It had been a rain-swept night seventeen years ago. She’d cursed him and his friends. Probably the same curse she had been muttering earlier. She gazed at him, her eyes locking on his, and making Henry feel nauseated.
“Best wishes on your thirtieth birthday, Duke.”
The last sound he heard before the room went black was the sound of her laughter.
Chapter Two
Lady Katherine Malfort,only daughter of the Marquess of Shrewsbury, stared at the peeling paper in her bedchamber. The design was of crawling ivy, the green faded with time, and the cream of the background more of a sickly yellow. Staring at the curling paper was more entertaining than staring at the cracked pane of glass in her window or the water stain on the ceiling. She told herself not to look at the bracket clock on her bedside table again. It would only show five minutes past the last time she’d looked at it. Or—horror of horrors—it might show onlythreeminutes since the last time she’d looked at it. Mrs. Morris had agreed to walk the grounds with her at four. The last time Katie had checked the time, it was ten after one.
Three more hours!
What could she possibly do for three hours? She was no great reader, but two days after her arrival she’d gone to the estate’s library out of desperation. It was full of books in languages she couldn’t read. The books in English were sermons and histories. She hadn’t found a single novel. Not a play. Not even a book of poems. Nothing by Shakespeare! What sort of English country home didn’t have at least one play or sonnet by Shakespeare within its walls?
Apparently, this one. Carlisle Hall.
Normally, Katie would have filled hours upon hours by painting or drawing. Those were her true passions. Even now, asshe lay on the threadbare counterpane on her bed, her fingers were drawing shapes and imagined objects on the pale green material. But her father didn’t allow her art supplies. He’d had her paints, canvases, charcoals, and papers burned. He’d even burned her brushes and her unfinished sketches. She supposed she should be relieved he hadn’t burned her finished works.
Before she left, he’d expressly forbidden Mrs. Morris from buying Katie new art supplies or even allowing her near paints. Katie was not to paint or draw ever again. According to her father, the exercise gave her too many ideas.
She couldn’t exactly argue—not when she’d been caught trying to run away to Paris to study with the renowned Monsieur Seydoux. Seydoux was all anyone in artistic circles could talk about. His teaching methods were all the crack among the London artists Katie admired.
Now she had no news at all—not about art, not about Society, nothing. At least in London she had been able to read the papers or hear her brothers’ accounts of all the latest happenings. In the countryside, not only was she isolated, she was cut off. It seemed cruel to deprive her of her art and anything to read.
Not that Katie didn’t enjoy the countryside. She adored it. But every time she looked at the budding trees or the daffodils peeking out of the soil, her fingers itched for her charcoal or her paintbrush.
“He intends to drive me mad,” she said. “I have been here a fortnight, and already I am talking to myself.”
She would be able to speak to Mrs. Morris, but her lady’s companion always napped between one and three in the afternoon. At one and twenty, Katie felt like Mrs. Morris, who was five and forty, was more like her mother and less of a companion.
But that was Katie’s fault too. Mrs. Kretz had been young and vivacious. She’d supported Katie’s plan to decamp to Parisand study with Monsieur Seydoux. She’d even helped Katie write to Seydoux and arrange lodging in Paris. And so when the entire plan was discovered, Mrs. Kretz had been immediately dismissed. Without references.
Katie didn’t know if she felt worse for Mrs. Kretz or herself. Mrs. Kretz had been her friend, her first and only real friend. With one sweep of his hand, her father had taken her friendandher only passion in life and thrown them away.
He’d thrown her away too, or so it seemed. Her letters to him went unanswered.
Katie rose and went to the window, her heart aching when she saw that the crab apple tree was blooming. The deep red buds had opened into stunning pink flowers. She just knew she could mix her paints and achieve that color.
But she’d not have the opportunity because of her awful father. Perhaps she wouldn’t have wanted to get away so badly if he’d ever paid any attention to her or let her go out into the world. Perhaps then she would have had friends and not relied on her canvas to experience the world. But the Marquess of Shrewsbury didn’t care about anything or anyone—except Carlisle. Her father had spent every waking moment for the last five years scheming about how to get even with the Carlisles. He hated the Duke of Carlisle, even though, from what Katie understood, the present duke hadn’t ever wronged her father. It was something to do with French land and the revolution. Something her father had discovered when going through family papers.
It seemed his scheming had finally paid off. Somehow, her father had won this house from the duke, and now she was here. Stuck here. Imprisoned here.
Katie hated it. It didn’t feel like home. Paintings of people she didn’t know were on the walls, and the furnishings had beenchosen by strangers. She wanted her own things and her own room back.
She spotted movement outside her window and rose on tiptoes to look through the uncracked pane. A woman in a lovely green pelisse walked with purpose along the narrow path that bisected the arbor and the lawn. Katie would know that woman anywhere, though they’d only met three or four times. It was the Duchess of Carlisle. The duchess was terribly frightening. She spoke her mind and made pronouncements, and it seemed like when she merely lifted a finger, everyone hastened to do her bidding.
Katie didn’t care if she was scared witless. Anything and anyone was better than another moment in this bedchamber. She hastily shoved her feet into her half boots and ran down the wood-paneled stairway. One of the maids dusting in the foyer looked up at her, but Katie put a finger to her lips, and the maid nodded and smiled. Katie was thankful she’d encountered one of Carlisle’s servants and not her father’s. She had a hunch that the latter were being paid to report back to her father on her every activity.
Katie went to the door, opened it, and slipped out into the spring afternoon. She should have worn a coat, as the weather was still chilly, but there was no time for that now. No time either for her hat with the veil. Katie actually paused, realizing she had forgotten her veil. She never went out without it. Would the duchess be shocked or disgusted? Katie did not think she’d be either. The two women had spoken on a handful of occasions, and the widow could be gruff, but she was not unkind.
In any case, if Katie turned back now, she’d miss the duchess and her only opportunity for conversation. She couldn’t afford to return for the veil.
Lifting her skirts, she headed around the back of the house and called out to the duchess, who had progressed quite a bitdown the lane. Katie worried she might be too far to hear, but she turned immediately. Setting down her basket, she waved and waited. Katie hadn’t noticed the basket before. It was the sort one took shopping or to deliver food to a neighbor. There were no shops nearby, and Katie immediately surmised the duchess was on her way to deliver food to one of the tenants.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” she said as she neared the duchess. Katie was panting and had to press a hand to her abdomen to catch her breath. She really needed to get out more if she was out of breath after hurrying down a short path.
“Good afternoon, Lady Katherine. Out for a stroll?” The duchess looked this way and that, although surely she could see Katie was alone. “Where is your companion?”
“Napping. Mrs. Morris always naps between one and three. I saw you from my window and thought, if you don’t mind, we might walk together. If you don’t mind.” Katie felt like smacking her forehead. Why hadn’t she considered that perhaps the duchess wanted to be alone?
