The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

“We don’t. No one gets along with any of the MacTarvits. No one ever has. Heaven help the country the old man’s sons went to.”

“Probably America. America appreciates men.”

Trevelyan threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m not going to go to MacTarvit, either for you or your dear duke, and that settles it. Now why don’t you sit over there and read like a good little girl? Oman will fix you something nice for lunch and I’ll give you a big glass of whisky.”

“MacTarvit whisky?” she said through clenched teeth.

“As a matter of fact, yes. Shall I show you the wound on my leg where one of his bullets grazed me?”

“You mean you stole this whisky from him?”

“Of course I did. It’s the only way to get any out of him. It’s your bloody tradition, remember?”

“You don’t have to shout at me. I can hear you perfectly well. If you won’t go to him, then I will.”

Trevelyan snorted. “You could never find the place. Only Harry and I know where the old man lives.”

“And you won’t go to him? You’re going to do nothing to stop the duchess from sending him away from here?”

“It is not any of my business. I’m a visitor here, remember? I just want to get well, write a bit, then leave. This place is nothing to me.”

She looked at him for a long while. “After all Harry has done for you, allowing you to stay here and not telling anyone you’re here. You, sir, are an ingrate.” With that she turned toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“To spend the day with other people. If you want your privacy so much you may have it. I won’t bother you again.” As she started down the stairs, she heard him say, “Now I’ll get some work done.” Claire kept her head up and went down the stairs and out the door into the garden.

She wandered in the garden for a while but very soon it began to bore her. Yesterday had been so lovely when she’d had something to read and someone to talk to. Now she was alone again.

She sat down on a bench and looked out over the little lake that some ancestor of Harry’s had created a hundred or so years ago. So far she didn’t feel she was doing a very good job of learning how to be a duchess. She wished she could be more like her mother, gregarious and social, never meeting a stranger, but, unfortunately, she wasn’t. She’d far rather know one or two people well than know a hundred people only slightly.

“There you are.”

Claire looked up to see her brat of a sister. “Those are my earrings,” Claire said without much concern, then looked back at the lake.

“What’s wrong with you? Missing your lover man?”

“Where do you pick up these disgusting expressions? And why aren’t you having lessons?” Sarah Ann started to open her mouth but Claire put up her hand. “Please don’t tell me what you’ve done to your poor governess. I wonder, have you learned enough to read and write?”

“As well as Mother can.”

Claire gave her sister a hard look, but Brat just smiled at her.

“People are beginning to wonder what you do all day.”

“Oh, nothing much,” Claire said. “I walk a great deal.”

“And don’t eat at all. At least not at the table with the others.” Brat leaned forward. “You have some food caught between your front teeth.”

Claire turned away and cleared her teeth with her nail. “Don’t you have something to do besides bother me? Such as putting my earrings back where they belong?”

“I can’t take them off until my ears heal.”

Claire shook her head. “You are much too young to have your ears pierced, and who in the world pierced them for you?”

At that Sarah Ann looked off into the distance. “A person can have anything in the world done in this house.”

“What does that mean?”