In Your Wildest Scottish Dreams by Karen Ranney

positions or their prestige sometimes made them act as if they were elevated above the common man. The diplomatic service seemed to attract people like that, individuals who were adept at false smiles and parroted phrases.
    Gradually, she’d become expert at both herself, becoming a product of the very society she’d once viewed with awe and later grew to loathe.
    In Scotland, people spoke their minds, not what they thought someone wanted to hear. They said what was in their hearts whether wise or not. She craved the bluntness of Scottish speech and the unfettered thoughts of her fellow Scots. She wanted honesty, not fawning duplicity.
    Scotland had been like a beacon for her. All she had to do, she’d told herself, was endure, and she’d return to Scotland one day.
    With Richard’s death the diplomatic service lost its power over her. She was neither the attaché’s wife nor a member of the legation, but a private citizen. No one insisted she be discreet, demure, and ceaselessly polite.
    Now she was plain Mrs. Richard Smythe of Glasgow, Scotland. A woman who’d met the important people in the world at one time but who now chose to live quietly and without attention.
    Her mother stared down into the cup, cleared her throat, then looked at her. A sure sign that she hadsomething of importance to discuss and was trying to find the way to broach it.
    She finished her tea, placed the cup beside her book and sat back. Had she done something wrong? For the last week she’d been a hermit in their home. She hadn’t gone out, even to shop. She hadn’t seen anyone. Although she’d received an invitation to dinner from Charlotte, she hadn’t yet answered it, unsure whether or not to attend.
    The diplomatic service would invariably come up as a topic of conversation, and she didn’t want to talk about America or Richard or Egypt. But short of those subjects, what did she have to say? Almost nothing, and wasn’t that a pitiful admission?
    She had no children, no hobbies, and no talent other than her affinity for numbers and details.
    Figures made sense to her. She’d tried to explain it to Duncan once. Numbers sang to her, almost like music. She could see where someone had made a mistake or where sums didn’t add up. She kept her own household books in Washington, practicing economies to stretch Richard’s salary.
    Her mother bit her lip, glanced at her and then away.
    She waited, knowing that no amount of urging would make Eleanor speak faster. For everything there is a season, her father would often say. Sometimes he made the remark while waiting for his wife to speak.
    “I’ve told Lennox I would do something and I need your help,” her mother finally said.
    “What have you agreed to do?” she asked, folding her hands and willing her heartbeat to slow. Would she always be affected like this? All she had to do was hear his name and her pulse raced.
    Once, at a Washington dinner party, the discussion had centered around the newly instigated blockade of southern ports. Evidently, some politicians had discoveredthat Scottish shipbuilding enterprises were aiding the southerners. A threat had been lobbed that if England didn’t stay out of the Civil War, the Americans would retaliate by invading Canada.
    She hadn’t been surprised at the volatile nature of the comments: it was war, and everyone’s emotions were heightened. She hadn’t been surprised, either, at Richard’s sanguine response.
    Nothing ever ruffled Richard.
    She wished she could have said the same, especially when talk turned to particular shipbuilders thought to be aiding the Confederacy. Cameron and Company was mentioned along with several other firms on the Clyde.
    She’d kept still, waiting for someone to say something more. She wanted to hear about Lennox. The discussion had veered to another topic, but that one hint of him was enough to make her ache for weeks.
    No, she was not nineteen any longer. Not a foolish girl so in love she’d dared