In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (40 page)

“I
would have come if you asked,” Matthew Baumann said, pulling his sleeve away from James’s grasp. “There was no need to send one of your men after me.”

Lennox dismissed James with his thanks and sat behind his desk. Once he learned Baumann had taken a room at the Lafayette Hotel, the better to watch Lucy, he simply sent James to retrieve him.

“On the contrary, I think there was every need.”

He sat relaxed, his arms bent at the elbows and leaning slightly forward. A deceptive pose since he wanted to march across the room and punch Baumann in the face. If he broke the man’s jaw, he wouldn’t mind. Perhaps doing so would make it difficult for him to speak or threaten anyone in the future.

Baumann was walking the walls of models, picking one up, putting it back in place. He stopped in front of the Vixen, surveying the model from all sides.

“You’re a talented designer, Cameron. Are you building more iron-hulled ships? This one is a beauty.”

“I didn’t bring you here to discuss my ships.”

“No, but you do want to discuss your wife.” Baumann turned and faced him, a rakish smile on his face. “How is she?”

“Better,” he said. The day after the incident, Glynis refused to stay in bed, insisting on being up and about.

“I have important things to do,” she said when he
questioned her. “First, I have to make a list of all the duties Mary and I have to discuss. Who will be in charge of meals and other tasks. Secondly, I have to bury my gun.”

“Your gun?” he asked, startled.

She nodded, then shocked him by pulling a Derringer from her reticule.

“It was Richard’s. I would have used it on Lucy, but I froze. I wanted to shoot her, but my finger wouldn’t move.”

“And after you bury the gun?” he asked. “What will you do then?”

“Look over the household ledgers,” she said. “We could practice some economies. There’s a great deal of waste at Hillshead.”

A surge of warmth almost knocked him back on his heels. Not simply desire this time but another emotion, love coupled with joy.

“Then have at it,” he said. “My life and my ledgers are open to you.”

For now, however, he was facing down Baumann, and ensuring the man knew he was no longer welcome in Glasgow.

“What do you want to ask me? Go ahead, as far as Glynis is concerned I have no more secrets.”

“I would reassess the statement if I were you,” Lennox said. “That’s my wife you’re talking about. She’s not your operative any longer.”

The other man’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised she told you.”

“She’s my wife.”

“As you’ve said.” Baumann shrugged. “I don’t go around telling people who I employ, or don’t, for that matter.”

“I suggest you not try to employ anyone else in Glasgow.”

Baumann startled him by laughing. “I doubt I could. I’ve been the recipient of more than one strange glance, let me tell you.”

“I’ll thank you for saving Glynis, but it’s little enough payment for taking advantage of her.”

“Did I? War makes people think differently than they would in peacetime, Cameron. All sorts of things that were once meaningful no longer are, like chivalry.”

“Or honor?”

Baumann’s mustache tilted. “Honor is defined according to which side you’re on, Cameron. Am I honorable to the War Department? Most assuredly. But to a Confederate? I’m the epitome of a slimy snake.” With the last two words his voice altered, took on a southern drawl. “A friend of mine has a saying. ‘War is hell.’ Sherman fights in the trenches. My battlefields were in the ballrooms and at the dining tables of Washington.”

“Using women as your foil.”

“Using anyone,” he said unapologetically. “Anyone who could suit my purposes, Cameron.”

“You might not have murdered Whittaker, but were you involved in any of the other murders along the Clyde?”

Baumann sauntered to his desk, took the chair at his side and crossed his legs, looking supremely unconcerned at the question.

“I think, if you’ll check, you’ll find the majority of the murders happened before I was in your country.”

“Except for one. A Union colonel, I believe. Was he one of your men?”

Baumann’s face took on the appearance of granite. “You’ll understand if I don’t answer that.”

“Why, exactly, are you in Scotland?”

Baumann smiled. “The scenery? The fresh air? You
know why I’m here, Cameron. To investigate your firm.”

He waited, but Baumann didn’t say anything else. What did he expect the man to do, launch into a fevered confession that he was desperately in love with Glynis?

“Did you set fire to the
Raven
?”

Baumann tipped his head back and laughed.

“Come now, you don’t expect me to answer that, do you? I imagine you have a policeman stationed somewhere, waiting for me to make such an improvident confession. Even if I did, why would I would tell you?”

“I’ve posted enough guards around the ship to prevent you from doing it again. Just a fair warning.”

“Oh, but there are plenty of men who are unemployed, Cameron, who’d be willing to do almost anything for the right amount of money. Maybe swim to the side and plant a bomb on the hull. Or toss a bottle filled with kerosene and a lit rag onto a dock. Can you guard your ship against the whole of Glasgow?”

“Yes, dammit, I can.”

“Your mother told me you were a stubborn man.”

He held himself still with an effort.

“I should have listened to her,” Baumann said, watching him intently.

Did the man expect him to explode in questions? Is that why Baumann was taunting him?

“I’m going to break one of my rules, Cameron. She’s one of my operatives. One of my best ones. She lives in the South, you know.”

“Get out.” He pushed the words past numb lips. “Get the hell out of my office, Baumann. And off my yard. And out of Glasgow.”

“You look a great deal like your mother, you know. Did no one ever tell you?”

Baumann stood, smiling down at him. “Olivia is a
lovely creature with thick black hair and green eyes like yours. She has a mole near her mouth. The years have not altered her accent. When she’s angry, I can barely understand what she says.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I told her I was coming to Glasgow and she wanted to relay a message. To you and your sister. Mary, isn’t it?”

He didn’t respond.

“She wanted to know if you could forgive her. She didn’t desert you; she just changed her life.”

He wasn’t going to respond to Baumann’s words or his goading smile.

“Very well, Cameron. Since I have some fondness for your mother, I’ll tell her you conveyed your warm wishes. Now about Glynis. Treat her well, Cameron. Or I might have to return to Scotland.”

“And do what you did to Smythe?”

Baumann’s smile slipped. “You figured that out, did you? A tragic accident. A despicable man with a penchant for near children, a dark night, and a runaway carriage. A recipe for disaster, don’t you think?”

Lennox only stared after the man long after the door closed.

F
OR DAYS
, Lennox treated her like she was a precious glass ornament, some objet d’art he rescued from Russia and now cherished as priceless. In addition, he’d summoned her mother, who, on learning of the injury, insisted on clucking over her like a chick who’d wandered too far from the nest. Between Lennox, her mother, Lily, and Mrs. Hurst—who proved to be an exceptional gatekeeper—she was swaddled and cosseted and prevented from doing anything. She couldn’t even cough without one of them rushing to her side, asking if she was all right.

She slept beside Lennox at night, and when she was restless with pain, he woke and was at her beck and call. Did she need some of the laudanum the doctor had prescribed? No, thank you. A jot of whiskey, a glass of wine? No, thank you again. Nor did she want something to eat or a book to read. She wanted only to lay there beside him and watch him as he slept, experiencing the joy.

She spent the time healing, each day better than the next, until one morning, she was certain, she would wake and not even notice her arm. She would have a scar, an ugly one preventing her from wearing certain evening dresses, but did it matter?

Eleanor was convinced to leave and take Lily with her when Mary and Mr. Cameron arrived home. Glynis had never seen her new sister-in-law looking so beautiful. She almost glowed with good health and happiness. Even Mr. Cameron appeared wonderfully fit. Her father-in-law hugged and kissed her.

“It’s about time the two of you wed,” he said to her surprise.

She and Lennox only smiled at each other.

Lennox was finally persuaded to go back to the yard. She doubted, however, if anything would make Mrs. Hurst stop watching her so closely.

To escape the housekeeper’s eagle eye, she took to walking in the gardens. Today was another glorious day. Hillshead’s perch on the top of its hill made the house impervious to the smoke of Glasgow. Brisk breezes carried it far away, freshening the air and making her feel as if she lived in an enchanted place indeed.

She was dressed in one of her new dresses, the feat accomplished by a dressmaker with nearly as much skill as the woman she’d employed in Washington.
With only one set of measurements, the seamstresses had provided a wardrobe fitting for the wife of one of the wealthiest men in Glasgow.

A man only slightly less wealthy, thanks to his generosity. Duncan had not refused Lennox’s draft. To do so would be stupid, revealing an excess of pride. She’d already demonstrated how foolish a MacIain could be. Let there only be one idiot in the family.

She’d told Lennox about Washington. Instead of condemning her, he’d urged her to forgive herself.

Would that be possible? Or was she going to have this stain on her soul forever? Would she always have to deal with what she’d done? She suspected she was, just as it would probably be the right penance. She’d never considered that what she was doing would have ramifications far beyond the moment. Just as she’d never thought marrying so precipitously would affect other people.

Perhaps every person had a worn spot on their soul. A place where a bad deed, an inconsiderate remark, a bit of cruelty, burned away the goodness. Could you ever patch those threadbare spots? Could you ever make up for those mistakes?

If regrets were ships, she’d have enough to fill the Clyde. Yet she had love as well. On balance, she had more love than regrets. She loved her mother, Duncan, Lily, and Mabel. They were all her family and would always have a spot in her heart. She adored Lennox. She always had. She knew she always would.

The sun faded behind Glasgow as if embarrassed, leaving a blushing sky behind. The Clyde reddened, mirroring the sky, bustling with activity as day turned into night: a barge belched upstream, a ship slid out of dock. Slowly, ships became shadows and spires in the darkness.

Stars blinked hazily in the sky as if rousing from sleep as the moon tucked itself behind the riffling clouds.

The air was warm, scented with roses and mint. A soft breeze caressed her cheek and danced up her skirt. Lights began to shine in Hillshead’s windows. She heard a frog’s low-pitched bellow, the chirping of an insect, the rustle of something in the taller grass just beyond the garden.

How long had it been since she’d taken the time to simply hear the world around her? Not the chatter of people or the hum of voices. Not the clatter of wheels on cobblestones or the drone of engines, but the sound of nothing but life.

The beating of her heart in her chest, the indrawn breath and exhaled sigh, the clench of her fingers against the hewn wood of the bench, were all signs of her own life. The temporary permanence of it, the proof of her existence.

In this instance, in this moment, in this exact time, she felt strangely more Scot than she ever had. She was as elemental as her ancestors, all those proud women who’d marched over the craigs and through the glens of the Highlands, determined to aid their men in protecting their homes. They’d done so clad in plaids and almost nothing else, and here she was in a new dress, sitting outside a magnificent home built by one of their descendants.

If they could have seen through the mists of time, what would the Camerons have thought about Lennox? For that matter, what would the MacIains, proud Highlanders themselves, have thought of her?

Would they have uttered words of caution to the heedless Glynis? Or would they have had any measure of compassion for her?

She heard him coming, his feet crunching on the
gravel. When Lennox sat beside her, his shoes dug into the path, making runnels in the shells. She let the silence build between them until it was a third participant in their nonconversation.

Darkness enshrouded them, creating a perfect place, an island in the world. They were far away from murder, war, revenge, or drama. Here only the echoes of a joyous childhood intruded, scenes of her racing along the paths or climbing one of Hillshead’s great oak trees. Lennox shouting at her to stop, he’d catch up with her soon enough. Or telling her she was going to fall, which is exactly what she’d done.