In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (2 page)

“Come, Lennox.” Lidia’s voice wasn’t seductive as much as plaintive.

The Lennox she’d known all her life wasn’t charmed by whining and wheedling.

“Come and talk to my father and then we’ll dance. Lennox, you promised. Please.”

He glanced down at Lidia and smiled, an expression she’d always thought reserved for her. A particular Lennox smile made up of patience and of humor.

Until this moment he’d never treated her like a nuisance or a bother. Although she was Duncan’s younger sister, he’d always seen her as herself, asking her opinions, talking to her about his future plans. Yet now he was as dismissive as Lidia.

She might not be there, for the attention either of them paid her.

Embarrassment spread from the pit of her stomach, bathing every limb in ice. She was frozen to the spot, anchored to the floor by shame.

“Please, my Lennox.”

Grabbing her skirt with both hands, Glynis turned toward the curtains. She had to escape now. She didn’t glance back as she raced from the anteroom, tears cooling her cheeks.

The last thing she heard was Lidia’s laugh.

“
O
H
,
DO
let the silly girl go, Lennox,” she said. “We’ll go meet with my father and then dance.”

Lennox turned to Lidia Bobrova. He’d known the girl nearly as long as he’d known Glynis, having traveled to Russia since he was a boy.

She smiled back at him, a new and curious calculating expression that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Has the child always been so rude?” she asked.

“I’ve never found her to be so.” Nor would he consider her a child, not the way she’d just kissed him.

Why hadn’t her mother noticed the décolletage of Glynis’s dress was far lower than normal? He wanted to pull it up himself to conceal the swell of her breasts. Wasn’t her corset laced too tight? He’d never noticed her waist was that small.

He glanced toward the door, wondering how to detach himself from Lidia. She’d latched onto him at the beginning of the evening, and from her father’s fond looks, her actions had familial approval.

Cameron and Company was in the process of selling their Russian shipyards to Count Bobrov. Negotiations were in the final stage and he didn’t want to do anything to mar them. Yet allowing Lidia to signal to everyone that there was more to their relationship was going too far.

Lidia leaned toward him and a cloud of heavy French perfume wafted in his direction. Her face was dusted with powder and she’d applied something pink on her lips.

He needed to get out of the anteroom before anyone attached significance to his being alone with her. He needed to find Glynis and explain. Then they’d discuss that kiss.

He hadn’t expected her to kiss him. His thoughts were in turmoil. He was just grateful Lidia—or anyone else—hadn’t entered the anteroom a few minutes earlier.

What would he have said?

She startled me
. Hardly a worthwhile explanation although it was the truth.

He should have pushed her away, not enjoyed kissing her. It was Glynis. Glynis of the merry laugh and the sparkling eyes and the pert quip. Glynis, who had
managed to muddle his thoughts tonight as well as confuse him thoroughly.

Lidia said something, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He began walking back to the ballroom. Since she’d gripped his arm with talonlike fingers, she had no choice but to come with him.

With any luck, Duncan would help him out, take the possessive Lidia off his arm and waltz with her, leaving him to find Glynis.

He didn’t know as he left the anteroom that it would be seven years until he saw Glynis again.

Glasgow, Scotland

July, 1862

“Y
ou’ve come home,” Lennox said.

Glynis wanted to pull away but stood still. Precipitous gestures could be misunderstood. Better to allow him to hold her hand than cause a scene, especially when whispers swirled around them.

“It’s the MacIain girl, home after all these years.”

“Wasn’t there some scandal about her?”

“Is this the first time she’s been seen in public?”

Were people recalling those times she followed after Lennox as a child? At five years old she marked him as hers. As a young woman she was prepared to tell him she adored him.

Foolish Glynis.

He must not affect her. She wouldn’t allow it. She was no longer nineteen and desperately in love.

“Why didn’t you come home sooner?” he asked now, still holding her hand.

Instead of answering, she only smiled. The diplomatic ranks did not value honesty, and so she became adroit at sidestepping it.

He still smelled of wood and the ocean. Whenever anyone said the word “ship” or she tasted a brine-filled breeze, he would appear in her memory with a twinkle in his eye.

The hint of beard showing on this important occasion
wasn’t due to any sloth on his part. He had to shave more than once a day to eliminate a shadow appearing on his cheeks and chin.

“I think God wants me to have facial hair,” he said to her. “But God and I are going to disagree.”

He was a foot taller than she was, dressed in black evening wear accentuating his shoulders and height. All his life he’d worked hard, and it showed in the breadth of his chest and muscled legs. Something about him, though, hinted at power and always had. In a crowded room people sought him out the way they looked to leaders and confident men.

Lennox Cameron resembled a prince and a devastating Highlander and he’d been the hero of most of her childish dreams.

No longer, however. Too much had happened in the intervening years.

She’d grown up.

She needed to say something to ease his intent look. Some words to make him stop staring at her as if he were comparing this Glynis to the impetuous, reckless girl she’d been.

Did he think she appeared older? When she smiled, the skin at the corners of her blue eyes crinkled, the only sign that seven years had passed.

“Do you find Glasgow changed?”

Thank heavens he eased the silence with an innocuous question, one simply answered. She was capable of prattling on for hours about places, countries, people, or the recent weather. Ask her something personal, however, and words left her.

“Yes, I would say so. Your firm seems prosperous.”

Was that an adequate word? Duncan said that a dozen docks along the River Clyde bore his company’s name.

“We’ve been fortunate.”

His shipyard was famous even in Washington. Members of the War Department said Cameron and Company affected the outcome of the war by aiding the enemy.

Lennox wouldn’t care if the world talked about him; he’d continue to do what he wanted. Such bravado might be laughable in another man, but this was Lennox.

“Thank you for coming. My father will appreciate it.”

“Duncan told me of his blindness. How horrible for him.”

He nodded. “You’ll find he’s sanguine about the accident. He’s just grateful to be alive.”

A comment necessitating only a nod and a smile.

“Your husband died,” he said, the words stark.

An odd way to offer condolences.

“Yes.”

An accident, they said. What a terrible and senseless tragedy, and his wife so young.

He pressed her gloved hand with his. Her fingers were icy. Did he feel them through her gloves? Or suspect her lips were numb?

They were strangers and yet not. They never would be. They’d shared their childhood and too many memories.

He stared down at her. A woman could get lost in his eyes. Unless, of course, she was wiser, older, and tested by experience.

She pasted a formal smile on her mouth, a similar expression to one she’d worn when introduced to the matronly harpies in Washington. This occasion seemed no less important.

He dropped her hand. She almost sighed in relief, but restrained herself.

One must not attract attention.

“Thank you for inviting me,” she said, the comment
pulled from the bag of rote phrases she repeated without thought. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and greet your father.”

He didn’t say a word as she swiveled on her heel and turned toward the receiving line.

Pressing her fingers against her diaphragm, she drew in a deep breath. Her stomach gradually settled and her pulse slowed, yet a hollow feeling lingered in the center of her chest.

Perhaps if she didn’t glance in his direction she’d eventually recover her composure.

She tried to focus on something else, anything else, the chandeliers, for example. William Cameron had them imported from France. Hundreds of candles in the six massive chandeliers illuminated the space. Crystal droplets hung from each of the tiers of branches bouncing rainbows throughout the ballroom.

The floors were marble and as slick as glass, forcing her to be cautious as she headed for the receiving line.

The arched windows were polished like crystal, mirroring all the brightly dressed women and the men in their formal black.

Catching sight of her reflection in her conservative mauve dress, she deliberately glanced away.

She passed the two buffet tables, each stacked with ornate brass structures holding a dozen types of cakes, biscuits, tarts, and candies. An army of maids carrying food in from the kitchen ensured that Hillshead’s guests never lacked for any delicacy. Trays were filled with every sort of food from salmon to ices, and three different punch bowls offered beverages ranging from fruit punch to something more potent.

William Cameron had built the house after the shipyard in Russia began to show a profit twenty years ago. Over the years he’d added to the structure until Hillshead boasted a staggering sixty-seven rooms.
Two wings plus the main structure housed twenty-four bedrooms, twelve bathing chambers, an assortment of parlors, sitting rooms, music rooms, a dozen rooms set aside for the staff, a formal dining room, a breakfast room, and a family dining room.

“How do you decide where to eat?” she asked Mary once.

Lennox’s sister smiled at the question. “Mostly in the family dining room,” she said. “We use the formal dining room when we have guests.”

Since Cameron and Company transacted business all over the world and Hillshead hosted many foreign visitors, she knew they must use the formal dining room often.

Tonight the crowd was much too large to be accommodated in any place other than the ballroom. The whole of Glasgow, it seemed, had been invited to honor William Cameron for receiving the Imperial Order of St. Stanislaus. The elder Cameron had been rewarded for his efforts in expanding Russia’s shipbuilding industry.

The impressive gilded medal with its cerulean and scarlet ribbon hung in a display case in the foyer. Russian dignitaries tended to be dramatic people and their awards no less so.

The Camerons had changed the decor since she’d been here last, opting for cerulean draperies against paler blue walls. The alcove where she’d once waited for Lennox was no longer curtained. Instead, two settees upholstered in scarlet had been placed there with potted ferns on either side.

The colors reminded her of the ribbon on the medal.

Had Lennox opted for a Russian theme for his home?

Why hadn’t he opted for a Russian wife? Why hadn’t he married Lidia Bobrova?

He hadn’t married anyone. A successful and handsome man would be the catch of Glasgow. Why was he still unmarried?

Richard’s voice echoed in her memory. “Curiosity is an unwelcome character trait, Glynis.”

A shriek warned her seconds before she was enveloped in a brown silk hug. Her breath left in a gasp as arms tightened around her.

“Glynis! Glynis! Glynis! Oh, my dear Glynis, here you are! I’ve missed you ever so much!”

“Charlotte?”

She took a cautious step back until her childhood friend reluctantly released her.

“You’re just the same,” Charlotte said, her broad smile as bright as the chandelier overhead. “I’ve gained six stone and you’ve not changed at all.”

She’d changed in hidden ways. Once, she wouldn’t have paid any attention to Charlotte’s effusiveness. Now her old friend’s praise and welcome, as well as the sidelong looks from others, embarrassed her.

“You’re just the same as well,” she said, skilled at lying. She’d had countless opportunities to practice the art of prevarication in Washington.

I’ve heard nothing about the course of the war, ma’am. I’m certain you’re correct and the unpleasantries will end soon.

Yes, sir, your wife is a charming, pleasant woman. I enjoy being in her company and anticipate meeting her at future events.

No, husband, I won’t complain. I’m among the most fortunate of women.

“Nonsense,” Charlotte said. “I’ve four children and I’ve gained three stone with each of the last two.” Her laugh bounced around the room until people turned to stare.