In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams (36 page)

She stood and went to stand at one of the windows heavily draped in emerald velvet. How could Charlotte bear this suffocating green? She stared out at the front of the house, at the carriages and their inhabitants all with a destination in mind: a shop, a workplace, to call on friends. Did they ever think of what was happening in the houses they passed?

“I didn’t like Richard,” she said, a confession she’d never before made to anyone. How strange the first time should be to Lennox. “Originally, I tolerated him well enough and I tried to do everything he wanted.”

She glanced back at Lennox, unsurprised to see his face still, his eyes shuttered. A stone rendition of Lennox, almost as daunting as Lennox angry.

“I endured our posting to Cairo as well as I could,” she said.

Endured,
what a strange word for the hell of it. The whole year had been one of lessons, more lessons, and endless criticism coupled with being miserably homesick and then ill for weeks with the flu.

“After a year Richard was posted to Washington, a step up from Cairo but not as elevated as Russia or Spain. But he saw it as his career advancing.”

She’d only thought she was traveling farther and farther away from Scotland.

She fingered the drapes, remembering the hope she felt when first arriving in Washington. Maybe her marriage would get easier to tolerate. Maybe she would make friendships, become less heartsick.

The only good thing about Washington was Richard’s absence from her bed.

“Richard began spending hours away from home.”

She turned and faced him. The time for avoidance and prevarication had passed.

“I wasn’t disturbed by that. I should have been, perhaps, but the less I saw of him, the better.”

Was Charlotte listening? Was she going to spread the tale about her to the whole of Glasgow? Probably. How odd that it only mattered to her for Lennox’s sake, and her family’s. She no longer cared. She’d rather stand in the light of truth and be mocked than hide in the shadows clutching a lie.

“But something that had happened in Cairo began to concern me. We went through servants in a record pace. The only ones we seemed to keep were very young girls, hardly old enough to be working. One of them came to me just before we left and told me a tale. One of my husband coming into her room late one night and threatening to dismiss her if she cried out. He raped her.”

She took another deep breath. “I opted not to believe her rather than think Richard capable of such an act. But in Washington, the same thing began to happen. The older servants were let go, leaving only girls barely out of the nursery. I questioned one of the girls we employed.”

She remembered every second of the interview and each detail the poor girl recounted of the abuse suffered at Richard’s hands.

“I went to Richard. He accused me of being provincial. He told me men had interests and I wasn’t to interfere with them. I had to be less of a Scot and more sophisticated.”

Lennox didn’t say a word, but his eyes were steady on her.

“I threatened to tell his superiors about Cairo along with what I’d just learned. That was the day my marriage truly died.”

“Where does Baumann fit into all of this?” he asked, his voice sounding like gravel.

“Richard stopped abusing the servants,” she said. “I dismissed all the younger girls and only kept mature servants. But I knew him. What’s the saying? A leopard doesn’t change his spots? Therefore, Matthew Baumann.”

She came and sat opposite him.

He occupied the corner of the settee like a pasha on a throne, his knees wide, feet planted firmly on the ghastly green carpet.

He didn’t say a word, however, and she’d never possessed the ability to read minds, even his.

The seconds ticked by and she measured each with a heartbeat.

She struggled with how to explain, stumbling over words in her head, hesitating over the right choice, considering what he would think. Disgusted with herself for burrowing into language rather than the truth, she fixed her gaze on him and didn’t look away.

“Baumann had a reputation in Washington for being a man who could get things done. I didn’t know, at the time, he worked for the War Department. I only knew he could find out what I needed to know. I wanted to know what Richard was doing.”

“Whether or not he was unfaithful?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t care. I just wondered if he was abusing some poor child.”

“Was he?”

She nodded. “He was frequenting a place, a brothel, for lack of a better word. They satisfied his craving for younger and younger girls, sometimes taking them off the street and then giving them a few coins the next day. He liked virgins, I understand. He especially liked raping them.”

Nausea coiled in her stomach like a snake.

“Baumann found this out for you?”

Once again she nodded.

“What did he demand in return?”

How intelligent he was.

“He insisted I work for him. At first, all he wanted were the names of women who’d attended a tea. Then what they’d talked about. I’ve always been good at numbers and details, and it was nothing for me to memorize what I saw and heard.”

“You spied for him.”

“Yes,” she said. “I spied for him.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “I told him information I learned at suppers, teas, balls, all the endless social engagements I was expected to attend.”

She stood once more, restless. Returning to the window, she saw a bird flying overhead. In Washington, she used to watch as they flew south, wondering if they carried the souls of the war dead aloft, transporting them to their homes.

Tension knotted her shoulders and tightened her throat, but she forced herself to continue.

“When the casualty reports began to come in, I realized some of the information I’d provided had probably led to those deaths. I told Baumann I wouldn’t work for him anymore.”

She glanced over at Lennox to find his gaze hadn’t left her.

“He blackmailed you?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t surprised he figured that out. “He threatened to tell the British Legation that the wife of their attaché was a Union spy. We would have been sent home in disgrace.”

“But Richard was killed,” he said. “A stroke of good luck.”

Was she going to be speared by a lightning bolt for being glad of a man’s death?

“After he died, Baumann had no hold over you.”

“None.”

“Until he came to Scotland.”

She nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

She came back to the settee. “Because I had been responsible for men dying. Because I’d done things that shame me even now. Because your opinion has always mattered to me. Because I wanted to forget everything about Washington. I still feel sick and dirty about it.”

“So you carried the secret around all this time?”

His voice was so tender she wanted to weep, but tears wouldn’t wipe away the guilt or the shame.

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said, focusing her attention on her hands instead of him. “I didn’t want you to think badly of me.”

“Didn’t you realize I never could?”

When she finally looked up, his eyes were so heated she felt scorched.

He stood, extending his hand. She joined him, placing her hand on his arm, and they walked to the door. When he opened it, Charlotte was there, so obviously in the act of listening that Glynis almost smiled.

Part of her plan was working.

Charlotte glanced at Lennox, her hands fluttering in the air.

“Well, then, that’s all settled, is it?”

Lennox didn’t bother to answer. Neither did she.

Was Charlotte disappointed she and Lennox hadn’t come to blows?

She smiled at her onetime friend and knew Charlotte would always belong in the past. Whatever relationship they’d had was buried beneath gossip and perhaps a type of meanness she’d never suspected of the other woman.

“Will you be all right going back to the house by yourself?” Lennox asked.

“You’re not coming home?” she asked, surprised.

He shook his head. “No, I’ve something to attend to.”

Or did he just not want to be with her? She was suddenly flooded with misgivings. Had he meant what he said? Or was he finding it difficult to forgive her?

She didn’t feel lighter for telling him the truth. Her conscience wasn’t suddenly wiped clean. As the years passed, she’d have to come to grips with what she’d done.

She wasn’t fool enough to think she was solely responsible for the casualties of war. Yet wasn’t each death the result of a long chain of actions? One person after another added his contribution until the finale—a battle won, a city taken, a blockade established. She, too, had contributed her part.

She’d acted like a MacIain loom, placing a thread in the right spot, adjusting another, repeating the process over and over until cloth was produced. The cloth, in this case, being information pieced together from various sources.

Had women been used in other wars? She didn’t know, but human nature being what it was, they probably were. This war, however, seemed like a giant spider with a web spreading far beyond America.

She’d thought to come home, to breathe the clean air of Scotland and be away from the stench of war. Instead, it had followed her here in the person of Matthew Baumann and Gavin Whittaker. It had touched her life by starving the mill of raw product, making a titan of Lennox, and spreading the reputation of Cameron and Company throughout the world.

Now it had possibly ruined her marriage.

They left Charlotte’s home in silence and walked to the carriage.

“Why didn’t you invite Baumann to Hillshead?”

She smiled. “I could imagine your reaction if I’d done that.”

He only nodded. “But why Charlotte?”

“She gossips.”

He frowned. “And you want her to gossip about you?”

“I want her to gossip about Baumann. The more talk, the better. He operates in secrecy, in fear. The more people know who and what he is, the less power he’ll have. He needs to leave Glasgow.”

“I don’t object to that, but what of your own reputation, Glynis? Charlotte doesn’t discriminate in her rumormongering. We both know that.”

“I doubt my reputation can be any more sullied than it is, Lennox. I don’t want the gossip to hurt you, though. Let’s hope people just pity you for your choice of wife.”

She entered the carriage and looked back at him. For a moment the world dropped away and it was only her and Lennox. A dozen vignettes flowed into her mind, scenes of her childhood, memories of when she was on the cusp of womanhood.

Seeing Lennox would brighten her day. Talking with him would leave her cheeks pink and her heart fluttery. Just being around him had the power to change her mood to something light and joyous. He’d never stopped having that effect on her.

The time had passed for words and explanations. He would take what she’d told him and make a decision on his own. Their future wouldn’t be decided today or tomorrow or even a week from now. But what she’d said—and what she’d done—would be part of the foundation of their marriage.

She felt as if all of her emotions had been tossed to the ground, pavement for the boots of others.

He stepped away and the carriage began to move. She watched him until she couldn’t see him any longer.

Only then did she close her eyes, sit back, and try not to cry.

H
e wasn’t a violent man, but ever since Lennox had learned the truth, he’d entertained thoughts of dismembering Matthew Baumann limb by limb. His ancestors had come from the Highlands. The blood coursing through his veins meant he was a Scot: capable of great pride, prowess in battle, and the ability to cling tightly to that which was precious.

The idea of Glynis being alone in Washington, at the mercy of a husband who cared nothing for her, was not one he easily tolerated. She’d been helpless and desperate, and Baumann had taken advantage of her.

Since she’d been gone, he had tried, very hard, not to think of her at all. But there were times when he was catapulted back into the past by something Duncan said or the sound of female laughter. Instantly the sprite who was Glynis danced through his memory.

Fate, that fickle bastard, had changed the course of his life, bringing her back to him. Now she was his wife. He was damned if he was going to allow Matthew Baumann to hurt her again.

He went to the address Charlotte had given him. The lodgings were run by a very pleasant woman who informed him that Mr. Baumann was not currently home. Did he wish to wait? He did. An hour and a half later he realized that Baumann had probably recognized his carriage and wouldn’t return until he left.

He thanked the landlady for her hospitality, the jot of whiskey she’d offered, and her plate of scones, and made his way back to the yard.

There was more than one way to capture a skunk.