A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Seventeen

‘Catalina? Catalina, wake up. Please, please, wake up!’

The words seemed so blurry and faint. Catalina felt as if she was slowly crawling up through a dark, thick cloud. It pressed down on her head, as if to drag her back down into peaceful sleep, but somehow she knew she had to struggle against it. There seemed to be something she needed just beyond her weak grasp, and that voice pulled her up out of the beckoning darkness.

Painfully, she pried open her gritty eyes. Candlelight pierced her brain, so faint yet so very bright. Her head pounded as if a hundred drums beat inside of it.

‘What is happening?’ she said. Her throat felt so rough.

‘Oh, thank goodness! You are alive.’ Slowly a face swam into view above Catalina. Alicia’s face. Her blonde hair straggled from its pins, and a bruise marred her cheek. ‘I was so frightened. I couldn’t bear for yet another person to be hurt because of me.’

Catalina winced, and found that she lay on a hard floor with her head resting on Alicia’s knee. Wherever they were it felt cold and damp, and dark with just that one flickering candle.

Then it all came flooding back to her. The shattering glass at Alicia’s house, Webster knocking her to the floor. They had been kidnapped by the very man they had been scheming to trap.

Catalina sat up too fast, wincing as pain rushed through her head. ‘Are you hurt, Alicia? Did he...’

‘Oh, no,’ Alicia said quickly. ‘He just knocked me out and somehow brought us here—wherever here is.’

Catalina pressed her fingertips to her temples and studied the dark room they were in. It was a place she knew—the sheepherder’s cottage in the woods where Jamie had brought her the day they had both got caught in that terrible downpour. It was the cottage where they had made love in front of the fire. She slowly pushed herself to her feet and went to try the door. It was securely bolted from the outside.

‘I am sure someone will find us very soon,’ she said, trying to push down the fear rising inside of her. Panic did no good. She went to the shelves along the wall and pulled down some blankets. She handed one to Alicia and wrapped the other around herself. ‘Surely two men can’t take two unconscious women out of the house without someone seeing.’

Alicia nodded, but Catalina could see how pale and frightened she was. ‘Thank heaven Crispin was with the neighbour today. My poor baby. If Webster had got him as well...’ She broke off on a ragged sob.

Catalina sat back down next to her and put her arm around Alicia’s trembling shoulders. ‘All will be well, I am sure. Lady Phaedra knew I was coming to Buxton today, and when I do not make it back to Castonbury she will know something is amiss and will tell Jamie. He will make that bastardo Webster sorry he was ever born.’

Alicia nodded again. ‘You—you do love him, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Catalina whispered. ‘I do love him.’ And she realised those were the truest words she had ever spoken. She loved Jamie more than anything, and she always would. No matter what had happened in Spain, who he had worked for, how long they had been separated, he was her beautiful, kind, strong Jamie. She had been a fool to think she could ever go away from him again. The past was gone. They had both done what they had to do in times of desperation, but now they were through it.

Or so she had hoped.

‘I am sure that is one reason Webster hates Lord Hatherton so much,’ Alicia said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Webster wanted you in Spain. Once, when they were foxed, he bragged to Colonel Chambers he would have you, and when the colonel laughed at him he was furious. But even Webster could see how you and Lord Hatherton looked at each other. It was just one more thing Hatherton had—family, money, position, women—that Webster could never hope for.’

‘And he took his revenge once he thought Jamie was gone,’ Catalina whispered.

‘Yes. Once he was gone and could no longer fight—and beat—Webster. Webster is a coward. He would never confront someone he hated directly. But now—now Hatherton is back.’

‘Webster is surely done for.’

‘I only hope we get out of here to see it.’ Alicia sat back against the wall and stared into the flickering flame of the candle. ‘I loved Colonel Chambers too.’

‘Did you?’ Catalina said. She could see the truth of it in the sadness in Alicia’s eyes, and she suddenly felt something she had never thought she would for the woman—sympathy.

‘Yes. Not as you love Hatherton, perhaps, but in my own way. He was so kind to me, and for a while I wasn’t lonely any longer.’ Alicia hugged her knees closer. ‘But I know he is truly gone for ever and I will never have another chance with him. Not as you have now with Hatherton.’

Catalina turned Alicia’s words over in her mind. She and Jamie did have another chance, a miraculous chance to find each other again. She had been so foolish ever to push that away, even for good reasons. Love was a gift given to so few. She and Jamie had found it again, and she wouldn’t let it go twice.

But before she could tell him that, before they could begin the rest of their lives afresh, she had to get out of this prison....

She studied their provisions. It wasn’t much. A few charred sticks in the fireplace, the wooden shelves that appeared solidly bolted to the walls, the blankets. But there were also some pottery jugs lined up on the highest shelf. She turned to examine the bolted door.

‘If Webster came back, he would have to come through that door, right?’ Catalina said. ‘There are no windows.’

‘I suppose so,’ Alicia said listlessly.

‘Then maybe I have an idea.’

Alicia peered up at her warily. ‘What sort of idea? I’m not so sure...’

‘Oh, come, Alicia! Surely anything is better than just sitting here waiting,’ Catalina exclaimed. ‘Help me reach those jugs up there, and then we can bind one of the blankets over the doorway.’

‘Oh!’ A spark lit Alicia’s eyes as she sat up and turned to the door. ‘Yes, I see.’

‘There are two of us, and hopefully when he returns Webster will be alone, and leave that traitorous footman behind,’ Catalina said as they attached the blanket on either side of the door in a sort of rope. ‘If we can trap him as he comes in, we’ll have a second to hit him over the head with the jugs. Then we can lock him in and run for help.’

And if it did not work—at least they had tried. Catalina wasn’t ever going to stop trying to get back to Jamie. She had to tell him she was wrong, that she loved him and that was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered.

Once they were done with their task, they crouched to either side of the door and waited. It seemed like hours but was probably not very long at all when Catalina heard the metallic grind of a bar being lifted from outside the door. The door swung back and a man in a rough grey coat stalked into the room.

Catalina only had a glimpse of blond hair before she shouted, ‘Now!’

Alicia brought her jug crashing down on his head, and he collapsed to the floor, entangled in the blanket. Catalina saw it was the footman unconscious on the floor and not Webster, but there was no time to think. She grabbed Alicia’s hand and they ran out of the door. They were almost free of the clearing around the cottage, the sky growing dark around them, when Webster stepped out from behind a tree.

He caught Catalina around the waist and swung her off her feet. Her hand was torn from Alicia’s.

‘Run!’ Catalina screamed, and Alicia took off as fast as she could. She quickly disappeared into the dusk, and Webster wrenched Catalina’s arm hard behind her back until she gasped with the pain.

‘You Spanish whore,’ he said harshly, twisting even harder. ‘You always have to be where you’re not supposed to be. Just like in Spain. My quarrel was with Alicia, not you. But you’ll do just as well to draw Hatherton out.’

Catalina remembered what Webster had tried to do in Spain, the horrible hot weight of his body on hers, and she kicked out at him as hard as she could. Through the cold haze of terror she hardly knew what she was doing, but she felt her teeth sink into his hand as he tried to silence her.

‘Whore!’ he shouted. He lifted her higher in his arms and carried her back into the cottage just as the footman staggered out. ‘I’ll deal with you later. I have to catch that bitch Alicia first.’

He shoved her into the room and slammed the door behind her. Before she could throw herself at it, she heard the bolt drop back heavily into place. As she sank to the floor, the stub of the candle flickered and threatened to go out, leaving her alone in the semi-darkness.

Alicia got away, she told herself. She would surely fetch help.

But in the meantime Catalina was by herself. She wrapped her arms around her waist and closed her eyes as she envisioned that day she had married Jamie in Spain. His hand in hers as he led her up the aisle, his smile as they promised themselves to each other. It had meant so much to her then; it had meant everything.

It still did. She only wanted the chance to tell him that.

She sank down onto the floor, her arms around her knees and began to sing in a shaky voice. ‘Conde Niño, por amores es niño y pasó a la mar...’