“I’d be happy for your company, but I’m on my way to visit the Fallows. One of their children is ill, and I’m bringing medicines and food.” The duchess nodded at the basket still sitting on the ground. It was larger than it had looked from the window. “This is probably not at all what you had in mind. I understand if you do not want to expose yourself to illness.”
“Oh, I—” Katie was about to say she had a strong constitution and would love to meet the family, but then she remembered she wasn’t wearing her veil. The duchess hadn’t remarked on her face, but surely the tenants would. She might frighten the children.
Katie cleared her throat. “Perhaps I might walk part of the way with you. If you will have me, that is.”
“Are you carrying the basket?” the duchess asked, nodding at it.
“Certainly.” Katie lifted it. It was heavier than it looked, but she made a show of hoisting it onto her arm.
“Then let us go.” The dowager started down the path again toward the tenant farms. The estate was large, and the Fallows’ house might be miles away. Surely, the duchess would have taken her gig if the distance was great. Katie had seen her driving it herself and admired the duchess’s bravery. Katie herself had always been a little afraid of horses and couldn’t imagine driving a carriage.
Katie maneuvered so she was on the duchess’s left side, and her right side—her good side—was presented to the widow.
“Do you always do that?” the duchess asked.
“Your Grace?”
“Walk on the left so that your birthmark is not as visible?”
Katie felt her face heat. Obviously, she’d not been as subtle about her maneuvering as she’d thought. “I suppose I do, yes. I apologize. I forgot my hat and veil.”
The duchess stopped abruptly, and Katie had gone another two steps before she realized she was walking alone. She turned back.
“You don’t need to apologize to me, gel,” the duchess said. “And you needn’t wear a veil to conceal your face. I heard your father kept you locked away and told myself it must be nothing more than scandal broth. Men are idiots.”
Katie resisted the urge to touch her face, to touch the port-wine-colored birthmark the size of a small hand that extended from her left nostril across her cheek over her jaw and down to her throat. “He was protecting me,” she said, wondering why she was defending the man who had sent her to languish in the countryside.
“Bosh,” the duchess said, lifting her skirts and walking again. Katie placed the basket on her other arm and followed. “He was protecting himself. Men have thin skin. Lord Shrewsbury’s isso thin he’s made you a virtual prisoner. You never even had a Season, did you?”
Katie shook her head. “No, Your Grace.” She didn’t add that she’d never asked for one. After years of her father telling her to stay inside, to keep her face hidden or else people would say horrible, hurtful things, Katie had not even imagined going out into Society. “He was protecting me. He didn’t want my feelings hurt.”
“No doubt he was protecting his own pride too.” The duchess looked at her. “Make no mistake—people would have talked about you and remarked on your birthmark. Some would say it was the sign of the devil.”
Katie nodded. They’d had servants who crossed themselves when they saw her, or muttered prayers. Her father dismissed them once he caught them. Katie knew some people considered a birthmark the devil’s mark put on a child as a visible symbol of the sins of the parents. “I don’t believe that,” she said. And she didn’t. She’d been taken to dozens of physicians, perhaps hundreds. When she’d been young, the doctors had said the birthmark would go away on its own. But when the stain on her face hadn’t diminished by the age of ten, most of the doctors said it was permanent, and she was fortunate it was not near her eye, as that could cause problems. But almost all of them agreed these marks were natural and normal, and it was just unfortunate that hers was so large and on such a prominent area of her body.
“I don’t believe that hogwash either. But people are ignorant and superstitious. Still, if your father hadn’t kept you hidden away, people would have gotten used to seeing it. By the time you were eighteen, no one would have remarked on it.”
Katie had never considered this. She’d always worn a hat with a veil to keep her face concealed. First because everyone hoped the birthmark would diminish by the time she was nine orten. And then she wore the hats because it didn’t diminish, and her father didn’t want anyone staring at her or commenting on the mark.
But people stared at her anyway because she wore a hat and a dark veil. People whispered and turned to watch her pass. Katie felt so uncomfortable, she grew to prefer staying at home and away from prying eyes.
She didn’t wear the veil at home, though, and the servants—those who didn’t cross themselves—didn’t stare at her. Neither had Mrs. Kretz after the first few days. The duchess was right that once people became accustomed to her face, it was not so horrible or interesting.
“But nothing can be done now to fix that, though when your father comes, I intend to have a word with him.”
“About me?” Katie asked, her voice little more than a squeak. No one ever challenged her father. If anyone could, surely it was the Duchess of Carlisle.
“Of course. I’m a widow and appreciate the solitude of the countryside. You are a young gel and shouldn’t be locked away here.”
Katie hadn’t told the duchess about her attempt to run away to Paris. Doubtless if the duchess knew about that, she’d change her mind about speaking to Katie’s father.
“Of course, you wouldn’t be here at all if not for my idiot son.”
This line of conversation was familiar to Katie. The duchess had often called the dukemy idiot son. She had another son and referred to him without the descriptor. She had daughters as well, and they weremy sweet Janeandmy darling Edith. It was only the duke who earned the duchess’s scorn.
Not that Katie could blame her. After all, heridiot sonhad lost Carlisle Hall, the home of the Dukes of Carlisle for almost a hundred years. Katie didn’t know how this was possible. Usually, estates like this had some sort of entail. They couldn’t be soldor lost in card games. But apparently, Carlisle Hall had no such restriction. Katie didn’t understand all of the laws and logistics, but what she did know was that her father now owned the estate and the adjacent lands—all except for the dowager house, which had been given to the duchess as part of her marriage settlement. Apparently, the rest of the lands were simply passed down to the Carlisle heirs. Since there was no entail, the current duke had sold off portions of the estate to fund his lavish lifestyle. Only about a dozen tenant farmers remained as part of the estate, whereas once there had been close to fifty.
“I always knew he was a risk taker,” the duchess was saying. “He used to crawl up the bookshelves and leap down expecting to be caught. For a time, I employed a footman merely to follow him about and catch him.”
