Marblestone Mansion 01 - Scandalous Duchess

every day for a week. I never took anything without permission again.”
    Egan chuckled. “That was Aunt Donnel’s favorite punishment. When we were growin’ up, the MacGreagor kitchen floor was the cleanest in all of Scotland.”
    Dugan smiled too. “And she’d not forget either. If the kitchen floor was already being scrubbed by one of us, there was always the next week. No Sir, she never once forgot a punishment.”
    “ How many of you were there?” Halen asked.
    Hannish looked to Blanka for the answer. “Seven?”
    “ Eight, all boys save McKenna. A terrible fever one year took both my boys and two of Donnel’s. That was before Egan and his mother came to live with us. The elder Mr. MacGreagor loved having children in the house and we always found enough room for more in the servant’s quarters somehow.”
    Seated next to her, McKenna reached over and took Blanka’s hand. “I can’t think what we would have done after our parents were killed, had you and Donnel not been there to care for us.”
    “ You are orphans too?” Sassy asked.
    “ Aye,” Hannish answered, “but we had a duke for an uncle. He moved us all into the big house where Jessie cooked for us, Alistair was my Uncle’s butler and Millie was head housekeeper. By then I was sixteen.”
    “ What happened to your parents?” Cathleen wanted to know.
    McKenna looked at the pain in her brother’s eyes and answered for him, “They were killed when a man failed to pull a switch and two trains hit head on.”
    Halen caught her breath. “Dear God.” Her words lingered as all of them imagined what that might have been like.
    “ Those were the worst of days,” Blanka said, her eyes filling with tears.
    “ Aunt Blanka,” said Dugan, “Would you like to rest now?”
    Blanka brushed her tears away. “Aye, but I will say this about my sister. She was a good woman, the best there ever was. We had our troubles, same as anybody, but we lived a good life.” All the men stood when Blanka got up and took Dugan’s arm. “We had a very good life…all in all.”

    Drawn by matching dapple gray horses, the summer hearse came two days later to take Donnel to the church services and from there to the cemetery. The entire household went, even little William, who slept through most of it.
    In the following days, everyone carried on as best they could, but there was always one empty chair at the servant’s table in the kitchen. Yet, even death does not stand in the way of love and each evening, Hannish watched Alistair and Sarah walk arm in arm around the rim of the massive yard. The men decided any respectable mansion should have a swing tied to the branch of an old oak tree, and it became Prescot and Millie’s favorite place to talk.
    Even Blanka seemed to be getting better, now that the dog had taken a shine to her instead of Cathleen. “Traitor,” Hannish said, each time he walked past Blanka’s day room and spotted the dog stretched out on the foot of her bed. When she was not yet asleep, it always made Blanka smile.
    The dog was growing by leaps and bounds and somehow figured out that if he went to the front door, either Prescot or Alistair would let him out. It was better than waiting for someone to notice him at one of the other doors. Likewise, when he pawed the front door a couple of times on the outside, one of them would let him back in. Traitor, still half puppy, was a little too rambunctious for the toddler, so he was not allowed to play much with William, no matter how badly he wanted to.

    The day of the MacGreagor Ball drew closer and closer. Three couples and their servants came from Scotland five days early, as McKenna suggested they should, so they would not be suffering from high-altitude sickness when the ball began. Dinners were lavish and there was plenty for everyone to do, including ironing out the wrinkles in gowns packed away in steamer trunks during the journey. McKenna could not decide what to wear, and asked to have three gowns prepared, so she could choose at the last minute.
    Each day, Hannish took his sister and the guests on sightseeing tours in open-air buggies he rented from town. It gave the servants time to rest, and him a chance to forget about Sassy, if only for a few hours. Apparently, their guests already knew about Olivia, and none of them mentioned her name. For that, he was grateful.
    Then it happened. The wagon was about to pull away when he spotted Sassy in an upstairs window watching him. He