"Please go," Hannish said. "Dinna make me throw you out."
"It would not be the first time." At last, she turned and walked back out the door.
"Of all the audacity," Claymore muttered, going back to his wife and McKenna.
Hannish turned around and looked for Amos. "Alistair, I wish to have a word with Mr. Wells. Ask him to come speak to me."
Sassy saw Hannish send Charlotte away and a few minutes later, when the two men finished talking, it was obvious Mr. Wells was being sent away too. Hannish turned around and looked directly at her, but Sassy lowered her eyes and went back to work.
*
"Mr. Wells wanted to take her to the ball?" Hannish asked after he finished seeing the last of their guests out. "Why did no one tell me?"
McKenna was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to bed. "It was her place to tell you if she wanted you to know, not mine or anyone else's." She walked with him back into the parlor and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Sassy refused him because she has not yet learned how to dance, but she might not have, the next time he asked."
"He is not right for her."
"True, but she is a grown woman capable of making her own decisions…and her own mistakes. You cannae protect her and you must not interfere in the lives of your employees." She kissed his cheek, lifted the hem of her skirt and climbed the stairs.
He stared after her for a long moment, before he too went up to bed.
*
"Mr. Wells is Charlotte's brother?" Cathleen asked, exchanging her uniform for her nightshirt in the bedroom they shared on the third floor.
"Aye, Alistair told me so," Sassy answered.
"Do you prefer Mr. Wells?"
"I do not prefer him, but it was pleasant to think he preferred me for a little while." Sassy slipped her nightshirt over her head and pulled it down. "I wager he will not ask me to a ball again."
"I'd not let you go with him at any rate. He is Charlotte's brother and probably believes her. He most likely thinks you are willing."
Sassy was shocked. "Willing?" She crawled into bed and then sighed. "You are right; I shall have nothing more to do with Mr. Wells. I did want to see what a ball was like, though."
As soon as Cathleen was in her own bed and the dog made himself comfortable at the foot of it, Sassy turned off their new table lamp and tried to go to sleep. Yet, she kept thinking about the way Hannish looked right at her after he sent Mr. Wells away, and sleep was a long time coming. What did that look mean exactly?