A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Eleven

Meet me in the garden folly at midnight, Catalina, I beg you. I must talk to you. J.

Catalina stared down at the note in her hand, which had been slipped under her door soon after they returned from the Assembly Rooms. Jamie’s bold, slashing black handwriting stood out in the candlelight, luring her to follow its words.

She sighed and looked out of her chamber window. She couldn’t see the folly but she knew it was out there, waiting for her. Those brief words and that one kiss between them could not be the end. She knew that. There was too much between her and Jamie to be so easily finished.

She had to meet him. There was so much unsaid between them, so much she didn’t understand.

She picked up the shawl that had been handed to her by one of the footmen as she left the Assembly Rooms, the same shawl she had lost in the garden. The soft cashmere folds were cool, but she imagined she could smell the lingering essence of his cologne there. She quickly wrapped it around her shoulders and slipped out of the bedroom door.

The house was empty and silent, everyone tucked up in their own chambers for the night. No light shone beneath Lydia’s door, so Catalina hoped the girl had gone to sleep without staying up to read her horrid novels. The corridor was lit only by a few flickering sconces, which seemed to make the portraits on the walls peer down at her disapprovingly as she slipped past.

Catalina ran down the stairs and out the front doors, praying the heavy wood wouldn’t slam behind her. The wind had died down, leaving the night still and silent. She followed the glow of the moon to the gardens and along the pathway that led to the folly. It glowed a mellow, pure white in the darkness.

She tiptoed up the shallow stone steps and past the pillars into the small, cool, domed space. A statue of Cupid holding his bow aloft stood in the middle of the round room, and for a moment she feared he was the only one there. Her heart sank and she suddenly felt so very alone.

But then Jamie appeared from the shadows and her heart soared again. He had shed his coat and his waistcoat was unfastened, revealing the bright white linen of his shirt, the loops of his loose cravat. He was surely the most beautiful sight she had ever seen, like a god of the night.

‘Catalina,’ he said, and his voice was rough with some hidden emotion. He moved slowly closer to her, his booted footsteps echoing in the carved dome above them. ‘You came.’

‘I—of course I did,’ she whispered. She couldn’t stay away, not from him.

And suddenly his arms slid around her, drawing her tight against him as she clutched at his shoulders.

‘How I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘What you said at the Assembly Rooms—it can’t be the end for us. Not when the truth of so much lies between us.’

Catalina shook her head and bit back a sob. She had thought the same thing, yet how could they speak rationally when simply being near him made her feel so much? He freed so very many emotions and passions that she had hidden and denied for so long. Ever since she had lost him.

Losing him once had nearly destroyed her. How could she bear it again?

Jamie seemed to sense all those things she couldn’t say, for he pulled her even closer, and his mouth came down on hers. He didn’t rush or push her; he wasn’t harsh with her, that had never been Jamie’s way. But his mouth opened over hers, his tongue tracing her lips as he sought to quench his burning desire for her. Catalina opened to him, letting him in. Her body remembered his kiss at the Assembly Rooms and craved yet more and more.

Yes—this was what she had longed for, the sensation of every rational thought flying out of her and falling down into pure, burning need. Just as Jamie had always made her do.

His hand slid down her back as he deepened the kiss, and the shawl he had wrapped around her fell away from her shoulders. The night air washed over her, but she only felt it for an instant before it was replaced by the heat of his touch.

His hands slid under the curve of her hips and he lifted her up high against his body. He swung her around until she was braced against the low marble banister that ran around the folly. She clasped her knees to either side of his lean hips and arched into his body.

His lips slid over her cheek and down her neck as she arched her head back, his tongue swirling lightly in the hollow at the base of her neck where her pulse pounded out a frantic beat. It had always felt like this when he touched her, as if something dark and secret deep inside of her reached out to the darkness in him.

She felt his palm slide up from her waist to lightly cup her breast, stroking it through her thin gown.

‘Blast it all, Catalina,’ he growled. ‘I need—need...’

‘I know,’ she gasped as his touch slid over her. She twined her fingers in his hair and drew his kiss back to the soft curve of her neck. She trembled as his warm breath washed over her skin and cried out when his hand closed hard over her breast.

‘I don’t want to still need you like this,’ he said roughly.

‘I don’t want to need you either. I worked so very hard to forget you.’ To forget what he had done.

‘Did you forget me?’

Catalina shook her head. She closed her eyes tightly, shutting out the rest of the world so she could revel in the bright pleasure of knowing his touch again. ‘I never could.’

‘I never forgot you either. Never, Catalina.’

He tugged down her light silk bodice and chemise, baring her breast to the moonlight. Catalina bit back a sob as he rubbed the roughened pad of his thumb over her nipple. It hardened and ached under his caress.

‘You’re still so beautiful,’ he said. She opened her eyes to watch, mesmerised, as he bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it lightly until she couldn’t breathe. Her legs tightened around his waist and she pulled him closer into the curve of her body.

He drew her deeper into the hot wetness of his mouth, biting down lightly and then soothing it with the edge of his tongue. She heard the mingling of their breath, harsh and uneven, the swirl of the wind around the marble walls, the lapping of the water from the lake along the shore. But none of it mattered. Only Jamie, his mouth, his hands, his body against hers. Just him.

His hand traced along her bent leg until he caught the hem of her skirt in his fist. He drew it up and up, over her bare skin until he traced the soft curve just where her hip met her thigh. Catalina was suddenly glad there hadn’t been time to put her stockings back on.

Then she felt his fingers move even lower. He nudged her thighs wider and traced his thumb along her damp folds. She cried out his name as he slid his touch inside her and pressed deep.

‘Jamie,’ she sobbed, and his open mouth came over hers to catch her words.

She reached out for him desperately, her hand flattening over his chest where she felt the pounding of his heart. She slid her touch down, down, over his flat stomach, the sharp angle of his hip. At last she covered that hardness in his breeches and closed her fingers around him in the way she remembered he liked so much.

He groaned deeply as she moved her hand down and up again, harder, faster.

‘Are you trying to kill me?’ he said.

Catalina laughed and wrapped her legs even tighter around him. ‘Do you not like that now? You certainly used to.’

‘I like it too well. That’s the problem.’ Jamie’s hand slid away from her, slowly trailing along her leg as if he couldn’t quite let her go. But he gently lowered her to her feet and her hand fell away from him. He braced his palms to the marble railing on either side of her, not touching her. But she could feel him shaking just as she was.

On trembling legs, Catalina moved away from him and sat down on one of the stone benches that lined the folly. She braced her palms on her legs and dragged in a shuddering breath.

‘I should go back soon,’ she said. ‘It grows very late.’

Jamie nodded brusquely. He sat down beside her, close but not touching, as the darkness closed in around them again.

‘I am sorry, Catalina,’ he said. ‘I didn’t ask you to meet me here so I could grab you like that.’

Catalina laughed. ‘Obviously I did not mind it so much.’

Jamie laughed too, and leaned his head back against the wall as he stared up into the dome of the folly. ‘Neither did I. That has not changed between us.’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just everything else that has changed.’

He was quiet for a long moment. ‘And some things will never change.’

Like his family? His duty? ‘Why did you ask me to meet you here, Jamie?’ she asked.

‘Only this,’ he said. ‘To tell you that you were right.’

Puzzled, Catalina examined his expressionless face in the shadows. ‘Right about what?’

‘About Spain, the Bourbons.’

Catalina went very still and stared at him in the moonlight. She remembered their old quarrels, the memory of what had happened to her country under the iron fist of King Ferdinand. How she could never go back there. And Jamie was a part of that.

Jamie nodded as if he could read her thoughts. ‘I thought I was doing my duty, that I was doing what needed to be done for the security of all Europe. But in the end I left my family, my first duty, in dire straits while I worked to help re-establish a vengeful madman to the throne. There are times I can’t even look at myself in the mirror knowing what has happened. Especially...’

‘Especially what?’ Catalina whispered.

‘Especially when I thought I had lost you and I couldn’t say these things to you. That you were right. That I am sorry. Sorry for so many things.’

Catalina shook her head. She closed her eyes tightly against the tears that prickled at her eyes. It was all too, too late. Everything. ‘We have both paid for our mistakes now. We’ve done what we had to do and now we must go forward. You are here with your family now, and they seem so happy to have you back.’

‘And you, Catalina?’

She laughed. ‘I am glad you are here, too. When I thought you were dead...’ Her heart had been torn out. But she had somehow gone on living. She could surely do that again.

‘That was one of the reasons I was able to accept my task,’ Jamie said quietly. ‘When you were gone it hardly mattered to me what happened.’

A tiny spark of hope bloomed in Catalina’s heart, but she knew it was futile. That had been a long time ago, and so much had changed. But knowing that he had missed her—it was something she could cling to. One certain thing in the midst of so much that was confusing.

‘I meant what I said earlier, Jamie,’ she said. ‘You must consider yourself free of me. You have to do what your family needs now.’ Catalina despaired of knowing how she could let him go—divorce was too public, and a scandal was the last thing his family needed. But she had to do what was best for him.

‘Do I?’ Jamie shook his head, that unreadable little half-smile touching his lips. He looked towards the darkened house, and Catalina glanced over to see that a golden light glowed in one of the upstairs windows. Soon other people would be awake, and she needed to be safely in her chamber before they were.

She stood up and tightened her shawl around her shoulders as she turned away from Jamie. ‘You know you do. And now I must go.’

She wanted to leave quickly, to get away from the folly without looking at him again. He was too good at reading people; he would see her confusion and pain right away, and her attempt to do what was right would be painfully prolonged.

He didn’t say anything, he didn’t try to hold her back, but his hand brushed over hers as she swept past him.

‘Sleep well, Catalina,’ he called softly as she slipped out into the garden. ‘But remember—this isn’t over yet.’

Catalina ran back to the house, not stopping until her chamber door was safely shut behind her. She feared that he was too right—it wasn’t over, at least not in her heart. And it never would be.