A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Twelve

Buxton was crowded and noisy as Jamie eased his curricle past a large, lumbering landau and turned down a side lane. Shop doors were thrown open for the customers who hurried in and out laden with packages, calling out to friends, finishing the morning’s errands. It was a warm day despite the heavy grey skies that threatened rain later and the damp air, and everyone wanted to be home before the storm came.

No one paid him any attention as he made his way through the town. He wore a plain grey coat and a broad-brimmed hat drawn low over his brow, and no one seemed to recognise the carriage. He liked those few moments of solitude, where there was only the horse and the road, and no one in his family there to watch him with ill-concealed concern in their eyes.

They never asked him questions, but he could tell they wanted to know what had really happened. One day he would have to tell them, but not yet. Not while he still had no words for the guilt that twisted at him when he thought of how he had left them, of the pain he had caused.

Not when the issue of Catalina was still unresolved. His wife.

She said she considered him free of her, that he had to do his duty to his family now. Yet what of his duty to her? He had to do what was right, but how could he when she would not let him? If she would not let him be her husband, he still had to take care of her.

And he had to start doing right by her and his family by settling old scores. As he had worked on the estate in the past few days after the assembly, he had thought about it all a great deal.

Jamie drew up at a small house set on a quiet street not far from the Assembly Rooms and climbed down from the high carriage seat. There was no one else passing by this row of small but respectable dwellings; it was far from the shops and the more fashionable neighbourhoods. The houses were plain and well-kept, quite unexceptional in every way. There were only a few shops across the street that catered mostly to the comfortably off merchants, widows and lawyers who lived in the houses.

And that made it the perfect place for someone to hide in plain sight.

Jamie knocked on the black-painted door at the top of a small set of stone steps, and it was quickly opened.

‘You are early,’ Alicia said as he bowed over her hand before slipping inside. ‘Crispin is taking his nap and the maid has gone out on an errand.’

‘Are you both comfortable here, Miss Walters?’ Jamie asked. He left his hat on a small bench in the hall and followed her into the tidy sitting room. A fire burned in the grate against the damp day, and an open work box sat on the table, spilling out colourful embroidery silks next to a tea set. A few toys were scattered across the floor.

‘Oh, yes, very comfortable,’ Alicia said as she scooped up the toys and deposited them in their box. ‘It was so kind of you to find this place for us. I certainly do not deserve it after...well, after everything.’

Jamie shook his head. ‘You have surely been punished enough for your mistakes. I am still paying for mine.’

Alicia gave him a puzzled glance. ‘Whatever do you mean, Lord Hatherton? What mistakes could you possibly have made?’

He smiled. ‘Nothing to worry about at the moment, Miss Walters. How is young Crispin settling in?’

‘Very well indeed. Though I think this street is a bit quiet for him. He does like to watch the horses go by.’ Alicia poured out two cups of tea. ‘I know I have no right to ask, but how is everyone at Castonbury? How is...’

She broke off, and a faint blush touched her pale cheeks.

Jamie sat down by the fire and took the cup she offered him. ‘How is Mr Everett?’

Alicia bit her lip. ‘How—how did you know?’

Jamie shrugged. ‘He has often expressed concern about you. He is a good man.’

‘A good man I do not deserve.’ Alicia sat down across from him and stared down into her cup. ‘Have you discovered where Captain Webster is hiding yet?’

‘Not at present, but he cannot stay hidden for ever. Have you had word from him?’

Alicia shook her head. ‘I left him a message in our old hiding place telling him where I am and offering to share a new scheme with him, just as you instructed. He has not yet replied.’ She gave a small frown. ‘But I think I saw him a few nights ago.’

Jamie’s senses sharpened. ‘Saw him where?’

‘In the lane behind the house, just past the garden that backs onto the Assembly Rooms. I was putting Crispin to bed in the nursery and happened to glance out the window. I thought I saw a man with red hair, but then he was gone so fast. I could have only imagined it.’

Jamie didn’t like the thought of Webster lurking about like a phantom, even if it was all part of the plan to draw him out. ‘You should let me set guards on the house, as I suggested before.’

‘No,’ Alicia said adamantly. ‘I don’t want to scare Crispin. And no one should know where we are. We have the maid, and she does seem to notice everything that happens in the kitchen and out on the street. She loves to tell me all about it.’

‘Then at least you must send me word immediately if you even suspect you see Webster again,’ Jamie said.

Alicia nodded. ‘Of course I will. I want him found as much as you do. That is the only way I can go on with my life. Whatever that may be.’

Jamie knew all too well how that felt. Life felt as if it was at a standstill until he could catch Webster and restore his family’s home and honour. Only then could he somehow move forward.

He and Alicia made more plans for trying to track down Webster and he left as the day moved into late afternoon. A few raindrops were falling from the sky as he drove out of town and turned back towards Castonbury. In the distance he glimpsed a figure hurrying along the side of the road, a slender woman in a blue dress and jacket. Her back was to him, her head bent, but Jamie could tell even from that distance that it was Catalina.

He urged the horse faster as the rain began to fall thicker and heavier. He came alongside her just as she stumbled in the mud. He leapt down from the carriage and ignored the twinge in his own leg to catch her as she fell.

‘Catalina?’ he shouted over the rain. ‘Where are you going? What are you doing here?’

She looked up at him, raindrops glistening on her lashes, and he was shocked to see the raw hurt in her eyes. It flashed there for only a second before she looked away, but he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything to take it away.

But first he had to get her out of this cursed rain.