, wondering what Lennox was doing? Had he returned home from Russia? Was he going to France? Every single day seemed to be marked with some thought of Lennox.
Perhaps she could be forgiven her obsession because of youth. She’d been naive and headstrong, stubborn and stupid. Foolish was not the right word to use to describe herself because she’d been arrogant as well. So filled with her own knowledge of the world she didn’t think anyone else could be right or she could possibly be wrong.
Poor sad girl, to learn so much in such a quick time and none of it casting her in a good light.
How long she sat there she didn’t know. Something inside her opened up, a cavern filled with memories and moments captured forever in her mind.
Nothing was as she’d expected it to be. Everything had changed; l
ife was like the Clyde, and it had flowed along without her. Her father had died. Duncan had matured. Her mother had aged. Lennox had found someone to marry.
What had she expected? That people would remain frozen in time? That no one would age or die? That she would be the beloved MacIain daughter when she returned? That the mill would still be prosperous? That nothing had changed?
The world was a grand and marvelous thing beyond the borders of her country. It was also scary and dangerous. Friends were not truly friends. Nor were enemies always enemies. She’d raced from an idyllic existence into one where smiles meant nothing, politeness hid a cruel heart, and a man wasn’t what he seemed to be.
For the last seven years she’d been playacting, and that thought brought her up short. She had acted the part for which she’d been trained well enough to survive in Washington.
Who was she, beyond the role she played?
She could never return to being Glynis—the girl, albeit with a few more years of understanding. She knew too much. Guilt was a millstone around her neck.
She wanted her life back the way it had been before she left. She wanted the hope and the promise of it. She wanted to return to being as innocent, and wasn’t that a foolish notion?
A wild goose never laid tame eggs—one of Mabel’s favorite expressions. That’s what she’d been: a wild goose. A wild child without any sense at all.
She pulled on her earlobe and caught herself.
Bad habits are an indication of the lower class, Glynis.
Richard was forever reminding her of her faults, which were numerous, according to him. Even with him gone, she could relate them without any difficulty at all. She loved mornings and was consequently always sleepy at late night functions. She had no skills at needlework. She did not oversee servants well enough. She had a habit of laughing too loud when she was genuinely amused. That was one fault he’d not be able to chastise her about for the last two years of their marriage. She hadn’t found anything amusing about being married to Richard.
He’d always seemed so blind to any of her assets. She learned quickly. She had enduring patience. She was exceptionally good at stretching money and could practice economies with a great deal of creativity. She was quite good at numbers, figures, and facts that bored other people.
Perhaps it was that reason she had been growing popular in Washington. She remembered the numbers and the facts of a man’s career: when he was appointed to his current post, what he had done, his constituency. Such things charmed most men, she’d discovered.
She was also good at travel. She didn’t mind the inconveniences or discomforts, being fascinated with the sights she saw. She was curious about her fellow travelers. Why were they going to their destination? Were they excited about the journey or did it fill them with trepidation?
She wanted to know about people, and that curiosity, too, was seen as another flaw.
Richard liked criticizing her, but she’d developed another quality: she learned to completely ignore him.
Eleanor appeared at the door.
“Do you really think I should have changed it?” her mother asked, coming into the room. She moved to the window to straighten the curtains before checking the top of the bureau for dust.
“I just couldn’t, my dear. It gave me such a comfort to come here, and imagine you sitting here listening to me. You were always such a great companion, even as a child.”
Her mother’s smile warmed her heart. She’d always adored her mother. Why hadn’t she considered the loss of her parents when she married? Another question for which there was only one answer: her own selfishness.
Her thoughts had been centered on Lennox to the exclusion of anything else. Hardly fair to him. One person could not occupy the whole of another’s mind. No matter how much she had loved him, she’d been herself as well.
Lennox hadn’t catapulted her from Scotland. Her pride had.
Eleanor walked to the bed, grabbed the corner of the counterpane and tucked it into place, then looked around at all the furniture. “Perhaps I should make this a guest room. Or a place to read, somewhere away from Duncan to give him some privacy.”
She went to fix a drawer not aligned with the rest. Pulling it out, she once more inserted it into the bureau. A second later she opened the drawer again.
“Glynis,” she said, “what is this?”
She held the object with two fingers, turning to stare at Glynis with wide eyes.
“It’s a gun, Glynis. Why on earth do you have a gun?”
“It’s Richard’s Derringer,” she said. “I found it among the possessions returned to me after he died.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Richard? What on earth could he have wanted with such a thing?”
“No doubt protection for some of the places he went,” Glynis said. “The brothel he frequented wasn’t in the best area of town.”
She had the disconcerting notion of seeing her mother do something she’d never done. Eleanor dropped the gun back into the drawer, slapped her hand on her bosom and stared at her, mouth open.
“Do not say such a thing, child. What do you mean, brothel?”
Surely her mother wasn’t that innocent?
“Richard had odd tastes, Mother. That’s the most polite way to say it.” She wasn’t going to go into Richard’s exact preferences. Her mother didn’t need to know.
Eleanor blinked at her.
“I never liked the man,” she said. “I didn’t like him at your wedding. I didn’t like him through your letters. He was a selfish, grasping, mean person.”
“You never said anything.” Glynis said, surprised.
Her mother sat on the bed next to her. “What was I supposed to say, Glynis? You had agreed to marry him. Nothing I said would’ve made any difference.”
Had she truly been that headstrong? Yes, she had. Perhaps nothing anyone said could have dissuaded her from her decision. She’d desperately wanted to be away from Glasgow, Scotland, and, most of all, Lennox.
Still, in all these years, she’d never heard anything in her mother’s letters remotely critical of Richard. When she said as much, her mother smiled.
“Marriage is forever, my darling child. I knew he was going to be your husband for the rest of your days. He was your choice.”
A very bad choice, another remark she wouldn’t make.
She made a mental note to retrieve the Derringer and tuck it into her reticule. As long as Baumann was around, it wouldn’t hurt to have some protection.
Eleanor’s expression clouded. “God forgive me, though, I’m glad the man is no longer in your life. Not that I would wish an early death on anyone, but it does seem providential, doesn’t it?”
It had been an answer to a thousand prayers, yet another comment she wouldn’t make.
“I do hope you at least chastised him verbally. Threw something at him. How dare the man frequent a brothel!”
Glynis smiled, amusement bubbling from deep inside. How very dear her mother was. In her world, people were either black or white, either good or evil. There was no gray for Eleanor MacIain.
“I can assure you I wanted to pitch something at him, Mother. But it was just easier to go along with the situation as it was. Nothing I said ever affected Richard in any way.”
She didn’t like seeing her mother angry, especially since it did no good in this case. Richard was far beyond any earthly punishments.
Eleanor reached over, tucked a tendril of hair behind Glynis’s ear.
“Did he ever hurt you, my darling girl?”
She shook her head. Physically, Richard had never touched her. Did his constant barrage of criticism count? What about his conscious cruelties like refusing to allow her to come home for a visit? He hadn’t even returned to England when his own mother died. Any emotion he felt was reserved for the diplomatic service.
“It’s glad I am that it’s over and you’re home,” Eleanor said. “What’s done is done.”
She turned her head
and studied her mother. “Why didn’t you tell me Lennox was engaged?”
Time stretched and pulled and twisted itself while she waited.
Finally, Eleanor said, “You still feel the same about him, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Too much has happened. I’m not the same girl I was back then.”
Her mother glanced at her but didn’t comment. Did she believe her?
“It was a very short engagement,” Eleanor said. “Before I knew it, the wedding was canceled.”
“Duncan said her name was Rose.”
Her mother nodded. “Rose Hollis. I quite liked her.”
Is she pretty? Accomplished? Had she kissed Lennox? Had he held her in his arms? From whom did she get those answers? No one. She would have to quash her curiosity. She didn’t want her own past examined; it was hardly fair to want to know everything about Lennox.
She tilted her head back, studying the ceiling. She wasn’t sad but she did feel empty, as if all her memories had been dumped from the trunk where they’d been carefully stored. Nothing was left of the impulsive girl she’d been.
She was Glynis Smythe, widow of the late British attaché Richard Smythe, accomplished Washington hostess, and master spy.
Chapter 12
For three days Glynis thought about what she discovered on the trip to the mill and how close they were to disaster.
Duncan was doing what he could. He’d left for London the day before, the stated purpose to sell some English property. She suspected he had other plans, but he didn’t confide in her.
She stood up from her secretary, placing her hands on the small of her back and stretching. She stared at the figures she’d taken from the ledgers for hours but couldn’t see a way out of their situation.
If they did nothing, the mill would slowly grind to a halt. As it was, Duncan hadn’t paid some of his vendors and payroll was a huge outlay of dwindling cash. Even if they let the rest of the employees go, they’d still have expenses, unless they closed the doors and walked away.
