by Karen Ranney
She sat heavily, staring at her entwined fingers, then made herself look up at Charlotte.
How odd that Glasgow gossip had impacted her life to such an extent. First, rumors of Lennox’s wedding had resulted in her decision to marry another man. Now the wagging tongues of her fellow Glaswegians were determined to shame her for an impromptu gesture.
Still, of all her regrets, kissing Lennox was not one of them.
“Lennox and I are not lovers. I’m sorry your husband is upset, but I haven’t brought scandal to you. Or to myself, either. I would never have harmed you, Charlotte.”
She did wish the woman would at least loosen her bonnet ribbons. They looked too tight, almost strangling her.
“Then why is that Englishwoman saying all sorts of things about you and Lennox?” Charlotte asked, finally sitting.
She shook her head. This was delicate territory.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps grief has made her senseless.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “You know the woman as well as I do.”
“I’ve only been around her one time, at dinner.”
“I don’t know,” she said for a third time. “Why does anyone gossip or tell tales? Because her own life is disappointing? Because she’s jealous of something?”
“She said you and Lennox were naked in the garden.”
Her smile came easier now. “No, Lennox and I were never naked in the garden,” she said. “I don’t know why she would even say such a thing.”
“To think I might have contributed to such a scandal.”
Was Charlotte more concerned about the rumors or that she might be tied to them?
Thank heavens for her mother’s arrival, followed by Lily carrying a tray. In the last week Mabel had been baking every day. Their budget had been decimated but they’d had to have something to offer the scores of visitors. Now the tray was piled high with everything from scones to Scotch tablet to delicate slices of plum pudding, one of her mother’s favorites. Normally, it was made in the autumn, but because she liked it, Mabel kept a supply of it in the larder.
In addition there were two pots, one of coffee and one of tea, and three cups—which, thankfully, meant her mother planned to remain in the parlor.
No one had ever had such a loyal defender or probably deserved it less.
“I have been explaining to Glynis,” Charlotte said, speaking around a large helping of plum pudding, “that there is talk of her and Lennox.”
“Is there?” Eleanor said, as calm as if someone had commented on the weather. “How very odd.”
Glynis shared a glance with her mother, then looked away.
“They were seen together,” Charlotte said, leaning forward. She ignored another helping of the pudding for a biscuit. “Gamboling through the gardens at Hillshead.”
She’d never gamboled through anything in her life. She wasn’t sure how one gamboled. Did you have to kick up your heels? Lunge forward with a smile on your face? Leap every few feet or so?
She caught her mother’s look before she said anything and bit back her smile.
“Needless to say,” Charlotte said, “people are talking.”
“Needless,” her mother said, slicing a piece of chocolate cake for Charlotte.
“I came to warn Glynis.”
Or had she come to get the latest bit of gossip to spread through Archie’s chocolate shop? Was it known more for its confections or the tales its proprietors told?
“We appreciate your coming, Charlotte,” her mother said. “It’s the friendship of people like you that make the world a brighter place.”
Her mother could have been a diplomat herself. No one could tell, looking at her, that Eleanor had lied straight-faced. Charlotte lapped it up like a cat with a bowl full of cream.
“Of course, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t let her know people were speaking ill of her?”
Glynis pasted a Washington smile on her face and said, “Indeed.”
The single word meant nothing, really, but seemed to mollify Charlotte and reassure her mother she wasn’t about to say anything stupid.
She wanted to, however. She wanted to ask Charlotte, oh so nicely, why she listened to gossip at all? Why hadn’t she simply turned and demanded the speaker stop talking about her friend?
That comment would be too direct and almost condemnatory. No doubt Charlotte saw herself in the role of social doyenne. Glynis had had her fill of those women in Washington.
“I cannot imagine how tales like that get started,” her mother said. “Or how they continue. It’s like a west wind. Once it blows, it seems to carry on for days.”
Charlotte paid a great deal of attention to her cake.
“I think it’s because I’m rumored to be naked in the latest tale,” Glynis said.
Her mother’s eyes widened.
“It’s not enough that Lennox and I are supposed to be lovers, but I’m dancing through the garden without a stitch of clothes on.”
Too much white showed in her mother’s eyes. Charlotte had stopped eating, her fork in midair, her eyes nearly as wide as Eleanor’s.
“In none of the tales is Lennox naked. Why do you think that is?” She tapped her finger to her chin. “I would imagine that if I have to be naked, he should as well, don’t you think? Do you think he’s gamboling as well? Or is he leaping about like a goat?”
She smiled brightly and looked directly at Charlotte.
“I think it’s a good thing for the gossipmongers it wasn’t winter. If I were in the garden naked I would have frozen my arse off.”
“Glynis!” her mother said at the same time Charlotte gasped.
“Tell me, are there any rumors about Mr. Whittaker’s death?” she asked in the silence. “Or has anyone given any thought to the poor man?”
Charlotte stared at her.
Her mother seemed to have regained her equilibrium because she nodded and asked, “Yes, has anyone been arrested?”
LENNOX LEFT the yard early and headed for the MacIain home.
He could court Glynis in earnest but why waste time? He acted decisively when he knew what he wanted, and he wanted her.
He imagined the scene in his mind and had his answers ready to any of her objections.
We haven’t seen each other for seven years.
We’ve been friends for longer than that. Absence doesn’t erase those memories.
I’ve changed.
So have I. Yet we’ve remained the same people inside. What do circumstances matter, Glynis?
I love you.
There, that statement would silence her, wouldn’t it?
The moment I saw you standing in the ballroom at Hillshead, I knew why I didn’t marry Rose. Why I haven’t been interested in marrying anyone else. Why I found myself at your home for a chance mention of your name or a reading of your latest letter.
I love you, Glynis.
Be my wife and I’ll show you. You’ll never lack for anything. I’ll protect you. I’ll shelter you. Your family will be my family. I’ll support the mill until the bricks crumble. I’ll give you anything you want from anyplace in the world.
I’ll name all my ships for you.
I’ll hold you in my arms at night and know myself the most fortunate of men. I’ll bring you bliss, I promise.
I’ll protect you.
What would she say to that?
She’s always been in love with you, you know.
He hadn’t been able to forget Duncan’s words. Is that why she left for London, thinking he was going to wed Lidia? Is that why she’d kissed him when she was nineteen? Did she feel the same still? The next kiss they shared would be one he initiated.
Life was short, too short not to be surrounded by love, surfeited by it. Drunk in it. The brevity of life screamed for something to offset it: joy, laughter, the soul deep belonging of truly loving one particular person.
He’d wasted seven years of his life. He w
asn’t going to waste another day. If Glynis no longer loved him, he’d solve that somehow. And if she did, well, he wanted to know. He needed to hear it.
A carriage sat in front of the MacIain home. For a moment he wondered if it belonged to Baumann. If it did, he’d solve that situation today as well. No more mystery. No more secrets.
Today everything was going to change.
“MRS. MACIAIN, you’ve a visitor.” Lily said from the doorway.
Oh, heavens, another one? When would the women stop coming?
“Who is it, Lily?” her mother asked, her voice higher than normal.
Before Lily could answer, Lennox was inside the parlor. Lennox, her partner in this drama, the satyr to her nymph.
Her stomach dropped.
“Mrs. MacIain,” he said, greeting her mother. “Please forgive my intrusion, but I need to speak with Glynis.”
He turned to Charlotte, whose face was rapidly changing hue to match the blowsy crimson flowers on her bonnet.
“Mrs. MacNamara,” he said. “How nice to see you again.”
“Yes,” Charlotte replied, her voice icy.
“Could we go somewhere private?” he asked, turning to her.
Oh, this was horrible. Now Charlotte was going to spread the tale that Lennox called on her and the two of them had adjourned to a private place. What magnification could they invent? She could imagine.
I’m not saying she took off her clothes, mind, but why else would he ask to speak to her privately? When I knew Glynis, she was a God-fearing girl. All that travel changed her to a woman of sin.
She wanted to kick something. She was sick of it all, sick of gossip, sick of people expecting her to be proper and perfect, sick of the look of veiled superiority on Charlotte’s face, sick of being afraid, sick of herself.
If they were going to talk about her, she might as well give them something to talk about.
She stood and walked toward Lennox, a bright smile on her face.
“Let’s go somewhere we can be alone. Maybe to the garden,” she said, stretching out her arms as if to embrace him. “It’s such a lovely warm day. I won’t get a chill when I remove all my clothes.”
She ignored his frown, Charlotte’s gasp, and her mother’s moan, leaving the room with her head held high.
Chapter 25
“What was that all about?” Lennox asked, following Glynis out of the parlor.
Instead of the garden, she led Lennox to her father’s library.
The room was rarely used even five years after her father’s death. Duncan preferred to work in the small parlor rather than here. Yet Lily kept the space perfectly dusted and aired, as if Hamish might walk in any minute, take up his seat in the tufted leather chair, and begin writing at the mahogany desk.
Two bookcases, each filled with her father’s favorite books, faced the desk and were framed by twin windows looking out toward the side of the house. There, a flower garden carefully tended by her mother provided a lovely view.
If people were kept alive by speaking of them or thinking of them, her father had been immortalized in this library.
She closed the door and faced him.
“I can’t tolerate any more of it, Lennox. Every busybody in Glasgow is saying how I’ve ruined myself cavorting with you.”
“Do you cavort a lot?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.
She sighed. “I don’t cavort at all. I’m as proper as a nun. Why everyone has to ascribe certain behavior to me, I’ve no idea.”
“Maybe they remember you as you were, not as you are.”
“Oh, but I’d much rather be the person I was than the person I’ve become.”
She stopped, surprised not only by the admission but that she’d made it so freely to Lennox.
“What made you think I was going to marry Lidia Bobrova?”
Another surprise, that the past was suddenly there in the room with them.
“Is that why you married Smythe?”
He took a step toward her, then another. She should have stepped back. She should have put up her hand to stop him from coming too close, but she did neither.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, his breath on her forehead.
She certainly should have protested when he extended his arms around her waist and gently drew her toward him. Instead, she placed her hands on his chest and stared straight ahead.
“What was I supposed to say?”
“You could have asked.”
She shook her head. The child she’d been wasn’t brave enough. Asking that kind of question would have revealed a heart ready to break.
How did she tell him that?
In the space of those silent moments she realized something elemental. She was no longer a desperate girl-child. He was no longer her god. They were equals now, the years apart easing their differences, giving her experience. She was at least as well traveled and knowledgeable about the world and the people in it.
She looked up at him. Would she ever get used to the sight of him? He was so handsome he took her breath away. Sometimes she wanted to force him to remain motionless so she could study what it was, exactly, that made him so different from other men.
Even after seven years he still had the capacity to make her heart stutter.
She stepped back and his arms dropped. Turning, she walked to the other side of the room and sat in the lone chair beside the fireplace, leaving Lennox to either sit at her father’s desk or remain standing.
Because of her hoop she had to perch on the edge of the chair and sink down into the mound of fabric that was her skirt.
He leaned back against her father’s desk, crossed one leg over the other and smiled at her. The way he stood there perfectly at ease would make the unaware think he was relaxed. A muscle flexed in his cheek, however, and his eyes were intent.
“I have a proposition to offer you,” he said.
There was no reason for her stomach to clench. Her heart started beating even faster.
“I’ll give you all the money you want for the mill if you’ll marry me.”
Stunned, she stared at him.
At the moment, however, she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not one word, witty or otherwise, came to mind.
“I’ve marshaled my arguments. Would you like to hear them?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
He grinned at her. “You can just agree to marry me.”
“Tell me,” she said, looking away.
If she didn’t see him, she wouldn’t feel so . . . Her thoughts trailed away. Womanly. That was the word, and it startled her, not because it was wrong but because it was so right.
Lennox always made her conscious of being female to his male.
Suddenly he was in front of her, reaching down with both hands on her waist, picking her up and sitting again with her on his lap.
Her hoop bent up toward the ceiling, revealing her undergarments. She slapped her hands down on her skirt and made a squealing sound. Not a sophisticated woman of the world sound but one more like the girl she’d been.
He laughed, which made her frown, then crushed her skirt and the wayward hoop with one hand.
“First,” he said, as if she hadn’t just shown him her lace pantaloons, “there’s the mill. Being married to me would allow Duncan to take a loan or a gift, help him make his payroll, and keep the mill from shutting down. I’d be family and he would have to accept help.”
She was still thinking about the fact he’d seen her undergarments, but she nodded.
“Secondly, there’s my marital status. People are hinting it’s time for me to wed. With the increase in our business, I don’t have time to go looking for a bride. I know you. You know me. Marrying you would be a relief. Look at all the time I’ll spare myself having to meet someone, establish any kind of relationship, get to know their parents, their family, and finally wed. A good two years.”
A relief? Marrying her would be a relief? She stared at him, pus
hing away the impulse to put her palm against his cheek, even now showing a hint of beard.
She had to stop wanting to touch him constantly. Or noticing he smelled of the sea and of wood, as if sawdust clung to him.
“So marrying me would prevent you from being a spinster?”
His smile broadened.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Third point,” he said. “There’s your reputation. Our reputation,” he corrected. “All of Glasgow believes you’re my mistress, so why not marry?”
Mistress? She’d gone from gamboling in the garden to becoming his mistress? Lucy Whittaker had been busy.
“I never thought you the sacrificial lamb, Lennox.”
“While I always thought you obstinate,” he said, a small smile curving his lips.
She probably should have taken umbrage at that remark, but it was too close to the truth. She looked away.
“There’s another matter,” he said, his smile vanishing. “As my wife, you would be safe from Matthew Baumann.”
She froze, her gaze on the fireplace. She bit her lip and told herself to keep breathing. Finally, she gathered up her courage and looked at him, though she found it difficult.
“There’s something between the two of you, Glynis. Do you deny it?”
How did he know? Her mind flew from one idea to another, coming to rest on the thought that he was guessing.
She should tell him. Right now, before any more time passed, she should tell him about Washington. If she did, he would withdraw his offer. He would smile that cool, polite smile of his, as practiced as any politician, and excuse himself.
“I could always leave Glasgow again,” she said. “That way, no one would talk about me. Or, if they did, I wouldn’t have to hear it.”
“You could try.”
He sounded perfectly affable and he looked calm if you ignored the glint in his eye.
“What does that mean?”
“I would come after you. I would hunt you down to the ends of the earth, Glynis.”
“Are you that desperate for a bride?”
His lips quirked. “I am.”
She would have pulled free if he’d let her. Her hoop, however, decided to slip free of his restraint and pop loose again, pointing at the ceiling.
He laughed again, a sound transporting her to the past when she’d tried to amuse him. She wasn’t trying at the moment.