In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (18 page)

She laughed mirthlessly. “Is that what you tell yourself, Baumann? Do you believe it? If so, you’re a fool. I had to keep providing you information or you threatened to tell the British Legation why I’d come to you in the first place.”

“Were you afraid of being sent back home in disgrace? Your husband should have been, Glynis, you know that as well as I.”

“I have no intention of talking to you anymore, Baumann,” she said, stepping back.

He slapped his hand against the door when she would have closed it in his face.

“I need information about Cameron and Company.”

She looked at him, feigning a calm she didn’t feel.

“And you think I’ll assist you?”

“I graduated from West Point, Glynis. Have you heard of it?” When she shook her head, he continued.
“It’s a university for the military. I expected to get my own regiment and prepared to go to war. Instead, my superiors sent me to Washington, for a different kind of war.”

“Are there different kinds of war?”

That comment garnered a laugh from him. “You should know more than most women,” he said. “There is the war of ideas, of the need to keep a country together. There’s the subterranean war, with one side trying to figure out what the other is doing before it’s done.”

“So you’re here involved in a subterranean war,” she said. “Trying to figure out what the Confederacy is doing?”

“I know what the Confederacy is doing, Glynis. I know what Cameron and Company is doing as well. My brother is a ship’s captain, Glynis. Cameron is providing ships to the Confederacy, putting him and others in the Union in jeopardy. Extending the war, too.”

She studied him, limned by the morning sun. Why did he explain himself? Did he think she cared? He’d never before tried to justify his actions and it was too late now. She knew him too well. He charmed when he wished but he threatened when it served him. He was not unlike a spider, patiently waiting for something to fall into his web.

“There are a great many people who believe in your cause in Scotland, Baumann,” she said. “Just as there are many who believe in the cause of the Confederacy.”

“You don’t need to help me. Unless, of course, you want your friends and family to know you helped me in Washington. What would that make you, Glynis? Oh, yes, a spy. Just imagine their reaction.”

She didn’t have to imagine. She knew. Duncan would look at her as if she’d grown another pair of
arms. Her mother would find some way to justify Glynis’s actions but her eyes would be filled with disappointment. And Lennox? She couldn’t bear to think what Lennox would say.

“What do you want to know?”

He extracted a piece of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to her.

“My address,” he said. “I want to know everything you can discover about the newest ship in their yard. The
Raven.
They’re due to turn it over to the Confederates soon.”

Her affinity for numbers had served her well in Washington. She remembered details easily, especially measurements.

Did he plan on sabotage? She suspected he did, because his next question had to do with security for the ship. How many watchmen were assigned? Where were their posts?

He bent close to her, much too close for propriety’s sake.

“Oh,” he said softly. “You’re wearing the perfume I love. It smells so much of you, Glynis. Earthy and mysterious all at once.”

She held herself still, the practice of the last seven years coming to her aid.

“Step away, Baumann,” she said.

To her surprise, he did as she asked.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“But you must. We have a bargain, you and I.”

“And what’s my part in this bargain?”

“Peace,” he said instantly. “Once my duty here is done, I’ll leave Scotland, or at least Glasgow. I shan’t see you again, my dear.”

She didn’t believe him. He’d said similar things to her before, words designed to assuage her anxiety, but he’d always reappeared.

Wasn’t there a saying about supping with the devil? You needed a long spoon. Whatever he said, or how charmingly he said it, she couldn’t afford to believe him.

If she gave in this last time, the ramifications would be more disastrous than any information she’d passed him in Washington.

She couldn’t allow him to hurt Lennox.

She tucked the paper into her pocket and said, “I’ll do what I can. Give me some time.”

His mouth thinned; his face fell into stern lines. “That’s the only thing I don’t have. I need the information within the next day or two.”

Then she would have to act quickly. She nodded, forcing a smile to her lips.

A carriage slowed in front of the house. She knew that carriage with its anchor lights and ebony finish.

She stared back at Lennox as he looked at her from the carriage window, his face revealing nothing.

The seconds stretched thin. Her stomach felt hollow, the moment important and desperate.

She expected him to drive away, but to her surprise he left the carriage, stalking toward her with his expression giving no doubt of his feelings.

Lennox was enraged.

“I would leave if I were you,” she said to Baumann, still looking at Lennox.

Baumann didn’t look the least distressed, which was only one sign of his foolishness. The other was to turn and smile at Lennox.

She could have predicted what happened next.

Lennox grabbed Baumann by his jacket and hauled the surprised man up against one of the pillars.

She always thought of Baumann as a large man, but next to Lennox he was almost diminutive.

“What the hell are you doing here, Baumann?” he
asked, his words as calm and measured as a parlor meeting.

Baumann was evidently beginning to realize the depth of his danger because his eyes widened.

“Let me go, Cameron.”

“Not until you tell me why you’re here. Why you’re bothering Glynis.”

“I’m an old acquaintance.”

Lennox glanced over at her. “Did you invite him?”

She shook her head.

“Do you want him to remain?”

“Not particularly, but do let the man go, Lennox. I don’t need you to pummel him for me.”

Baumann’s eyes widened even more. Good, it was about time the man experienced a little discomfort. She almost wanted to beg Lennox to hit him once or twice.

He let go of Baumann enough so the other man slid down the pillar slightly, then managed to straighten his jacket and his dignity.

“What are you doing here?” Lennox demanded.

“None of your concern,” Baumann said.

Lennox turned and looked at her.

She only shook her head. If he expected more from her, she couldn’t give it.

“I think both of you should leave,” she said.

“As you wish.” Lennox’s tone was clipped and there was an expression in his eyes she couldn’t read.

Baumann left first, both of them watching as he followed the path to his carriage. He didn’t look back, didn’t give her any further instructions, but she knew he expected her to fulfill his request. Otherwise, the whole of Glasgow would know about Washington.

The words almost tumbled from her lips in the moments she and Lennox were alone. The confession, however, would damn her in his eyes. He wouldn’t
understand. How could anyone? Or he would understand and despise her for her actions. In seconds he was gone, leaving her to stare at his departing carriage.

She shouldn’t have come home, but it had been too difficult to stay away. She could always leave Glasgow, but how did she leave herself?

L
ucy sat at her vanity and stared at her pale face. In days, only days, she’d be expected to get on that horrid ship and sail halfway across the world.

A wife must go where her husband goes and do so without a word of complaint. Never mind everything she cherished would be left behind. Her own mother had traveled from Cornwall to reside in London, but it wasn’t the same, was it? She had been transplanted from London and forced to spend months in this ghastly country.

Gavin would take possession of the
Raven
in days. He couldn’t stop talking about that idiotic ship. Her speed . . . her ballast . . . her depth . . . her hold—he talked as if it were alive.

“Ships are female,” he said, when she’d asked why he always referred to the
Raven
as a
she
.

He’d come too close, nuzzling her ear and disturbing her arranged hair. She had no maid and she’d wanted one.
When we finally settle in America,
Gavin said. Just one more disappointment she suffered in a dissatisfying marriage.

Gavin’s blond attractiveness was pleasant and his voice wasn’t as grating on her as a Scottish accent. When she first married him she’d been happy, especially since it was all too evident he worshipped her.

Who else could have charmed her parents into allowing
them to marry so quickly? Her mother had adored him. Her father had respected him.

She’d never considered Gavin could love her too much. He always wanted to touch her. Each night when she retired, he forced her to tell him she was indisposed, or he would have been endlessly cuddling up to her.

Gavin was as licentious as Lennox Cameron.

In the future, should anyone mention Cameron and Company to her, she would tell them her husband had gone on and on about the quality of the ships they built but she was unimpressed with the character of the company’s owner. Lennox Cameron, to her disappointment, had proven himself to be a man of no morals. He had been almost as satyrlike as her own husband. Imagine, groping a woman in a garden where anyone could see them.

Glynis Smythe was no paragon of virtue, either. She had acquiesced without a protest. In fact, from where she stood, Glynis might have even initiated the kiss.

The people of Glasgow should know about their leading citizens.

Only a few more days and she would be quit of Scotland forever. She would never find another reason to come back to this barbaric place.

She had no knowledge of Nassau, and whenever she asked Gavin, he only told her not to worry—he was sure she’d love it.

While she was very certain she wouldn’t.

O
NCE HE
made it to the yard, Lennox sent Tim to his physician with a request to call on Garrison.

He entered his office, greeting the draftsmen already perched on their stools. One by one he inspected the newest changes to the ship still in the idea stage, answered questions, and praised the efforts of one
young man, barely seventeen and new to Cameron and Company.

Allan had been the brunt of jokes ever since being hired a month ago, but he’d gradually stopped blushing and started responding in kind.

Gavin Whittaker was seated at Lennox’s desk in the corner. When he approached, the man stood, looking up from the plans.

“I’m damn sorry I won’t be here to see you build this ship,” he said.

Although he acted like a dilettante with his walking stick and his drawl, Gavin was at his core a seafaring man. He knew ships.

“Will it be the equal of the
Raven
?” Lennox asked, waving the man back to his chair while he took the one beside the desk.

“Nothing will ever equal the
Raven,
” Gavin said with the pride of a captain soon to take possession of a Cameron and Company ship.

For a few moments they discussed the plans spread out on the desk. Lennox took note of Gavin’s comments on the slope of the deck and the placement of the forecastle.

He had orders for two more blockade runners, vessels that would not only outrun the Union ships but carry eighteen hundred bales of cotton on the outbound journey. Inbound? He could just imagine the cargo the
Raven
could carry. Ammunition and guns, foodstuffs, and all the other necessities of life becoming scarce in the South.

He moved to stand at the window, staring down at the
Raven.
She’d passed her sea trials with no corrections or reservations. The boilers and side wheels had been inspected and the vessel’s seaworthiness wasn’t in doubt.

Tomorrow he would turn over the ship to Gavin.
In a few days he’d watch as Gavin piloted the
Raven
down the Clyde and out to sea. He’d be relieved to say good-bye to Lucy Whittaker but couldn’t say the same about Gavin.

There had been too many deaths along the Clyde in the last six months. Even the smaller shipbuilders were feeling the tension, as if the Americans were fighting their war up and down the river.

A Union colonel, ostensibly employed by a company in London, had been killed a week ago, the news relayed to him a few days earlier. Evidently, the victim had fallen from a ship, struck his head and drowned. The fact no one had seen the accident was suspicious. Nor was the man supposed to have been aboard the
Mary Anne
.