Marblestone Mansion 01 - Scandalous Duchess

not miss!” Alistair warned. He dusted off his hands, followed Prescot back inside, and intentionally slammed the door.
    The ruckus caused all of the servants to rush into the dining room, just as Hannish wrapped his arms around his trembling sister. “I dinna mean to frighten you so.”
    “ He threw Charles Whitfield out,” Keith explained to calm the others.
    “ Are you hurt, Miss McKenna?” Sassy asked, walking around Hannish to see for herself.
    “ Nay, I am fine Sassy.” She took a deep breath, kissed her brother’s cheek, and smiled to reassure him. “I had forgotten you’ve a temper when you feel the need to protect me.”
    “ I had almost forgotten myself.” He took her back to the table and seated her.
    Keith turned the knocked over clock upright on the sideboard and straightened the rumpled table scarf. His nerves were not in much better shape than McKenna’s. He had seen the MacGreagor temper once before, and wasn’t sure Charles would live through it.
    “ He’ll not be back,” Prescot said, walking back into the dining room.
    “ You are wrong,” said Hannish. “Be on your guard, for his kind does not give up easily.”
    The next day, the whole household waited for an angry Claymore Whitfield to come and protest his son’s treatment. He did not come, and everyone guessed Charles wisely decided not to tell his father.

    It was four days after the Scots arrived before a rider brought a telegram to the mansion from Duchesses Olivia MacGreagor. She had not yet left New York City, but promised to arrive on the 14 th . In the foyer, Hannish handed the telegram to his sister, took off his jacket, handed it to Prescot and walked out the front door.
    McKenna slowly read the telegram and then sighed, “Another fortnight.”
    A perplexed Prescot asked, “Where does he go?”
    “ Where he always goes when he is enraged,” McKenna answered, “to chop wood. No doubt he will have chopped enough to see us all through winter by the time we see the end of this.”
    “ Two weeks?” Alistair muttered. “What is she up to?”
    “ I have been thinking about that.” McKenna began to wander into the parlor and both butlers followed her. “How did she choose who to bring and who to leave behind?”
    “ How?” Alistair asked.
    “ She brought the ones who would not tell him, first because they fear her, and second because all of you love him too much to hurt him.”
    Alistair nodded. “She is right on that account.”
    “ Aye, but Olivia dinna know I was on the ship until after it sailed, and by then it was too late to hide our dear Mr. Graham. She dinna believe she could keep me quiet, so what does she do?”
    “ What?” Prescot asked.
    Alistair shook his head in disgust. “She waits to see if her husband has heard and will telephone to accuse her. ’Tis just the sort of thing she would do.”
    “ That is what I think too,” said McKenna, “but she does not know Hannish well enough. He will not telephone; he will wait until he can see the truth in her eyes.”
    “ He might believe her excuses,” Alistair cautioned. “She has very clever ways of getting what she wants, especially from her unsuspecting admirers.”
    Prescot gasped. “She has more than one?”
    Alistair glanced back to make sure Hannish was not nearby. “You dinna hear that from us.”
    “ Of course not,” Prescot said. “How could his wife be so heartless?”
    McKenna folded the telegram back up and put it in her pocket. “I assure you, she has no heart.”

    Everywhere Sassy was, Keith seemed to be also, but she ignored him for the most part. He was not an unpleasant looking man. In fact, if she did not find his too obvious smiles annoying, she might have fancied him a little. Happy were the days when Keith had plenty to do.
    Aside from that, there was the problem of getting her hands on a catalogue. Each time she reached for one, someone else got to it first. There was the one in her employer’s study, but she was certain she was not to go in there without asking. Still, after he went to bed and McKenna was asleep, Sassy lit a candle, slipped down the back stairs, through the empty kitchen, across the dining room, the parlor and into the study. As quiet as a mouse, she closed the door, turned on the lamp and there it was, right in the middle of his roll top desk.
    An hour later, her eyes and mind were filled with glorious things she never imagined existed, and she thought about it long and hard before she took