through the trees, the branches clicking like a convocation of gossips.
Already a few lights had been lit, a sign this was not the proper hour for calling on anyone, let alone a woman on a man, even if she was a proper widow and Lennox was an old friend.
Should she simply wait until morning?
No, she might lose her courage by then. Better if she went and explained the whole sorry mess to Lennox so he understood. If there was any groveling that needed to be done, she’d do it. Hadn’t she done even worse things in Washington?
The house was an open box with the back of Hillsheadshielding the three gardens. On the third floor the terrace outside the ballroom ran the width of the building. On either end of the terrace, steps curved down and around to the Italian gardens filled with fountains, gravel paths, and marble statuary.
Instead of going to the front, which she might have if the hour had been decent and this errand anything but surreptitious, she headed toward Hillshead’s back door. She’d come here often enough as a girl, either following Duncan, to his disgust, or acting as her brother’s messenger.
Was the cook the same? She’d been a lovely woman with graying hair and a well-lined face, but she had a contagious smile that made Glynis smile as well. Whenever she came to Hillshead, the woman had always offered her a selection of pastries. Sometimes she’d eaten her fill and sometimes she wrapped a few into her handkerchief and tucked them into her pocket, a present to Duncan for sending her to Hillshead.
The last rays of sunlight danced on the lush plants of the kitchen garden. The onions and peppers, lettuce and cabbages, grew so thick the tilled earth could no longer be seen. In a separate bed, herbs waved merrily in the breeze, fronds of mint and rosemary perfuming the air.
The ghost of the girl she’d been walked alongside, her face sunnied with a bright smile, her eyes sparkling with anticipation about seeing Lennox.
Had she always been a fool about him?
Yes.
The stark answer stopped her on the path.
This errand was too important to be rashly contemplated. She should take her time, marshal her arguments, perhaps even prepare a balance sheet for Lennox to peruse.
She would call on him at the yard. She’d dress in herbest black dress with white cuffs and collar, with an attractive bonnet framing her face. She wouldn’t appear before him with stickers adhering to the bottom of her skirt and the wind pulling her hair loose from its proper bun.
That was the best thing to do. She wouldn’t go to him like a supplicant but an equal, a woman of the world. Her entreaty would be a businesslike matter, not a personal one.
The urge to come to him had been so basic she’d been impulsive again. The Glynis of her girlhood had simply come to Hillshead as she had so many times before.
A rough-hewn bench sat in front of the gardener’s cottage. To her right the path branched in three directions. One led to the kitchen garden she’d already passed. The second went to Hillshead’s flower garden. A third headed toward the formal Italian garden with its fountains and statuary. To her left was Glasgow itself, the house’s elevation revealing a panoramic view of the city and the River Clyde.
She walked to the bench, her shoes crunching on the shells. She sat, contemplating the sight of the city and the river. Her fingers trailed over the knurled wood of the bench. Here was something that hadn’t changed.
She tucked her feet beneath her skirts and remembered.
“I want to make the greatest ships on the ocean,” Lennox once said as he sat here, holding her eleven-year-old self captive with his plans. “Ships people will recognize just by looking at them. They’ll say, ‘Lennox Cameron designed her and it was built at Cameron and Company.’”
She’d listened, enthralled, as he mapped out his future. To the best of her knowledge, he made each one of his dreams come true.
When he was seventeen he
Already a few lights had been lit, a sign this was not the proper hour for calling on anyone, let alone a woman on a man, even if she was a proper widow and Lennox was an old friend.
Should she simply wait until morning?
No, she might lose her courage by then. Better if she went and explained the whole sorry mess to Lennox so he understood. If there was any groveling that needed to be done, she’d do it. Hadn’t she done even worse things in Washington?
The house was an open box with the back of Hillsheadshielding the three gardens. On the third floor the terrace outside the ballroom ran the width of the building. On either end of the terrace, steps curved down and around to the Italian gardens filled with fountains, gravel paths, and marble statuary.
Instead of going to the front, which she might have if the hour had been decent and this errand anything but surreptitious, she headed toward Hillshead’s back door. She’d come here often enough as a girl, either following Duncan, to his disgust, or acting as her brother’s messenger.
Was the cook the same? She’d been a lovely woman with graying hair and a well-lined face, but she had a contagious smile that made Glynis smile as well. Whenever she came to Hillshead, the woman had always offered her a selection of pastries. Sometimes she’d eaten her fill and sometimes she wrapped a few into her handkerchief and tucked them into her pocket, a present to Duncan for sending her to Hillshead.
The last rays of sunlight danced on the lush plants of the kitchen garden. The onions and peppers, lettuce and cabbages, grew so thick the tilled earth could no longer be seen. In a separate bed, herbs waved merrily in the breeze, fronds of mint and rosemary perfuming the air.
The ghost of the girl she’d been walked alongside, her face sunnied with a bright smile, her eyes sparkling with anticipation about seeing Lennox.
Had she always been a fool about him?
Yes.
The stark answer stopped her on the path.
This errand was too important to be rashly contemplated. She should take her time, marshal her arguments, perhaps even prepare a balance sheet for Lennox to peruse.
She would call on him at the yard. She’d dress in herbest black dress with white cuffs and collar, with an attractive bonnet framing her face. She wouldn’t appear before him with stickers adhering to the bottom of her skirt and the wind pulling her hair loose from its proper bun.
That was the best thing to do. She wouldn’t go to him like a supplicant but an equal, a woman of the world. Her entreaty would be a businesslike matter, not a personal one.
The urge to come to him had been so basic she’d been impulsive again. The Glynis of her girlhood had simply come to Hillshead as she had so many times before.
A rough-hewn bench sat in front of the gardener’s cottage. To her right the path branched in three directions. One led to the kitchen garden she’d already passed. The second went to Hillshead’s flower garden. A third headed toward the formal Italian garden with its fountains and statuary. To her left was Glasgow itself, the house’s elevation revealing a panoramic view of the city and the River Clyde.
She walked to the bench, her shoes crunching on the shells. She sat, contemplating the sight of the city and the river. Her fingers trailed over the knurled wood of the bench. Here was something that hadn’t changed.
She tucked her feet beneath her skirts and remembered.
“I want to make the greatest ships on the ocean,” Lennox once said as he sat here, holding her eleven-year-old self captive with his plans. “Ships people will recognize just by looking at them. They’ll say, ‘Lennox Cameron designed her and it was built at Cameron and Company.’”
She’d listened, enthralled, as he mapped out his future. To the best of her knowledge, he made each one of his dreams come true.
When he was seventeen he
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