A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Thirteen

Jamie was with Alicia Walters.

Catalina hurried as fast as she could down the lane, not even seeing where she was going as she tried to get away from Buxton and from that house. She hadn’t felt the first drops of rain at all.

The day had started in such an ordinary fashion. Lydia was working on some amateur theatricals with the other young guests, watched over by Lily, but they had needed some new fabric for costumes and Catalina had volunteered to go and fetch it. Phaedra was going a few farms over to look at some horses for sale, and had offered to drop Catalina in Buxton if she wanted to buy the fabric there and do some extra shopping. It had seemed like a fine idea, a chance to be alone and think in quiet. She had planned to walk back to Castonbury when she was done and get some exercise as well.

But then she had turned down that quiet street of small houses. When she had glimpsed Jamie there, so surprising and sudden, at first she had felt a rush of gladness. She had just raised her hand to wave to him when the door had opened and Alicia Walters had appeared there. Alicia, who everyone thought had run away after her crime was discovered. Yet she seemed to have been expecting Jamie.

And Catalina had been able to do nothing but rush off, forgetting even the errand that had brought her to town in the first place. She found herself now on the country road and couldn’t even really remember getting there.

The sky had burst open and dropped the heavy burden of rain onto the earth, as it had been threatening to do all day. Catalina hadn’t even noticed the first chilly drops, she had been so lost in the memory of Jamie holding Alicia’s hand, walking with her into that house. She had been lost in that terrible sense of feeling so foolish.

But she hadn’t been able to escape the rain for long. The drops had quickly become a deluge, cold and needle-sharp, pounding against her head and soaking through her spencer and dress. She had stumbled in a muddy hole and her half-boot had almost been sucked from her foot.

‘Maldición,’ she had cursed, and wrenched herself free. She had dragged her ruined straw bonnet from her head and turned her face up to the angry heavens. The storm seemed to reflect all her anger and confusion back at her.

‘Catalina! What are you doing, you foolish woman?’ she heard someone shout over the roar of the rain.

Jamie. It was Jamie who had followed her from the town. Catalina laughed and covered her face with her dripping hands. She felt his strong arms around her waist as he lifted her free of the mud hole.

‘Catalina, where are you going?’ he asked roughly, setting her back on her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

Catalina shook her head. What was he doing here? What was he doing visiting a woman who had deceived his entire family? A woman no one had seen in weeks? Had they all been wrong about Alicia and her relationship with Jamie? ‘I was shopping,’ she said. When she had set out that morning on her errand it had seemed like such an ordinary day. How long ago that was.

The cold seemed to have seeped deep into her skin now, and she shivered.

‘Shopping?’ Jamie said. ‘Did you drop your parcels somewhere?’

‘No, I bought nothing,’ Catalina answered. ‘But you—what were you doing there? You said you were looking into a land purchase.’

Would he tell her about meeting Alicia? About what he was really doing with her? He stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes again so flat and still, so unreadable. She thought for an instant he might answer her, but then he just shook his head and gave her a crooked little smile.

‘We need you inside this very minute, before you catch the ague,’ he said. ‘It would be terrible if you missed the wedding festivities.’

Before she knew what he was doing, he bent and caught her under her knees to swing her up into his arms. She was so surprised by his sudden movement, and still so confused by the burst of cold rain and seeing him with Alicia, that she didn’t make a protest. Jamie’s body was so warm and alive under the wet layers of their clothes, she just wanted to curl close to him. So close she could disappear inside his heat and never be seen again.

‘Back to Castonbury?’ she murmured as he put her on his carriage seat and climbed up beside her.

‘Too far,’ he said. He led the horse onto a twisting pathway off the lane she hadn’t noticed before. When they could go no further, he tied up the horse under the shelter of a large tree and lifted her down again. She saw that he was limping a bit, his steps uneven on the muddy ground.

‘Put me down now,’ she insisted. ‘I can walk.’

‘In those ruined shoes? Certainly not. Now be still, woman, or you’ll tumble us both into the mud.’

His arms tightened around her, and one look at his grimly determined face kept her silent. She let her head fall to his shoulder and just held on to him as he carried her.

‘There is a shelter of sorts in those trees not far from here,’ Jamie said. ‘They once used it in sheep-shearing season, if it’s still there. Not grand, but you can get warm there.’

They walked on in silence, until they found that the shelter was indeed still there. It was a simple, square structure of weathered stone with pens outside for the sheep. There were no windows, but there was a chimney and even a small pile of firewood under a box. Jamie shoved open the rickety door with his shoulder and stepped inside.

For a moment the sudden silence after the rain was deafening. The drops pattered softly on the old roof, but it was dry in the room.

‘It’s not much,’ Jamie said as he lowered her to her feet. ‘But it’s home for now. Can you stand?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Catalina said, trying not to let her teeth chatter. She leaned against the closed door as Jamie went to kneel by the stone hearth. It wasn’t much, just a small room with no furniture that smelled faintly of sheep, but it looked like a miraculous haven to her. Shelves rose up one wall, holding stacks of woollen blankets and pottery jugs.

Catalina shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as she watched Jamie coax the first faint embers of the fire into real flames. They leapt higher, casting his damp skin and hair into a celestial golden light.

She remembered how he had bowed over Alicia’s hand, how well they had looked together, and she wondered again what he had been doing there. What was really going on in his life? Had she ever really known him?

Soon the fire was full of roaring life, the orange flames leaping high, cracking and snapping. Sweet-acrid smoke tinged the scent of the cold, damp air, curling around her as if it would draw her away from the door. Jamie looked at her over his shoulder. He didn’t smile now; his expression was strangely still and grim.

He ran his hands through his wet hair and pushed the strands straight back from his face. The light danced over the angles of his aristocratic features, the sharpness of his cheekbones and nose, the strong line of his jaw. The scar on his cheek. He looked so austere in that flickering light, like a medieval monk or king. Austere and beautiful.

Her heart ached with it.

Catalina shivered again, and he pushed himself to his feet. As she watched he crossed the room to get a blanket from the shelf. He came back to her to tuck the rough wool around her shoulders. ‘You should come and sit by the fire,’ he said quietly.

She let him slip his arm around her shoulders and lead her to the warm, welcoming circle of the blaze. He laid another blanket down on the rough floor for her to sit on.

‘You’re still shivering,’ he said.

Catalina nodded. She was shaking—but not just from the rain. He was so near to her she was dizzy with it, longing to reach out and touch him, to feel the strong warm reality of him and know again that he was no dream.

Jamie knelt beside her with a muttered oath and reached under her muddy hem for her foot. He placed it against his thigh and deftly slipped the buttons of her ruined boot from the stiffened leather.

‘Your clothes are wet through,’ he said, not looking up at her as he removed her other boot. ‘You should take them off and wrap up in more of those blankets. You’ll never get warm otherwise.’

Take off her clothes? Be naked with him? Catalina almost laughed aloud hysterically. What sort of insane things would happen then, if she felt this way when he just touched her foot? It didn’t seem like a sensible idea.

Of course it wasn’t as if he had never seen her unclothed before. He had taken off her clothes, kissed every inch of the skin he had bared....

Catalina shivered again. She turned her head to stare into the flames. ‘What of you?’ she whispered. ‘You are also soaked through, Jamie.’

‘I’m used to it,’ he said.

‘I don’t care if you are used to it. I would hate it if you caught a cold and missed your brother’s wedding festivities because you chased me down in the rain,’ she said. He shook his head, and she raised her hand in a gesture that said she would brook no arguments. ‘I insist. We should both get out of our garments. It seems so foolish to sit here in them when we are both adults who have seen so much of the world. I will even turn my back—very proper.’

Jamie burst out laughing. Catalina had never heard him laugh like that before, full out, nothing held back. It was a rich, glowing sound, brighter and deeper than any spiced wine on a cold night. It made Catalina feel warmer just hearing it, and she found herself actually giggling with him.

‘Oh, yes,’ he gasped. ‘Very proper indeed.’ He sat back on his heels and braced his palms on his thighs as he laughed. ‘As if I don’t remember what you look like naked, Catalina. Your beautiful skin, the curve of your back. Do you still have that little freckle just behind...’

‘Stop!’ Catalina cried. Her sides ached from laughing. She wrapped her arms around her waist and shook her head, trying to catch her breath.

Finally they were able to stop laughing, and somehow the tense atmosphere in the little room felt easier, lighter. Jamie leaned forward and rested his hands on the blanket on either side of her hips. He was so close she could smell the rain on his skin and see the drops of it sparkling in his hair.

‘When did we become so ridiculous, Catalina?’ he said. ‘So silly and prudish.’

‘I am not prudish,’ Catalina protested. ‘Of course I know we have seen each other before. I just think we should be...’

Naked together again? Kissing, touching? Yes, all of those things—if only it was not all too late.

‘Should be what?’ he said.

‘Cautious,’ she answered, far more firmly than she felt.

He studied her for a long, tense moment. Finally he nodded and pushed himself to his feet.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. He turned to face the corner, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘There now, my back is turned.’

Catalina slowly stood up and stepped closer to the fire, her own back turned to him. She unbuttoned and removed her spencer to spread it out on the hearth. She could hear nothing from Jamie except the soft sound of his breath mingled with the patter of rain on the walls outside. She eased the long sleeves of her dress down her arms, pulling at the high, gathered neckline until the wet, clinging muslin fell away. The fabric slithered down to a sodden pile at her feet until she stood in only her chemise and stockings. Her damp skin, bared to the warm air, prickled.

‘Now you,’ she said. After a long moment she heard the slide and rustle of Jamie’s clothes as he undressed. She closed her eyes tightly, but in that darkness it was even worse. She could see it all in her mind—that wet shirt falling away from Jamie’s chest, leaving him bare. The smooth, warm skin, the strong muscles of his chest and his shoulders flexing with his movement. His long, elegant hands loosening the front of his breeches, easing them away from his lean hips—oh, yes, she remembered it all. She could just imagine those breeches moving lower and lower....

Catalina groaned and pressed her hands over her closed eyes. Jamie was right—they were ridiculous. It had been so long; she shouldn’t still want him this much.

‘Catalina, are you all right?’ Jamie said. She heard a soft whisper of sound, his footsteps on the floor, a rustle of cloth, and then a warm, dry blanket eased over her shoulders.

‘You’re still shaking,’ he said, so quiet and deep.

Catalina swallowed hard and nodded. ‘The rain. When do you think it will end?’

‘Very soon. Don’t worry—I’m sure your charge, Miss Westman, is safe enough at Castonbury with my sister.’ Jamie stepped away from her, and Catalina opened her eyes to see that he knelt down to stir at the fire. ‘Come, sit closer, it will warm you.’

Under the shelter of the blanket, Catalina wriggled out of the chemise and unfastened the velvet garters to roll down her damp stockings. Now she had only the blanket over her nakedness—and Jamie still wore his breeches. All her wild imaginings were for naught.

Catalina almost laughed and she clapped her hand over her mouth. The other hand held her blanket closed at her throat.

‘Come, sit,’ Jamie said again. He pulled the blankets on the floor closer to the hearth.

‘I know Miss Westman is fine at Castonbury,’ Catalina said as she sat down. She tucked her legs up under her and watched the fire leap higher. ‘Your family has been very kind to her.’

‘They can be kind sometimes,’ Jamie said with a laugh. ‘We’re not always complete savages, no matter what the gossip says about us.’

They could be kind when they had a purpose? Was that how Jamie truly thought? Was that what had happened in Spain? Catalina blurted out, ‘They want you to marry her, you know.’

Jamie turned his head to look at her, that half-smile on his lips. Half his face was lit by the fire and half cast in shadows. ‘My father thinks I should. He considers her very suitable.’

‘And you?’

‘How can I marry her, Catalina, when I am married to you?’

And there it was, said aloud at last. They were married. What were they to do about it? The words seemed to hover in the air between them, filling the tiny building.

Catalina tightened her fist around the blanket. ‘We aren’t really. I would never stand in the way of your life here.’

‘How could you not? Do you not remember Spain?’

‘Of course I remember.’ Catalina closed her eyes. She remembered it all, every moment with him. But that was so long ago, when they were different people. ‘But it’s all changed since then. I see that so clearly since I came to Castonbury. You need a wife who can be a part of that, as I’m sure Lydia could. There must be a way we could make it so.’

Jamie was quiet for a long moment. ‘You think I should marry Miss Westman?’

‘I think you must do what your family thinks is right,’ Catalina said, even as her heart ached to say the words. She wanted to cry out that no, she did not want him to marry Lydia! But she had been brought up the strict Spanish way, and that included doing the dutiful thing even when it was difficult. ‘I am sure our marriage cannot be legal here in England. It was such a rushed affair, and the chaplain is dead now. There is no one to remember it at all.’

‘No one but us,’ Jamie said quietly.

‘Yes. No one but us.’ Catalina turned to look at him. Her beautiful, brave, dashing Jamie. How she had missed him. How she missed him still, despite everything that was between them now. Family, duty. Alicia Walters. Everything that had happened in Spain.

‘Perhaps there is someone you prefer to Lydia,’ she said.

‘Oh? And who would that be? Which of the oh-so-many candidates for my hand would you recommend?’ he said wryly.

Catalina thought of Alicia’s hand on his arm, his smile as he looked down at her and stepped into the house. ‘Perhaps Miss Walters, now that she seems to have reappeared. I hear she did fit in very well at Castonbury.’

Jamie’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Alicia?’

‘I saw you with her in town.’

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Surely you know the tale of her tenure there at Castonbury?’

‘Yes, I have heard something of it.’

‘Then you know she could never go back there.’

‘You don’t seem angry with her,’ Catalina said.

Jamie shrugged, staring back into the fire. ‘I know that sometimes people do terrible things for what they suppose are the best of reasons.’

As he had done? Catalina longed to pull him around to face her, to break down that brittle facade that always seemed to enclose him now and demand he tell her exactly what he meant. That he tell her everything. But she feared he would turn away from her, close himself off for ever, as he had in Spain when he had told her only part of his work there.

‘I won’t marry Alicia,’ he said. He said nothing about Lydia. ‘She is assisting me with something, and then she will go away from here.’

‘And what will you do?’

‘I have no idea, Catalina,’ he said with another of those hollow laughs. ‘Right now I just want to sit here with you and listen to the rain, and forget.’

Catalina wanted that too. Just to be with Jamie, here in this strange little place. This small moment out of real time, just the two of them as it had once been.

She tucked a folded blanket behind her head as a pillow and slid down into the warm nest. Jamie laid his hand on her bare foot as it peeked from the hem of the blanket, and for a long time there was no sound between them, just the rain and the snap of the fire. The moments spread out like a wide river, slowly flowing between them with no beginning or end.

As the fire burned down, Jamie leaned forward to stir it to life again. The blanket wrapped around his torso slipped off one muscled shoulder and revealed to the light a delicate, terrible tracery of pale pink scars that echoed the one on his cheek.

Catalina felt like she couldn’t breathe at the sight of them. She wanted so much to lean closer to him, to press her lips to those scars. She ached to think how he must have suffered, and she wished that her kiss could erase those marks and make her life whole again.

Make both their lives whole again.

But she knew that wasn’t possible. She leaned back against the blankets and stared again into the fire. She listened to the lash of the rain and let the warmth of the smoke, the clean scent of Jamie’s cologne, wrap around her as he lay down beside her.

‘Tell me a story,’ she said, remembering how he had once told her tales of English knights and chivalry on the long, hot nights in Spain, and how she would tell him Spanish tales in return.

Jamie laughed. ‘I don’t know any good tales I have not already told you. Not like you and the adventures of Don Quixote.’

‘I remember your stories of King Arthur. But I also liked your stories of Castonbury and your family,’ Catalina said. ‘It didn’t sound like a real place at all but a fairyland.’

Jamie was quiet for a long moment. ‘It seemed like a fairyland to me too, when I was in Spain for so long. But I told you everything then. I have nothing new.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes indeed. You know of the pranks my siblings and I pulled, about my mother and what it was like when she was gone. I think I would rather hear about the don again.’

Catalina thought about the stories she had been re-reading lately with Lydia. Don Quixote and his endless quest for a perfect world that always eluded him. For a life that could never be. ‘I cannot think of a story for right now.’

‘Then will you sing that song for me again, Catalina? The one you once taught me when we walked together in Spain,’ Jamie said softly. She felt the soft brush of his breath against her shoulder and realised he had moved even closer to her as they talked. She nodded, but she feared her voice would strangle in her throat at his nearness. She touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips and slowly began to sing, wobbly and off-key.

‘Conde Niño, por amores es niño y pasó a la mar; va a dar aqua a su...’

But she couldn’t finish. Jamie’s lips came down on hers, swallowing the song, her breath, her everything. She was surrounded only by him, by the heat and scent of him, the force of his passion that drew out her own desire all over again.

With a low moan, her arms came around him tightly as she rolled to her back, drawing him down with her, onto her. She had tried so hard to force away her feelings for him, to shatter them into oblivion, but they wouldn’t leave. They burst free at his touch, like brilliant flashes of fireworks in a dark sky. She needed him now; her desire was a force as free and elemental as the storm outside.

Jamie couldn’t be hers for ever, but he was hers right now. Just as she was, and always would be, his.

Catalina impatiently pushed the blanket away from his body. It draped to his hips, leaving his chest bare for her seeking caress. He was everything she had remembered in her dreams, his skin like hot, smooth satin over lean muscle and bone, shifting and bunching under her touch. She ran her fingernails lightly along the long line of his back, to the swell of his buttocks and then up again to twine in his hair and hold him with her.

He groaned as his tongue slid into her mouth, all a heated rush of breath and need. It wasn’t a careful, seductive kiss, but one rough with long-denied passion. Catalina’s hand threaded deeper into his hair, drawing him even closer, while her other hand slid over his shoulder to feel the pattern of those scars on her palm.

The blanket still wrapped around her seemed to abrade her sensitised skin with its texture and she shoved it away. Jamie reached down to help her, stripping the coverings away until she lay bare beneath him. She raised her leg and used her foot to push his own blanket all the way off before she wrapped her thigh around his waist. At last they were skin to skin, their bodies together. His chest slid over her breasts, raising her nipples to hard, sensitive points. She moaned and wrapped her other leg around him so he could not escape her.

Wrapped in the unreality of the storm, they were free.

Her head fell back as his lips trailed a ribbon of hot kisses down her throat and over her bare shoulder. She arched up into him and felt the heavy heat of his erection against her hip. He wanted her too, as much as she wanted him.

‘Jamie,’ she whispered. ‘Amado.’

‘Catalina,’ he groaned. ‘Catalina, how I have missed you.’ His tongue traced lightly on the soft curve of her breast. His fingertips circled one of her nipples just before he rose up above her and closed his lips around it hard, drawing it deep into his mouth.

She sobbed out incoherent Spanish love words, until slowly his mouth drew away and he breathed a light caress over her pebbled flesh.

‘Open to me again, Catalina,’ he whispered. She felt his hand against her thigh, moving softly closer and closer to where she longed for him to touch her damp core. ‘Open to me.’

‘Yes,’ she answered, and her thighs parted at his coaxing caress. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move with the ache of her desire for him. His fingers delved ever so lightly along the opening of her womanhood, teasing her.

‘Please!’ she gasped, arching her back.

‘Do you want more, Catalina?’ he said roughly. ‘Just as I do?’ He knelt between her legs and slid one long finger deeply inside of her. His touch curled, seeking that one small spot that had always made her cry out. It still did, and she called his name as the fiery sensations shot through her.

‘You’re so wet,’ Jamie muttered. ‘And tight. Has it been a while?’

She nodded. ‘Since—since the last time we were together.’

He went very still above her, as if her words surprised him. She feared he might draw away from her, ask her about the years they had been apart—but this was no time for words.

She reached out and ran her fingers lightly along the hot, taut satin of his erection. She felt the tracery of veins there and pressed her touch harder to the pulsing head, just as she remembered he liked. His breath drew in sharply and he seemed to grow even harder in her hand.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been too long.’

‘Oh, Catalina,’ he groaned. ‘I could never leave you.’ He kissed her again, deeply with the force of unstoppable need. It had been much too long.

Catalina welcomed his kiss joyfully and wrapped her legs around his waist as she felt the tip of his manhood slide against her. He thrust inside her, one exquisite movement at a time. She held on to his shoulders, his skin damp against her hands, and closed her eyes as she felt him joined with her again at last.

She opened her eyes and stared up into the grey heat of his gaze as he slowly moved within her. The pleasure of being with him again spread through her like the lightning outside, quick flashes of heat, delight that built and built until it was too great to contain. It thundered in her mind, and everything vanished but the feel of his skin against hers, the movement of his body inside hers. She heard his low moan and cried out in answer.

‘Catalina!’ he shouted as his body arched above hers. ‘Catalina.’

‘Jamie, amado.’ She fell back into their nest of blankets, weak and still filled with the bright glow of pleasure. It was all even better than her memories and dreams.

Jamie collapsed beside her, his head on her shoulder, and she gently reached up to caress his damp hair. This moment was perfect, and Catalina knew that no matter what came after she would always have this.

Jamie slowly sank down into the blankets by her side. His arm came around her waist, holding her close as their breathing slowed and the air grew chilly around them again. Catalina could feel dark, exhausted oblivion encroaching on her, but she didn’t want to slip away into sleep. Not yet. She wanted to hold on to this moment with Jamie as long as she could.

She rolled onto her side and studied him in the light from the fading embers of the fire. He looked relaxed and sleepy, and so very young. The austere lines of his face were softened, burnished by the firelight. His hair was tousled, tumbling over his brow.

His hand rose lazily and caressed gently over her shoulder.

‘We should go back to the house,’ she whispered.

Jamie shook his head without opening his eyes. ‘Not until the rain stops. We have time yet.’

Time before the real world closed in on them again—but not much. Already Catalina could feel its sands running out around her. She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes to listen to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

‘What happened in Spain, Jamie?’ she asked quietly. ‘After—after you thought I died.’

The hand that caressed her shoulder paused for a tiny second before its rhythm resumed, just as soft and careful as before.

After a long moment, he said, ‘That is a tale that is quite dull, I fear. It should wait for another day.’ He sat up, and Catalina watched as he knelt by the fire to stir up its dying embers. The long, lean line of his naked back gleamed in the light. Catalina drew the blankets up around her, and she knew he would tell her nothing today.

‘But what happened then is why I cannot condemn Miss Walters, as my family would do,’ he said quietly. ‘She made a terrible mistake out of desperation, and she is paying for it now. She will pay for it in her soul for the rest of her life, knowing that she did such a thing.’

Catalina couldn’t bear seeing the stark pain in his eyes. ‘Jamie, whatever you did in Spain, whatever happened, it is past.’

‘Is it?’ Jamie shook his head. ‘We carry our past with us wherever we go, Catalina. Surely you and I know that better than anyone. It’s why I cannot condemn Alicia Walters.’

‘But what she did to your family...’

‘Was not entirely her own doing,’ he said. ‘Do you remember a man called Hugh Webster?’

Catalina shuddered at the mention of that name. It was a name she had not heard in so long, but she remembered him. The horrible panic she had felt when he grabbed her. ‘Of course I remember him, the vile man.’

‘It was he who concocted the scheme of setting up Alicia as my widow at Castonbury,’ Jamie said. ‘He who had taken my lost signet ring. She began because she was desperate to protect her child, but he forced her to continue. And now he has disappeared.’

‘Webster?’ Catalina cried, appalled. ‘But what has happened to him? How could he have done such a thing and just vanished?’

‘That is what I am trying to discover. And Alicia has agreed to help me. Once Webster has paid for his crimes, I will help her start over somewhere away from here.’

Start over. Somewhere with him? Did he truly care about Alicia? She had seen how they greeted each other at that house....

No. She shook her head. She had no right to be jealous any longer, no matter who he cared about or what he did. She had to put all that aside, to forget everything that had happened. At least for now. One day he would have to tell her what happened in Spain.

‘I want to help you,’ she said quietly. ‘I know we can find Webster if we work together.’

‘Catalina, no,’ Jamie protested. ‘The man is clearly mad. I won’t put you in danger.’

‘I would be in no danger, not with you,’ Catalina argued. ‘Webster did terrible things, both in Spain and here. I want to see him stopped, just as you do. I know I can help.’

‘We can talk about all this later,’ Jamie said, and Catalina recognised the stubborn set of his jaw. He would not argue with her, yet he would stand very firm.

But she was as stubborn as him. ‘Yes, we will assuredly talk about it later,’ she insisted.

A rueful smile touched his lips. ‘It’s late now, Catalina. You should rest a little longer. The rain will surely stop soon.’

Catalina nodded, suddenly realising that she was indeed very weary. So much had happened, her mind was spinning with it. ‘Only for a little while. We must be back at Castonbury before it grows too late.’

‘I will keep watch,’ he said, and she knew he would keep his word. She lay back down on her side facing the fire and let its warmth and heat wrap around her.

As sleep closed in on her mind, she felt Jamie tuck the blankets over her and she smiled. For the first time in a very, very long while, she felt safe....

* * *

Catalina’s slender body was relaxed and warm in the circle of his arms, her hair falling like a skein of dark satin across his chest. He ran his palm gently over her hair, along the curve of her back. She shivered against him in her sleep and he drew her closer.

They were as close as a man and woman could possibly be, their bodies wrapped around each other after the heated rush of sex, yet it seemed like she was still a thousand miles away from him. His Catalina—more elusive than ever. He had almost thought he was drawing her close to him again, that they were almost as they had been in Spain—able to read each other without even speaking. Then she had pulled away from him again.

Ever since he had first glimpsed Catalina across that camp in Spain, she had intrigued him, drawn him in with just one glance from her dark eyes. Talking with her had only made him want to know more and more, craved her presence, within the spell she wove with her smile and her touch.

And his memories of their lovemaking, memories he had treasured on so many lonely nights, were as nothing compared to the reality of tonight. The reality of being with her, touching her, feeling her against him. Never had he felt as he had this afternoon, when his body had joined with Catalina’s, and he had opened his eyes to see that she really was there beneath him, her head arched back, her lips parted. That reality was beyond pleasure, beyond merely satisfying his body’s cravings. Beyond just the two of them, Jamie and Catalina, at that moment.

He had thought his heart would burst with the joy, the triumph of holding her again.

Now, with the cold night closing around them and her sleeping next to him, he could see that she was still not his. She said she could not truly be his wife. She pushed him away and he didn’t know why. His family wanted him to marry but his Catalina had come back to him. No matter what she said, he couldn’t be free of her nor she of him. They were married. The only thing that made any practical sense was to acknowledge that and learn to make a new life together.

Catalina murmured in her sleep and he closed his arms around her. He had to make her see sense, that was all. Yet he could tell she had lost none of her Spanish stubborn spirit, that in fact it had grown over the years. She was determined to do what was right as she saw it, but then so was he.

He owed Catalina for all she had suffered in the years since they parted. He had to make it up to her somehow, to make sure she was cared for. He only needed a plan to make her see that, to make her let him help her. His proud Spanish lady.

Jamie tightened his arms around her and he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. For just a moment he let himself feel the exultation of being here with Catalina again, his beautiful, lost Catalina, and forget everything else. Holding her there in his arms, he let himself find the first restful sleep he had known in years.

* * *

Catalina slowly drifted up from the haze of dreams. She couldn’t remember what her visions were while she slept, but she somehow knew they were sweet because she felt peaceful and content as she hadn’t in so very long. Smiling, she stretched out beneath the rough wool blanket—and then she felt a large, warm hand at her waist.

And she remembered everything. Jamie and their lovemaking. How strong and sweet and perfect it had been, just like in her memories. She rolled onto her side and studied his face in the dying light of the fire.

His dark hair was rumpled over his forehead, and asleep he looked so much younger. The sharpness of his features was relaxed, his wariness and watchfulness gone for the moment. Catalina felt as if she was seeing him as he must have been long ago, before the horrors of Spain and the burdens of his family had descended on him.

Before he married her.

Filled with the longing to give him back that lost peace, that idyll, Catalina leaned towards him and softly pressed her lips to his. Jamie moaned as he woke up to her kiss, and she felt his hand gently caress her cheek, the loose fall of her hair. She drew back to look deeply into his eyes, those beautiful grey eyes, and let herself have this too-short, eternal moment with him.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered, and claimed her lips again in a fierce, desperate kiss.

She needed him so much, and in that kiss she could tell he needed her too. Through the blurry haze of desire, she felt his hands close around her hips and he shifted their bodies so that she lay on top of him. His tongue traced the curve of her lower lip, softly, teasingly, before he slid inside.

Catalina moaned at the taste of him, so familiar and yet so strange at the same time. His kiss trailed away from her lips, over her cheek and along the curve of her throat. Jamie touched the tip of his tongue to her bare shoulder and then blew on it lightly until she shivered. That wild, yearning feeling inside of her expanded until she thought she might burst with it all. He did that, only Jamie.

He traced the edge of his teeth gently along her shoulder, making her shiver again, before he pressed an open-mouthed kiss on the soft spot where her shoulder met her neck. He drew the blanket away from her body and his hand traced the edge of her waist and her abdomen, lower and lower, sliding aside the cloth until she was bare to him.

Catalina tilted back her head and stared up at his face, chiselled and half shadowed in the firelight. His grey eyes glittered in the darkness, and his lips curved in a smile that made her smile too. This was her Jamie, the man she had married. The man she had missed.

She traced a light touch slowly up his chest and felt the strong, hard heat of him. He was so very alive under her caress, so wondrous. And he made her feel as if she was coming back to life too, after she had felt so cold and numb for so long. And she was intoxicated with that feeling, with being with him again at last.

She felt his stomach muscles tighten as her hand slid lower and lower. The tips of her fingers brushed his erection and she felt him harden even more.

‘Catalina...’ he said tightly, but he didn’t move under her touch. He just watched her closely with those jewel-like eyes.

Catalina smiled, and slid her palms up over his chest and touched every inch of him. Full of wonder, she traced a soft caress over his strong shoulders, down his corded arms, her fingertips fluttering over his chest. He seemed thinner than he had been in Spain, leaner, harder, but she was still fascinated by every inch of him, by being close to him.

Yet even as she let herself fall deep into that swirling pool of desire for him, she knew how dangerous it could all be. She couldn’t afford to forget how much lay between them now, a gulf of years and memories. But for this one moment, surrounded by the rain and the firelight, she could forget—with Jamie.

She closed her eyes and arched closer to him. Every breath she took, full of the scent of him, seemed to draw him to her even more. She pressed her parted lips to his bare chest, and tasted the warm, damp salt of his skin. She could feel his heartbeat against her, fast and frantic, echoing her own. She let the tip of her tongue swirl around his flat nipple.

Jamie let her explore, let her feel her freedom. She curled her arms around him and traced her touch down his spine to pull him closer to her. Her hands moved down, down, slowly, teasingly, until her fingers curled over his hard buttocks.

And then his control shattered. ‘Catalina,’ he groaned, and his hands closed around her waist. Catalina laughed and wrapped her legs around his hips. He kissed her, so hard and hot, so full of raw, burning need. She arched her hips up tight into his and the blurry haze of sexual need closed around them, and she held on to him as she fell down into it.

What was it about this man that made her feel that way? She didn’t know, and at the moment she didn’t care.

‘Catalina.’ His mouth slid from hers to kiss her jaw, her shoulder, to linger on that sensitive spot on her neck. When she sighed and let her head fall back to the blankets, he reached up to touch her soft, aching nipple.

‘Catalina, you are so beautiful,’ he whispered. He traced the tip of his tongue along the soft underside of her breast, teasing her.

Catalina reached up to tangle her fingers in the rough silk of his hair and held him against her. Finally, as she murmured wordless entreaties, he gave her what she longed for and took her nipple deep into his mouth. As his tongue swirled around it, his fingers caressed her other breast, gently, expertly. He rolled and stroked the nipple until she cried out his name.

His mouth traced a ribbon of kisses on the soft skin between her breasts, and Catalina reached out blindly between their bodies to unfasten the front of his trousers. He sprang into her hand, hard, hot, the veins throbbing under her touch, and she felt a surge of triumph that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. In this, as always, they were together.

She ran a slow, caressing touch up the full length of him, then pressed closer as he moaned. His finger lightly traced her womanhood before sliding deep inside of her. The rough friction of his touch against the soft wetness made her cry out. Her back arched up from the blankets and her eyes closed as the feelings washed over her.

His thumb rubbed hard against that tiny, hidden spot up high inside her, and it felt as if white-hot sparks raced through her.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered against her neck as he kissed her there again and again. ‘Tell me you want me. Tell me you missed me as I missed you.’

For an instant she thought there was a strange, yearning note in his deep voice, but when she opened her eyes to look up at him his face was drawn taut into inscrutable, unreadable lines.

‘I want you,’ she said simply.

Jamie nodded, and his hand slid down to press her legs open to him. And with a twist of his hips, he thrust deeply into her.

Catalina gasped at the sensation of being joined with him again. Her legs closed tighter around him and she fell down and down into the pleasure. She held on to him as he drew back and lunged forward again and again, deeper, harder. The scent and burning heat of him surrounded her and she moved with him, seeking her own pleasure. Their bodies and their breath were like one in that single perfect moment.

The sparkling, tingling pressure built and built deep inside of her, growing and expanding like the night sky until it exploded.

‘Jamie, mi corazón!’ she cried, holding on to him as if he was the only thing left in a drowning world.

He threw his head back, his whole body taut above her as he came. ‘Catalina,’ he shouted, and then slowly collapsed beside her on the blankets, his shoulders shaking. His breath seemed harsh in the sudden silence, and Catalina feared she couldn’t catch her own. She closed her eyes to try to hold on to that moment as long as she could.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered, and she felt him move to rest his head on her midriff, just below her bare breasts. His hair brushed softly against her skin, and she reached down to thread her fingers through it.

A strange kind of peace flowed through Catalina as she lay there wrapped in Jamie’s arms, and at first she didn’t know what that feeling was. She hadn’t known such an instant of warmth and perfect contentment in a long time, as if that was exactly where she was meant to be. She felt Jamie press a soft kiss against her skin and she smiled.

Soon, much too soon, this rainy afternoon would be over and she would have to face the truth of the past and of their situation now. But right now she was with him as she had never thought to be again, and it was precious.