Marblestone Mansion, Book 5

by Marti Talbott

  “They try very hard not to discover each other,” Hannish answered.

  “But if they do?”

  “I suppose the lads must divorce their wives, or come up with a believable excuse for such bad behavior.”

  “And the wives, accustomed to their expensive lives, forgive their husbands?”

  “Most likely.”

  She wanted to ask if her husband had ever participated, but she feared she would not like the answer. “Perhaps we should attend a ball.”

  “Why?”

  “Now that I no longer admire them, I might enjoy watchin’. What fun I shall have tellin’ Abigail when we get home.”

  “I am happy you changed your mind. If we dinna attend at least one ball, Cameron and Cathleen would feel the brunt of it for years to come.”

  “But must you dance with Lady Okerman?”

  “Aye, and you must dance with her husband. Then we shall make our excuses and leave, agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Beef Wellington and baked potato wedges, served with red wine came next. “You might like the ball. Once they have been presented to the King, the young lasses have their ‘comin’ out.”

  “I read about that. They put up their hair, instead of wearin’ it down to let the unmarried lads know they are of age. Did the duchess have her hair up or down when you met her?”

  He wrinkled his brow. “I do not recall. Perhaps we should talk of other things.”

  “Perhaps we should. How long is this voyage again?”

  “Five or six days,” Hannish answered, “dependin’ on the weather.” He noticed Leesil was more interested in pushing her Beef Wellington around the plate than in eating it. “Sweetheart, you know how I regret marrin’ her.”

  “Aye, but we never seem to escape her, even in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I do hope she has been kidnapped, finally.”

  “As do I…as do I.” Full to the brim, he waved off the Peach Melba and then the cheese platter and a third kind of wine. “I say we do not mention her again.”

  Leesil finally smiled. “I agree. We’ve far more wondrous things to see and do. Do you intend to visit the orphanage you so generously support?”

  “I had not thought of it, but if you like.”

  She finally took a bite of her beef and approved the flavor. “Do you suppose they still have smallpox in London?”

  “‘Tis doubtful. The London paper reports they have not had a case in months. Fortunately, they got it stopped before it killed many more.”

  “How many did it kill?”

  “Two thousand, so say the papers. A small number, considering they count over six million living in London these days.”

  Leesil’s jaw dropped. “Six million people? I never suspected. What do they all do?”

  “Manufacturing mostly.” Hannish answered. “You shall see hundreds of shops and workshops, with the larger mills along both sides of the riverbank. Perhaps we might take a skiff ride up the river, it if pleases you.”

  “I would like that. I wish to see everything in the world before I die.”

  “Please, Leesil, do not speak of dying. I have eaten enough to kill a horse,” he said, trying not to belch.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Your Grace, might I speak freely?”

  “Of course, Alistair, what is it?” he asked, not bothering to glance up. Cameron looked enough like his older brother, Hannish, to be his twin, with the same blue eyes, dark wavy hair and a height of nearly six feet, five inches.

  Cameron sat at a table in the castle’s library studying an accounting log. There was an error somewhere in his loom making shop’s books, and for the life of him, he could not find it. His second favorite room in the castle, the sparsely furnished library had windows that let in plenty of light, a comfortable settee, and even an aging harpsichord, which no one had played in years. A great reader of books, his uncle had amassed hundreds that were kept in cases along the walls. It gave the housekeepers plenty of dusting to do.

  “Since Cathleen came to us in Colorado,” said Alistair, “she has hugged me each morning.”

  “Aye, and?”

  “Lately, she does not.”

  Cameron smiled. “Feeling slighted, are you?” When Alistair didn’t answer, Cameron finally looked at the grim expression on his faithful butler’s face. “Somethin’ is amiss?”

  A few years older than the duke and his brother, Alistair was a tall, slender man who had been with the family for years. He served their uncle while the teens were growing up, favored the uncle’s niece McKenna most, and went with her when she fled to America. Now, he had come back to Glenartair Castle to take care of Cameron and Cathleen, a young woman he cared about just as much, if not more than McKenna. “I fear she does not, because she is losin’ weight.”

  “I have not noticed that.”

  “Aye, but she has not yet lost enough for you to notice.”

  “Not…yet,” Cameron repeated. He stood up, walked to the hearth and rested his arm on the mantel. “I could not bear to lose her, you know.” He brought his hand up, rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment. “She was so thin the day I put her on the ship to America, I dinna think she would survive the voyage. Does she not eat enough?”

  “I confess, I have not paid close attention to what she eats.”

  “Nor have I.”

  “Perhaps you might allow me to choose our menu for a time.”

  “Does my wife not choose it?” Cameron asked.

  “I have never seen her do it. Truth be told, I have never seen her in the kitchen.”

  Cameron was starting to get upset. “Do you mean the cook is allowed to decide what we eat?”

  “It would seem so. Have I your permission to see to the menu?”

  “Of course, do whatever you can. Perhaps Cathleen does not like the food we are accustomed to, and as you know, she complains of nothin’.”

  “She says she is so happy bein’ your wife, she would not think of complainin’.”

  “Well, being the wife of a lad who dinna notice she is losin’ weight, is not as grand as she thinks.”

  “Cook Jessie kept cheeses, fruits and tartlets all over the mansion for her to eat when she got hungry at Marblestone.”

  “Should I send for Cook Jessie? Cathleen adores her, and I know she will come if I ask.”

  “If she thought Cathleen was losin’ weight, Jessie would likely be on the next ship. I thought to call Marblestone and ask for Her Grace’s favorite recipes.”

  “Aye, please do and keep me informed. If our cook dinna know how to prepare what Cathleen likes, I shall hire someone who does.”

  *

  “Tartlets?” cook Emily asked in the castle’s busy kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at the menu Alistair handed her. “His Grace wants more tartlets?”

  “Aye, and plates of it all over the castle,” said Alistair. “His Grace says, if you cannae manage, he shall find a cook that can.”

  Emily held her tongue, until Alistair climbed the three steps to the hallway that connected the kitchen to the back of the castle, and went out of sight. “Have I not enough to do?” she grumbled.

  The castle’s kitchen held a mixture of old and new furnishings complete with the usual cupboards, sinks, stoves, an ice box, and a set of service bells on the wall that were connected to the other rooms in the castle. Through an open doorway, a dining hall for the servants ran parallel to the kitchen, and had a back way out…in case of fire. Fire, it seemed, was of the upmost concern to the ancestors who added the kitchen to the castle by only a hallway.

  Normally, there were two kitchen maids, but Seedy fell ill, leaving Malveen alone to listen to the cook’s complaints on her very first morning. Not required to wear dark uniforms, both she and Emily wore ordinary long skirts, blouses and white aprons. “I can help with the bakin’,” said Malveen.

  “You? What do you know of bakin’?”

  “I’ve helped our housekeeper all my life, least
wise as far back as I can recall. I bake well enough to keep a father and six brothers happy, I’ll have you know.”

  Emily didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. “Well fancy that. Mind you, you are expected to keep up with your other duties.”

  “I’ll not disappoint.”

  “Very well then, fill this castle with cheese for the mice and crumbs the housekeepers must sweep up. Anything to make His Grace happy.”

  They were never close, but Malveen had known Emily all her life. Most in the clan adored the friendly and caring Cameron, and she was surprised by Emily’s tone of voice. “You dinna like him?”

  Emily glanced around to make certain they were alone before she explained, “I like him well enough, but that wife of his…comin’ here all high and mighty. He went all the way to America to fetch her, and if she be a Scot, I’ll eat my apron. Plenty of lasses in our clan would have suited much better, but no, he saw fit to take an American wife.” Emily went back to cutting wedges of squash into chunks. “His first wife was a pleasure, but she up and died.”

  “I heard.”

  “Of course you did, even in that fancy school of your’n, I wager.”

  “Father notified me. Still, I’ve heard not a foul word said against his new wife, save that she is a bit shy.”

  “Shy, do you call it? His first wife went to the village often to see the people, but not this wife. She be too good to mingle with the likes of us. My Ellen would of made a fine wife, and she pleased him too, I could tell. When she was here visitin’ me, he always made a point of comin’ to the kitchen and askin’ if she was well.”

  “He is a very kind lad.”

  “Only he looked at her…you know, the way a lad looks at a lass when she pleases him. We were already talkin’ weddin’ dresses when he run off to America.”

  Malveen was so surprised by the disclosure; she hardly knew what to say. “How very diappointin’.”

  “Broke her heart, he did. Now he is wantin’ tartlets all over the house for that…American.”

  “I heard she was born a Scot.”

  Cook Emily gathered the squash wedges and put them in a pot of water. “‘Tis not Scot enough for me.”

  Malveen finished scraping the skin off the carrots and began to cut them up.

  “First thing she done when she came was to change Blair’s name to Addie,” Emily continued. She put the last of the squash in the pot and carried it to the stove. “Miss Addie looks just like her mother. Oh, His Grace says he adopted her, but I know the truth.” When one of the footmen came in, she stopped talking while he grabbed an apple out of a bowl on the table and left.

  Emily whispered, “Little Miss Addie, as they call her, looks just like Duchess Olivia MacGreagor.”

  “Laird MacGreagor’s first wife? I dinna hear of her havin’ a wee one.”

  “Nay, nor did I, but I never forget a face, and surely not the face of the most disagreeable lass in all of Scotland. Glad to see her go, we was. You wait, you’ll see the resemblance too.”

  “I’ve been away at school so long, I saw little of Duchess Olivia.”

  “You missed nothin’, I assure you. Even so, ‘tis not right changin’ a babe’s God given name, no matter who her mother is?”

  Malveen finished cutting up the carrots, and decided she better go to the pantry to see what they had in the way of baking ingredients.

  *

  No matter how much the MacGreagors wanted to, there was no way to avoid Lord and Lady Okerman on the ship. The very next evening, wearing bright purple with another wide brimmed hat, Lady Okerman came to their stateroom just as they were about to leave. She insisted the MacGreagors join them at the captain’s table in the largest, most opulent dining room. Still fond of a good bustle, although they were going out of style, Maude led the way down the hall without giving Hannish time to refuse. He shrugged, Leesil shrugged, and they could do naught but obediently follow.

  Lord Thorndike Okerman stood up as they approached, shook hands with Hannish, waited for the ladies to be seated and then retook his own. Always polite and attentive, Lord Okerman kept himself immaculately dressed, although conservatively so, and looked every bit the way a gentleman should with trimmed, coal black hair and brown eyes. “Our Captain is delayed, I fear.”

  Leesil was quick to notice only five place settings at the long captain’s table, and that her husband was seated directly across from the Maude Okerman. Moreover, Lady Okerman had not acknowledged her, nor did Leesil expect she ever would…unless Leesil demanded it. Maude’s turned up nose reminded Leesil of old Mrs. Forthright, the frightful caretaker of the orphanage where she grew up. There was no one in the world she hated more than old Mrs. Forthright. Being seated with the Okermans at the captain’s table brought a great deal of attention to the MacGreagors from others in the room. Leesil found their propensity to gawk at her even less enjoyable. She tried not to look at them, and instead, concentrated on the first of many wines. A bit of fortification was just what she needed.

  “Hannish, darling,” Maude said, “I have notified just every one of your arrival in England.”

  “Already? How have you managed that?” Hannish asked.

  “Cablegrams,” Thorndike muttered, “dozens of them.”

  Hannish smiled, even though he was not pleased. “I am quite impressed.”

  Maude returned his forced smile. “I thought you might approve. I expect you to be invited to every possible occasion while you are with us.”

  Hannish unfolded his napkin and spread it on his lap. “I fear we have a rather busy schedule.”

  “Nothing you cannot cancel, I am certain.” Maude ignored Hannish in favor of speaking to her husband. “I find it delicious that our dear Olivia has disappeared. Do you not find it delicious?”

  “If you insist,” Thorndike begrudgingly answered. He had not been surprised by anything his wife said in years.

  “Hannish brings a new wife,” Maude continued, “and will not tell what happened to the old one. Could there be a more delightful scandal? I simply shall not rest until I know what has become of our dear Olivia.”

  “What’s this?” Hannish said. “Your society has not yet found her? I am shocked; I thought your slightest desire far more significant than that.”

  “Perhaps you might tell them where to look?” Maude asked, finally turning her attention to him.

  Under the table, Hannish took hold of his wife’s hand. “You know where to look better than I. Have you checked under the King’s bed?”

  Her husband chuckled and Maude mockingly grinned. “I had not thought of that.” She paused long enough to sip her wine. “Just last month, I shared a cup of tea with Lady Bayington, and do you know what she said?”

  “I cannae guess,” Hannish answered.

  “She charged me to turn Olivia out, should she happen to arrive at one of our balls.”

  Hannish slightly nodded. “Good for Lady Bayington.”

  “I say the same. If I do not turn Olivia out, Lady Bayington and her husband threaten never to attend again. A ball is simply not a ball without the Bayingtons?”

  “Indeed not,” Thorndike put in. “I am fond of Lord Bayington.”

  “So are we all,” his wife added. “I am told Olivia’s things were left at her hotel, and it is simply not like her to go anywhere without her belongings.”

  “Or her hair brush,” Leesil whispered. She had not forgotten how the duchess repeatedly struck her in the head with a wooden hairbrush.

  Hannish was starting to get annoyed and he let it show. “Are you quite certain it is Olivia?”

  “Lord Stockton is certain and he should know. He escorted her to more than one ball previously. He said Olivia asked to be called Agnes or Alice, or…I’ve got it, Alexandra.”

  Hannish leaned a little to the side, as the waiter set a plate in front of him. “Would it not be best to let Olivia stay vanished? Surely you can see the beauty of not having to turn her away from the balls.”

  This time
Maude’s grin was genuine. “Hannish, darling, I was looking forward to it.”

  “If you ask me,” said Thorndike, “which my wife never does, Olivia trifled once too often with the wrong sort, and has herself in a spot of trouble.”

  Hannish was about to strongly suggest they change the subject when he saw a man enter the room. “Ah, here comes the Captain. I wonder what delayed him.”

  “Probably something to do with the peasants in third class,” Maude answered. “Oh, I do hope they have not started a fire.”

  Just as Hannish did, Thorndike stood up, shook hands with the Captain and then returned to his seat. “As you see, we did not wait.”

  “I did not expect you to,” the dashing captain said. He wore a distinguished black uniform, complete with a matching vest, and well-shined shoes. He removed his white captain’s cap, sat and as soon as the waiter came, said, “I’ll join them in whatever they are eating. What sort of fish is it?”

  “Cod, Captain, fresh from New York,” the waiter answered.

  “Very good.” He smiled at his guests. “We always serve fish while it is fresh on our first night or two out.”

  “Captain, is anything amiss?” Hannish asked.

  “Not at all. I just needed to make a course correction. We are expecting strong aft winds and I expect they will push us quickly across the Atlantic. Mr. MacGreagor, I hear you own a gold mine in Cripple Creek.”

  “Silver,” Hannish corrected, “in Idaho, but that was several years ago.”

  Maude giggled, “Silver, gold, what does it matter, as long as it makes a man deliriously wealthy.”

  “Cripple Creek, how fascinating,” said Thorndike. “I shall make a point of asking about it in the smoking room, if you are willing to join me later.”

  “I shall be honored,” said Hannish.

  “Mrs. MacGreagor, you are very quiet. Is the meal not to your liking?” the Captain asked.

  Instead of saying she had never eaten cod before, and found the taste unwelcome, she answered, “I am not fond of fish.”

  The captain snapped his fingers and as soon as he did, a waiter hurried over. “Mrs. MacGreagor is not fond of fish.”