In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams

by Karen Ranney

  Lucy stared straight at her, a self-professed paragon of all the virtues, a virago with a vicious tongue.

  How could she invite this woman to stay with them? She could just imagine the first encounter between her and Glynis. Her daughter did not deserve to be assaulted in her own home.

  “Under the circumstances,” she said, standing, “perhaps it would be better if we took you to a hotel. I hear the Lafayette Hotel is a lovely place.”

  She glanced at Lennox, who nodded.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Lucy said.

  Lennox smiled, such a strange expression she felt her skin chill.

  “Yes, you are,” he said. “If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you there.”

  Lucy, who had been dry-eyed until now, chose that moment to begin to weep.

  Chapter 22

  Before her mother left with Lennox, she sent Lily to draw her a bath and Mabel to make a dinner tray. The bath sounded wonderful; Glynis hadn’t stopped shivering since leaving the yard. But she didn’t know if she would be able to eat.

  She made it upstairs to her bedroom, walking carefully and with deliberation. If she paid attention to her steps, she wouldn’t be thinking of anything else. Not Lennox’s errand to tell Lucy Whitaker her husband was dead. Not the sight of Gavin stretched out on the deck of the Raven. Certainly not the memory of all that blood.

  She removed her dress, sure the fabric was ruined from the rain. Lily worked miracles, however, so perhaps she could coax it back to life and keep it from acquiring the rusty looking stain of some black fabrics.

  At the knock, she grabbed her wrapper, donned it, and opened the door.

  “Your bath is ready, Miss Glynis.”

  Before she could thank her, Mabel appeared at the top of the steps, breathing heavily as she carried the tray into the room and placed it on the bench at the end of the bed.

  Had she emptied the larder? The tray boasted a teapot with cup and saucer, along with a bowl of stew, four slices of buttered bread, some greens, and enough desserts to feed everyone in the house.

  “I always thought a little bit of sweetness helps on a sour day,” the cook said.

  Today most definitely qualified as sour.

  “You ring now if there’s anything you want. Either me or Lily will fetch it for you straight away.”

  Glynis blinked away her tears. “Thank you, both of you.”

  The older woman nodded and whispered something to Lily. The two servants left her, and she closed the door, leaning against it.

  She pressed her fingers over her eyes, trying to ease the burning from unshed tears.

  Gavin Whittaker was dead and his death reminded her of all the other men on her conscience.

  In the beginning she’d been like everyone else in Washington, caught up in the excitement of words and emotion. She’d known some handsome men in uniform, wished them well, and kissed one on the cheek for good luck as he marched off to battle.

  None of the five men she knew returned.

  Over the months, she’d begun to think of the war as a gaping maw, trapping young and not so young men. The gaiety, the frenetic energy, the excitement gripping Washington in the beginning had changed to a dread beginning at dawn and lasting until the end of daylight.

  What other battles would be published in the papers? How many more men would die for a cause each side felt right and just?

  The British Legation had been required, officially, to be neutral, but their neutrality had made them the repository of secrets. Or as Baumann once said, the legation was a treasure trove of intelligence. They learned of conditions in the Confederacy through English subjects living in the southern states. They received dispatches from attachés throughout the South, each one of them revealing something that could be used in the war.

  Baumann had announced, on more than one occasion, that she was his most valuable operative.

  She might give a good dinner party and hold occasional teas filled with interesting conversation, but to members of the legation she was deemed insignificant and invisible. People didn’t modulate their conversations around her. Richard’s reputation as a sycophant helped, too. Surely the wife of the toadying British attaché wouldn’t carry tales.

  Even careless remarks were valuable. Such as the time she’d overheard news about another attaché living in Georgia. His comments about his lifestyle proved the Confederacy was receiving help from Europe. When the blockade tightened, Baumann told her she’d been instrumental in the decision.

  He didn’t know she held most of what she learned back. She’d been forced to give him dribs and drabs to keep him satisfied and silent, but she withheld the information she thought would be most damaging.

  After Richard’s death she refused to help Baumann, and he couldn’t do a thing to her. She wasn’t part of the inner circle at the legation. She didn’t meet with influential women. Nor did she care if she was sent home in disgrace. Let him reveal the whole horrid story to anyone he wished.

  Now he had come to Glasgow and threatened her again. The man was a canker, refusing to disappear. This time, however, she refused to be blackmailed.

  Yet when she’d been ready to tell the truth, murder stopped her.

  THE CARRIAGE ride to the hotel was memorable for its lack of conversation. Lennox couldn’t remember being in a more uncomfortable position than sitting opposite two women who didn’t deign to look at him.

  Eleanor’s smile had turned brittle and she studiously avoided glancing in his direction.

  Lucy’s bout of tears had ended once she realized he was serious about evicting her from Hillshead. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth pursed until her blotchy cheeks were as plump as a squirrel’s. Whenever she did glance in his direction, he half expected to be singed by her look.

  The Lafayette Hotel was located in the center of Glasgow. The building was a showplace with a lobby filled with soaring arches and a wide set of pink marbled stairs leading to the rooms on the second and third floors.

  Lennox arranged for a suite for Lucy, uncaring about its cost. He spoke to the manager, requesting extra deference for Mrs. Whittaker in view of her recent tragedy. The man was accommodating, promising to send a tray from the tea room and reserving the bathing chamber for her use. He also agreed that a porter would go to her suite twice daily to ask if she needed anything.

  If the man wondered why Lennox was willing to pay so much for Lucy Whittaker’s comfort, he didn’t mention it.

  Ten minutes later he followed Lucy and Mrs. MacIain up the marble stairs. Behind him, Lucy’s bags were being carried by two porters obviously straining with the effort.

  Perhaps he should have checked to ensure she hadn’t nicked any of his belongings. But if she had, it would have been a small price to pay to rid himself of her.

  Once inside the room, Eleanor made a point of pointing out all the amenities.

  “Look, there’s a wash basin right in your bedroom. And a window with a lovely view of Glasgow.” She pressed both hands against the mattress. “The bed seems wonderful.”

  She straightened. “Not that you’ll be sleeping much tonight. The first few weeks after a loss such as you’ve sustained is the worst.”

  “I won’t be here long,” Lucy said. “I’m going home.”

  He truly wanted to feel a measure of compassion for her. After all, her husband had just died. If she hadn’t reacted with grief immediately, perhaps it was due to shock. Who was he to judge how a woman mourned?

  “I can understand why you would want to,” he said. “But until the inquest is over, you can’t leave.”

  Her cheeks grew florid. She clenched her hands into fists and looked as though she wanted to hit him.

  “I hate Scotland,” she said. “I hate everything about it. You people don’t speak correctly. Nor do you eat anything decent.”

  He made a mental note to tell the hotel staff to provide her an English breakfast.

  “How much longer do I have to stay in this horr
ible place?”

  Did she know he most earnestly desired her absence as much as she wished herself gone?

  “Less than a month, I would think.”

  “A month? I have to stay in this hellish place a month?”

  Her voice rose an octave. He anticipated the onslaught of tears at any moment.

  “Shall I send one of my staff to keep you company?” Eleanor asked, stepping in front of Lucy. “You’ll need someone to run errands for you.”

  “I need a maid,” Lucy said, her voice returning to its normal timbre.

  “I have a sweet girl named Lily working for me. I’ll send her by first thing in the morning, shall I?” When Lucy didn’t answer, she continued. “You’ll need stationery, of course. And you’ll want to dispatch a telegram informing your family of the tragedy.”

  Eleanor turned to him, the first time since leaving Hillshead. “Will you handle notifying Mr. Whittaker’s employer, Lennox?”

  He nodded.

  “I want a new wardrobe,” Lucy said. “I have to wear mourning and I won’t dye my dresses.”

  When Eleanor glanced at him, he nodded again.

  Why did he feel like he was paying for Lucy’s silence? What guarantee did he have she wouldn’t tell tales about him and Glynis?

  “Go away,” Lucy said, not making an effort to mitigate her rudeness. “I’ve had all I can take of you Scots.”

  She turned and without another word entered the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “THERE’S AN explanation for what Lucy saw,” Lennox said once they were alone in the carriage.

  Eleanor smiled. “I’m very certain there is. Just as I’m certain Mrs. Whittaker will do anything in her power to make it sound worse than it is.”

  “I agree. What do I do?”

  She looked away, staring through the window at the rainy night. “A few prayers might not be amiss. Otherwise, there’s every possibility she will do her best to ruin your reputation.”

  He nodded. “I’m not worried about me,” he said.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and said her own prayer, for patience this time. What was she going to do with the two of them?

  She turned back. To his credit, he didn’t look away, but met her eyes. Lennox had always been direct, even as a boy, taking responsibility when he was wrong. He’d grown up to be a devastating man, one who no doubt fascinated all manner of women.

  Glynis had adored him. Eleanor thought it a youthful obsession, one that would pass in time. She’d paid for the mistake by losing her daughter for seven years.

  She wouldn’t be so foolish again.

  She suspected her daughter’s fascination with Lennox had begun at the very start of Glynis’s life. Lennox was seven years old to her two when she began holding out her arms for him, screaming his name in an unintelligible utterance of infant language.

  He’d been kind to the little girl, scooping her up and returning her to Eleanor countless times.

  Glynis said too much had happened for her to feel the same way about Lennox now. Eleanor didn’t believe such nonsense. First of all, Glynis acted differently whenever Lennox’s name was mentioned. Her cheeks turned pink; she rarely looked at the speaker but concentrated on the ground or the distance, as if wishing to hide her emotions. Secondly, she’d seen her daughter’s expression when asking about Lennox’s engagement.

  Seven years might have passed, true. Circumstances might have altered, again true. But she knew love when she saw it.

  She wasn’t that old.

  She could also recognize misery, and Glynis was miserable. Even worse, she suspected Glynis had been miserable for seven years.

  “Did you kiss my daughter, Lennox?”

  “Yes, Mrs. MacIain, I did.”

  She nodded. She expected as much.

  Anyone in their vicinity could feel the tension between them as well as the sparks. They’d been there since Glynis turned seventeen and Lennox had started looking at her differently.

  “He needs to keep his mouth shut,” Hamish said of Lennox once. “Otherwise, his tongue will fall out and he’s going to start to drool.”

  Glynis had been eighteen and they’d just returned from a trip to Edinburgh. She could still remember the look on Lennox’s face when he caught sight of Glynis dressed in a new yellow gown and summer flowers adorning her hair.

  What would Hamish say to this situation?

  “What did you mean about Smythe?”

  She bit back her smile. She’d been waiting for Lennox to ask.

  “I wouldn’t have said anything unkind about Richard Smythe when he was alive. After all, he was Glynis’s husband. Nor is it my tale to tell. You’ll need to ask Glynis for the details. But what I have discovered about the man doesn’t dispose me to liking him very much.”

  “Did he hurt her?” His voice sounded like rusty nails.

  “No more than any bad husband can hurt a wife.” Or vice versa, she thought, her mind on Lucy.

  She studied Lennox surreptitiously.

  Perhaps now Glynis could find some real happiness. Only if Lennox proved to be less obstinate than her daughter. She’d never seen any two people working so diligently at cross purposes.

  What she’d like to do was rap him over the head and say, “Lennox Cameron, I know you love Glynis. It might have taken you a few years to recognize that fact but now is the time for you to step forward. Declare yourself. Don’t waste another minute.”

  She couldn’t, of course. Lennox was a grown man, not a boy. She doubted if he would listen to advice from her even about Glynis.

  Therefore, she would have to nudge her daughter first. A little manipulation—for a good cause—was not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes you needed to start where you were in order to get where you wished to go.

  If the two of them married, for example, they’d be forced to communicate with each other. Once the bedroom door closed, all sorts of joining could happen.

  She would do what she could and after that it was up to them. In the meantime, they had a rat in the corn.

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said, sighing, “see what you can do to discover who killed her poor husband. The sooner Lucy Whittaker leaves Scotland, the better.”

  Chapter 23

  “What else did she say?” Glynis asked, avoiding her mother’s eyes.

  Eleanor sat in her favorite chair in the parlor, sipping her tea placidly. She would occasionally look across the room, study the portrait of her husband painted a few years before his death, smile at Hamish MacIain, nod, then concentrate on her tea once more.

  Glynis felt anything but calm at the moment. How was she to know Lucy couldn’t wait to tell anyone what she’d seen?

  “Isn’t that enough, Glynis? She saw you and Lennox kissing. Evidently, it wasn’t a peck on the cheek.”

  Glynis stared down into her own cup, feeling a hot flush of embarrassment shoot through her. Having been a matron for a number of years, it was an odd experience to be chastised by her mother. Equally disturbing to have done something worthy of rebuke.

  “I went to Hillshead to ask Lennox to help,” she said.

  Eleanor’s eyes widened. “You did?”

  She nodded. “He’s probably the wealthiest man in Glasgow right now. I thought he would give Duncan a loan.”

  “Duncan would never impose on a friend.”

  She glanced at her mother. Evidently she was the only one in her family willing to sacrifice pride for survival.

  “One thing led to another . . .” Her voice trailed away. Surely a further explanation wasn’t necessary. Besides, since her errand at Hillshead hadn’t been successful, it seemed a little unfair it might result in scandal.

  “I would just have you remember two things, my darling daughter. Glasgow is a small village in a lot of ways. Gossip is a fact of life here. You’re newly returned and you’re still a subject of speculation for Glaswegians.”

  “And the second?”

  “Once, you migh
t have been spared because you were a MacIain. But things have changed. The mill is in trouble and many people have lost their jobs. If anything, people will look at you more harshly than at a stranger.”

  “She just lost her husband. I’d think she’d be concerned with that, not tattling about Lennox and me.”

  Eleanor peered at her over the rim of her cup.

  “The poor man was left in the rain like a dead animal,” Glynis said. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Gavin’s eyes staring into the sky, looking up as the raindrops struck him.

  Her mother put her cup down. “Oh, my dear girl. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Do you think people will listen to her? She hasn’t made any secret what she thinks about us.”

  Her mother shrugged. “If Duncan is forced to lay off more workers, public sentiment might turn against you. People will pay attention to what she says.”

  Glynis leaned forward and picked up her cup from the tray.

  “Even if they do, Mother, what would come of it? Gossip doesn’t bother me.”

  “That’s ignorance speaking, not your common sense. You have never lived with censure. You’ve never gone to the market and had people turn their backs on you. Or walked into a room and have people grow silent. Or heard whispers behind your back.”

  “Have you?” she asked, surprised.

  “No,” Eleanor said, “but I’ve seen its effects on other women. I won’t have such a thing happen to you. Be more circumspect in your behavior, I beg of you.”

  Glynis remembered one of their neighbors as a child. The boy had collected insects, and took great delight in showing his trophies to any little girls he could find. Some of them had screamed and run away, but she always made herself stand there and examine them, feeling sympathy for the poor insects still alive and struggling.

  She felt exactly like one of those insects right now.

  Her mother sighed, leaned her head back, and stared up at the ceiling.

  “I can only imagine what your father might say.”