A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Nineteen

‘Conde Niño, por amores es niño y pasó a la mar...’

Catalina slowly opened her eyes and pulled herself up from the soft, dark cloud of sleep at the sound of a voice singing. It was not a sweet siren’s song; the tone was cracked and dry, off-key. Yet she had never heard anything more beautiful. It made her want to struggle up out of the dreams that threatened to pull her back, even when pain pricked at the edges of her awareness.

But pain was as nothing compared to the hand that held on to hers. It made any torment of life worthwhile if she could just feel that touch for ever.

She opened her eyes to a piercing pale grey light. She was in her chamber at Castonbury, and rain pattered at the window. A tray sat on the bedside table, holding a pitcher of water, a bottle of some kind of medicine, a basin and a pile of cloths. The bedclothes were tucked around her, except for the hand that lay on the counterpane.

She slowly turned her head to find Jamie sitting by the bed. He slowly stroked her hand as he sang, his tousled head bent over her fingers. He looked rumpled and exhausted, his cravat loosened and his shirt wrinkled. He was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

‘Jamie,’ she whispered, and his head shot up.

‘Catalina, you are awake,’ he said. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Are you in any pain at all?’

She tried to shake her head, but a jolt went up from the base of her neck to her eyes and she winced. ‘A headache, that is all. But everything is a bit hazy to me. Is Webster...?’

‘He is dead. He will not work his evil schemes on anyone else again.’

Catalina remembered it all then—Webster’s body on the ground as the cottage burned down, his eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. She shivered, and Jamie’s hand tightened on hers. ‘No one else is hurt?’

‘The footman is dead. Everett brought men from Castonbury, but by then it had begun to rain and the fire was going out. He helped me get you to the doctor.’ Jamie’s hand tightened on hers. ‘Dear God, Catalina, but when you were so still and pale in my arms—I have never felt such fear. If I had lost you again...’

‘But you did not!’ Catalina covered his touch with her other hand and held on to him. ‘I am here. We are both here. We have been given such a rare gift, and I—I was a fool to think I could ever turn away from it. I knew that when I was locked in the cottage. I love you, Jamie, mi amor. And I always will, even if you go away from me.’

‘Go away from you?’ Jamie said hoarsely. ‘Never, Catalina. I love you too, more than my own life, more than anything. I felt dead inside when I lost you in Spain, and I never felt alive again until I saw you here at Castonbury.’

‘You love me?’ Catalina whispered, as a bright happiness like none she had ever known before bloomed in her heart.

‘You are my true wife. Even if you left me and I married someone else from duty, I would always long for you. For the other half of my heart. I thought having you as my wife would be the only practical solution—now I know it was only because I love you that I need you so much.’ Jamie raised their linked hands, and Catalina saw that he had put her sapphire ring back on her finger. ‘Will you marry me again, Catalina? Will you stay with me for ever, even as broken and scarred as I am?’

‘Jamie, Jamie,’ Catalina said. She was crying in earnest now. She couldn’t stop the tears from falling as she threw her arms around his shoulders and held on as if she would never let him go. And she would not, never again. ‘I would marry you a thousand times over. You are my miracle.’

‘And you are mine.’ Jamie held her against him, and to her shock she felt his own tears on her skin. ‘We have been parted for much too long. I am never letting you out of my sight again. My wife, my love. My Catalina.’

‘My Jamie. Mi amor.’ And as they embraced each other, a ray of bright sunshine pierced the rain outside and the golden light shone down on Castonbury.