"You would go to America if you had the funds?"
Olivia sipped her tea. "Hannish still loves me, I think. I hoped to be with child so he would have to come back to Scotland, but he would not and it did not happen otherwise either. I did my best, but…"
"He denied you? What man could refuse, no other man ever has. My dear, there must be someone else."
"He admitted he has been unfaithful, but they were ladies of the evening. He could never love a woman like that, he is too proud. I forgave him, naturally, he is a man after all and it had been three years."
"Olivia, what are you not telling me?"
Olivia's expression was sincere when she answered, "Nothing, I swear it."
Lady Bayington decided to let the obvious lie pass. "What will you do now?"
"What can I do? I cannot stay here much longer."
"You will do what you always do, I suppose."
"Lady Bayington, you'd not be willing to loan me a few pounds, would you?"
"I might. You have been very good at keeping our secret out of London society."
Olivia smiled finally, "I do believe it is the only pledge I have ever truly kept."
"Indeed it is. Therefore, you deserve to be quite generously rewarded." She opened her small handbag and withdrew a roll of bills.
*
That night, Lady Bayington went to the room in her castle, where she enjoyed writing her many letters. She got out a clean sheet of monogrammed paper, found her fountain pen and began:
Your Grace,
Lord Bayington and I agree, as we are most fond of both you and your brother, and can maintain our silence no longer. There is something you should know about the woman Hannish married. Olivia and I were born in the Shetland Islands, more specifically Scalloway, and played together as children. It was apparent early on that Olivia…"
*
The next big event on the MacGreagor calendar was the town picnic and everyone was excited. In the evenings, when all the newly arrived furnishings were put away and the work was done, Alistair taught dancing while the quartet practiced their songs.
New straw top hats were in order for the quartet and matching blue and white striped jackets, vests, dark blue knickerbockers, white knee-high stockings and low shoes. Matching red four-in-hand ascot neckties finished off their casual, yet impressive look.
For Sassy and Cathleen, who still had no casual clothing, Hannish hired a dressmaker in town to fashion white, high-collar shirtwaists, with plenty of lace for decoration, and long black floor-length skirts. His initial order, at the urging of McKenna, soon became new outfits for all the women who wanted them, if the seamstress could manage to get them made in time. Donnel and Blanka were not impressed with the new fashions, choosing instead to wear the traveling clothing they were comfortable in -- old-fashioned though they may be. Naturally, the women practiced the newest hairstyle, which consisted of sweeping long hair upward in the back, twisting it and then letting a large curl adorn their foreheads.