A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Five

England, two years later

Jamie stared out of the carriage window as the hedgerows rolled by, a blur of bright green in the English summer sunshine. It could be anywhere in England, any country lane, yet he knew it could only be one place. Home. So familiar, like it was a very part of his blood and bones, and yet so very alien. So different from the Spanish landscape he had lived with for so long.

His leg ached after the long days of travel, and he shifted it across the cramped confines of the hired carriage. It was so strange that this land seemed to have remained over the years so unchanged when he was a different person. All he had seen and done. All the mistakes he had made.

He couldn’t imagine what they would say when he reached Castonbury, or what he would find there.

Jamie closed his eyes wearily and ran his hand over his jaw. He could feel the rough growth of a couple days’ beard over the slashing arc of his scar. Yes, he was different now, not the reckless young man who had dashed off in search of adventure all those years ago. The scars were only the outward show of his darkened soul. He had a sudden image of his family fleeing before him, of his father slamming the doors in his face.

And he would be within his rights to do so. Jamie was sure he had failed as a son and brother, just as he had failed as a husband. He had left his family to financial hardship and mourning; he had lost Catalina and betrayed her ideals.

Jamie cracked his walking stick against the floor, as if the violent movement could erase Catalina’s face from his mind. But she was still there, as she always was, reminding him of what he had lost. The sapphire ring he wore on a chain around his neck.

He couldn’t save Catalina now, she was beyond him. But he could do his duty to his family now and make up for all his mistakes. All his life he had secretly fought against the idea of being the duke, of having the power and the responsibility in his hands. But surely he was ready now.

He had to be. He had to see to solving his family’s financial troubles, and disposing of this imposter trying to claim the dukedom for a child that wasn’t his.

The carriage lurched as it swayed around a sharp turn in the lane, and Jamie looked up to find the ornate iron gates of Castonbury before him. They stood open, as if to welcome him home, the prodigal son. He remembered running out of them and down the lane, chased by his siblings—Kate, Phaedra, Giles, Harry and poor lost Edward.

The gardens beyond the gate were not quite as he remembered. The flower beds were not as impeccably tended as they once were, the vast, rolling lawns not as green and velvety, and some of the statues and marble benches were chipped and overturned. But financial solvency would soon fix all of that and set it to its rightful splendour.

And just ahead was Castonbury, gleaming white in the sunshine, its staircase twining around to sweep up to the pillared portico built to impress every guest who approached.

As the carriage slowed along the curve of the drive, with the grand portico just before them hung with fresh beribboned garlands, Jamie looked up at the windows glowing like diamonds in the light. One of them was open, pale curtains fluttering in the breeze, and he suddenly pictured all the eyes that could be peering out through that old glass. Eyes that would watch him lurch from the carriage and limp up the steps of his home.

He lowered the carriage window and called out, ‘Around to the back, I think.’

The hired coachman shrugged and turned the horses around the lane to follow the side of the house. In the distance he could see a paddock with new horses.

The carriage finally drew to a halt outside the servants’ entrance. Jamie pushed the door open and lowered himself to the gravelled drive, leaning on his walking stick. For an instant, the sun was in his eyes and he peered up at the shadow of the house as the warm breeze swept up from the kitchen gardens. It even smelled the same, of fresh, green grass, herbs from the garden, the scent of baking bread that rolled out from the kitchens all the time.

Jamie closed his eyes and thought of how many times he had stolen sweets from the kitchens with his brothers and sisters and gone running out of those doors and down the path to the lake. How they had shouted to one another and laughed and teased, as if there was no other time but that moment, no one in the world but themselves. Giles, Harry, Edward, Kate and Phaedra.

Edward. A spasm of raw pain went over him as he thought of how he would never see Edward again. His brother was gone, lost at Waterloo, and Jamie hadn’t been at Castonbury with the others to mourn him.

‘I am here now,’ he said. Even though Castonbury felt like a dream, like something completely unreal, he was there. And he had work to do.

The door to the kitchen was half open, and Jamie pushed his way through it into the corridor. The hallway was deserted, but he could hear the echo of voices and the clatter of china from the warren of rooms beyond. He followed the sound, the tap of his boots and stick hollow on the flagstone floor.

‘No, not there!’ he heard the housekeeper, Mrs Stratton, say sternly. ‘Those must be put on ice immediately, and the flowers should be put there to be arranged. This wedding must be perfect, we have waited for it so long.’

A wedding—of course. That would explain the garlands out front and the hectic air here in the servants’ hall, the haze of excitement that seemed to hang over everything. Jamie remembered Harry saying their brother Giles was set to marry Lily Seagrove after a long engagement, but he hadn’t said when it was to be. If Jamie had known when it was, he might have stayed away until it was all over.

Weddings were not his favourite things. Not since that quiet little chapel in Spain.

He glanced back at the open door and the ray of sunlight that seemed to beckon him to freedom, but it was too late. A maidservant suddenly came scurrying out of the servants’ corridor, her arms full of roses and lilies bound up in paper. Jamie stepped back, but she collided with him anyway and the flowers fell in a scatter of pink and white over the floor.

‘Oh, laws, but you scared me!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t half expect anyone to be there.’

‘I am so very sorry,’ Jamie said ruefully. What a beginning he was making of his homecoming! ‘Here, let me help you.’

He started to kneel down to gather the flowers, but the girl let out another shriek. ‘Are you a ghost?’ she said, and Jamie looked up to see that she had covered her face with her hands.

‘I—no,’ Jamie said, completely bemused. ‘Sometimes I feel rather like one, but I am told I’m still alive.’

‘You look like the one in that painting that’s all draped in black and such,’ the girl sobbed. She peeked between her hands and shook her head. ‘I swear that’s you!’

His portrait was hung in black? Before Jamie could ask the girl about it, or tell her to pinch him to show her he was alive, he heard Mrs Stratton call, ‘Mary! What are you doing making so much noise out there?’

Jamie heard the rustle of fabric and looked up to find the housekeeper standing in the doorway. She looked so much as she had on those long-ago days of childhood wildness, her blonde hair mixed with silver, her blue eyes kind. She stared at him with her mouth open, a rare instance of discomposure from the woman who had run Castonbury with such efficiency for so long.

‘I am sorry, Mrs Stratton,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I startled her.’

‘L-Lord Hatherton?’ she whispered. ‘Is it really you?’

‘It is me,’ Jamie said. He could think of nothing else to say, nothing that could smooth his homecoming. ‘I’m sorry to have arrived at such an inconvenient time. I understand a wedding is imminent.’

Mrs Stratton shook her head, her eyes bright. ‘We thought never to see you again, my lord. Any moment you arrived would be...’ She shook her head again and seemed to compose herself. ‘Welcome back to Castonbury, my lord.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Stratton. It’s...’ Strange? Difficult? Painful? ‘...good to be back.’

Mrs Stratton reached down for the maid’s arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Stop that caterwauling at once, girl. It is only Lord Hatherton. You need to gather those flowers immediately and see that they get to Ellen for arranging. They need to be in the drawing room well before tonight’s dinner party.’

Mary gave a squeak and hurriedly scooped up the flowers before she ran off.

‘A dinner party?’ Jamie said in alarm.

‘Merely a small dinner, my lord,’ Mrs Stratton said. ‘The family is upstairs getting dressed after an afternoon in the gardens. Your father will probably not attend, I think.’

Jamie remembered what Harry had said about their father’s health, that he seldom left his rooms these days. ‘Is he unwell today?’

‘No, it has been rather a good day for the duke, my lord. He is excited about the wedding, as we all are. But he does have his good times and his bad times.’ Mrs Stratton gave him a smile. ‘I am sure seeing you will make this the best of days.’

Another twinge of guilt touched Jamie. ‘I hope I can be of help now that I am home, Mrs Stratton. I will try to stay out of the way for the wedding.’

‘Nonsense, my lord! You could never be in the way. You were always the best behaved of all the Montague children.’

Jamie laughed wryly, remembering all his childhood pranks. ‘I fear you are too kind to me.’

‘Not at all.’ Mrs Stratton’s eyes were suspiciously bright again, but she shook her head and said, ‘Shall I take you to the duke, then, my lord? He likes to have a small brandy and some cakes at this hour. It livens up his evening a bit.’

Brandy and cakes? It seemed like such a small world for the man he remembered as larger than life. ‘Thank you, Mrs Stratton. I would appreciate that.’

As Jamie followed the housekeeper through the kitchens, he saw how truly busy everyone was. The maids and footmen dashed around, bearing gowns and cravats to be pressed, flowers to be arranged and trays of refreshments. The clatter of pots and pans and silver was in the air, which smelled of roasting chicken and cinnamon spices. But as he passed, they all froze in their paths to stare. When he nodded to them, they hurriedly curtsied and bowed and scurried on their errands.

Did they think he was a ghost as well? A spectre haunting the party.

He followed Mrs Stratton up the winding stairs, past more maids carrying flowers, and through the green baize doors that divided the warm, noisy servants’ realm from the outer world of Castonbury.

But even here everything was noise and movement, splashes of colour amid the shadows. Vases of flowers stood against the dark walls and garlands were twined along the staircase banisters. Jamie couldn’t remember so much colour in the house since his mother, with her love of parties, had died so long ago. It felt almost like the house was coming awake again after a long sleep.

If only it could thaw his own soul.

‘How is your son faring, Mrs Stratton?’ he asked as they turned down a long, narrow gallery lined with portraits in their old, heavily gilded frames. The first duke who had once been an earl, his grandfather, his uncle, his mother with Jamie in his infant days clinging to her skirts. All as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror.

Yet even they seemed very far away, not a real part of him at all.

‘Adam?’ Mrs Stratton said. A smile touched her lined face. ‘He is quite well, my lord. He is married now, you know, to Amber Hall from the village. They are living in Lancashire where he has his business concerns. I hope to join them there after the wedding.’ She did not mention the fact that had recently come to light, that Amber had turned out to be their illegitimate half-sister.

‘You are leaving Castonbury?’ Jamie asked in surprise. ‘The house will not be the same without you.’ And it truly would not. Mrs Stratton had been a part of Castonbury as long as he could remember.

‘I am too old to do a worthy job here much longer, my lord,’ Mrs Stratton said with a laugh. ‘But I am training Rose, one of the upstairs maids who has been here a while, to take over as housekeeper. It will be nice to be closer to my son.’

‘I hope that he is happy in his marriage,’ Jamie said, a vision of Catalina in her lace veil flashing through his mind. Hopefully Adam and Amber would enjoy a long and happy life together, the kind he had hoped to have with Catalina.

‘Indeed he is. We have all hoped...’ Mrs Stratton suddenly broke off and gave him an odd glance, her smile flickering into a frown.

Jamie was sure she wanted to ask about his own supposed ‘marriage’, and he was reminded of all the strange things that must have happened at Castonbury while he was gone. And of all he still had to do.

Which probably included finding a future duchess to marry. He shook his head. There was enough to do without torturing himself with that now.

At the end of the gallery, Mrs Stratton turned not towards his father’s grand suite of ducal chambers but to another, narrower corridor.

She seemed to see his surprise for she gave him a small smile. ‘Your father prefers to spend his days in a small sitting room he set up for himself when Lord Edward died. It’s quieter on this side of the house.’

‘I see,’ Jamie said, though in truth he did not. He still had a lot of things to relearn here.

‘His health has been so much improved since Lord Harry returned from Spain,’ Mrs Stratton said. ‘I believe he is even looking forward to the wedding! But I must tell you, my lord, that the doctors say he should be kept as calm as possible.’

Jamie almost laughed aloud at the thought that anyone could keep his father ‘calm’ when he did not wish to be. But he merely nodded as Mrs Stratton knocked at a door.

‘Your Grace?’ she called softly. ‘You have a visitor.’

‘Not another cursed visitor!’ a hoarse voice answered, muffled by the thick wood of the door. ‘This place is full of them.’

Mrs Stratton just opened the door and stepped inside. Jamie followed her, his hand curled hard around the head of his stick. The room was dim, the only light from a crackling fire that burned in the grate despite the warm day outside. The draperies were drawn over the windows, and a large, overstuffed armchair was drawn close to the hearth.

At first Jamie thought the housekeeper had brought him to the wrong room and a stranger sat before him. An elderly stranger, thin and spare compared to his robust, hearty father, the man who had ridden hell for leather with the local hunt and whose voice could thunder down the vast corridors of Castonbury. The man who sat before the fire had grey hair and a thick shawl wrapped around his shoulders. The air was heavy and stifling.

‘You gave orders that you wanted to see this visitor right away, Your Grace,’ Mrs Stratton said. She glanced at Jamie and gave him a small, encouraging smile before she left.

‘I did no such...’ The man twisted around in his chair, and a pair of blue-grey eyes—Montague eyes—looked at Jamie from the gloom. It was his father, after all, grown old while he had been gone.

‘James,’ his father whispered. He braced his age-spotted hands on the chair’s arms and tried to push himself to his feet, but he fell back to the cushions. ‘James, is it you? Is it?’

Jamie hurried forward as fast as his cursed leg would let him. He caught his father on his second attempt to rise and held him upright. ‘Yes, Father,’ he answered. ‘It is me. Past time I came home, eh?’

To his shock, the duke—a man who had seldom had time for his children when he was so busy with his duties and his sporting life—caught Jamie’s shoulders in his thin hands and dragged him closer.

‘James, James,’ he whispered. ‘Harry did say—but I didn’t dare think it was true.’

Bewildered, Jamie patted his father’s shoulder. What a sorry pair we are, he thought wryly. A duke and a marquis, an old man and a cripple with their house falling down around them.

‘Where have you been?’ the duke said.

‘Here, Father, sit down and I will tell you what I can.’ Jamie helped his father back down to the chair. He quickly poured them each a measure of brandy from the tray on the sideboard by the wall and sat down across from his father to tell of his adventures in Spain.

‘I’m sorry for everything, Father,’ he said. He gulped down half the glass, relishing the bite of the brandy down his throat. ‘It’s not at all adequate, I know, but I do mean it.’

‘You are here now—that’s all that matters, James.’ The duke took a trembling sip of his own drink. ‘Harry says you had important work in Spain.’

Jamie told him as briefly as possible what had happened in Spain, or at least the part of the tale he could tell. Catalina was his alone, and she always would be. His secret. His wife.

The duke shook his head as Jamie finished his story. ‘And while you were there you did not marry that woman. That is what Harry said. The child—the child is not yours. Ours.’

For an instant, Jamie thought his father meant Catalina. Then he remembered—Alicia Walters. He had turned over his few memories of her on his voyage home and tried to decide what to do. It was such a strange tale, and one that looked to get even stranger before it was ended. Even when the prodigal came home trouble followed.

But Harry had said their father had grown fond of the child, which meant Jamie had to go carefully. ‘No, Father,’ he answered gently. ‘I did not marry her or father any child with her.’

‘That harlot!’ his father roared with a flare of his old temper. He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. ‘I knew it could not be, that you would not marry like that. She has made bloody fools of us all. She should hang for what she did! Bringing that child here...’

‘Father,’ Jamie said, in the quiet but firm voice that had worked to calm down so many people in Spain when it had been a matter of life and death. He had learned that desperate people did desperate things—and what Alicia had done reeked of desperation. He had to learn what had driven her to this, which would be hard enough without his family shouting for blood.

‘Father,’ he went on quietly. ‘We don’t want to see a woman hanged for this when it’s better to be discreet. Think of the scandal. Have the Montagues not already given our neighbours enough to talk about?’

His father gave a loud, derisive snort, but Jamie saw that he did settle back into his chair and some of the red faded from his sunken cheeks. ‘We have been embroiled in our share of scandal lately, I admit. Your brothers and sisters have chosen such odd matches.’

‘Then let me take care of this. Surely I have the right to find out why someone would use my name this way.’

‘Of course you do, James.’

Jamie sat back in his chair and drank down the last of his brandy as he looked into the fire. The flames had died down to mere sparking flickers amid the ash, reminding him of the smouldering ruins of the camp in Spain. The sapphire ring on the chain around his neck weighed heavily against his chest, and he thought again of the fleeting joys of life, the unknowability of other people.

He would never trust like that again.

‘I learned a great deal in Spain, Father,’ he said. ‘And one thing I learned is that it’s always better to find out all one can about one’s enemies and then eliminate them quietly, with no fuss or mess. Leave as little as possible to clean up after.’

He felt his father watching him, and Jamie glanced up to find something he had never seen before flicker over the duke’s face—uncertainty.

‘What did you do in Spain, James?’ he asked quietly.

Jamie shook his head. ‘Spain is in the past, Father.’ And it had to stay there, buried with Catalina. ‘You have borne the burden of my absence for much too long. Let me take care of things now. I will deal with Alicia and any allies she might have, and I will also go to London as soon as possible and see about the money. You needn’t worry any longer.’

His father nodded wearily, and in that one gesture Jamie could see how much things had truly changed at Castonbury. In years past, his father would never have relinquished the reins of the estate and the family to anyone, especially not one of his children.

‘It is good to have you back, James,’ the duke said.

Jamie rose to his feet and set aside his empty glass. After a moment’s hesitation, he laid his hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘It is good to be back. It’s a new day here at Castonbury, Father, I promise. Giles is marrying now, and we should all be happy.’ If only he could believe those words himself. If he could only be happy, as he had been for that one moment in the Spanish chapel.

But that was gone. Castonbury was all there was now.

His father nodded. ‘He is not the only one who needs to be married, you know.’

‘Father...’

‘You know I am right, James,’ the duke said with a trace of his old obstinacy. ‘You have come back to take charge, and that is all well and good. But the first duty of a duke is to provide an heir. Since it is not little Crispin...’

The duke’s voice faltered, and Jamie remembered how Harry had said their father had become so fond of Alicia’s child. It almost made him wish the boy was his, so that duty would have been done.

He squeezed his father’s shoulder and stepped back. ‘There is time for all that later, Father. Let me see to more pressing matters first.’

‘More pressing?’ the duke sputtered. ‘What could be more pressing than seeing to the future of Castonbury?’

‘With Giles and Harry here and married, I hardly think the future is in doubt.’

‘You have seen what happens when the heir is gone, James! No, you must marry and have children now.’ The duke nodded firmly. ‘I didn’t want to see this wedding become so elaborate, but now I’m glad so many guests are coming. It will serve a most useful purpose.’

Jamie didn’t like the sound of that. He gave his father a suspicious frown. ‘What purpose is that?’

‘To get you a wife! A real wife this time, a suitable one. A proper duchess.’ His father nodded again. ‘Your mother’s cousin Lydia—you wouldn’t remember her, she died ages ago, but she was a pretty thing who married a viscount. Her daughter is coming to the wedding. I hear she’s a pretty girl herself, and just made her come-out last Season. She should do well enough.’

Jamie had to laugh. He had only been home a matter of hours and he was already being married off to some cousin he had never met. ‘Father...’

‘You will do your duty now, James!’ his father shouted in an echo of his old self.

‘Settle down, Father,’ James said in his quiet voice. ‘The girl isn’t even here yet, so we have time before I must propose. We will see what happens.’

The duke nodded, as if he was at least slightly mollified. ‘Very well. Just remember what I said. Duty!’

‘Of course. Duty.’

‘Now it grows late. You should go and dress for dinner, if you have any decent clothes after gallivanting around goodness knows where.’ The duke reached for a bell on the little table beside his chair and rang it vigorously. After a moment, Mrs Stratton reappeared.

‘Send Smithins to me,’ the duke demanded. ‘I want to dress for dinner.’

‘Your Grace?’ Mrs Stratton said. She gave Jamie a startled glance, and he shrugged. ‘You haven’t been downstairs to dinner in an age.’

‘Then it’s time that changed,’ the duke said. ‘My son is home now. Things here are going to be different. Starting with dinner.’

‘I should go and change myself,’ Jamie said, not wanting to be there for what appeared to be shaping into an argument. ‘If you will excuse me, Father.’

‘Just remember what I said,’ the duke shouted after Jamie as he left the room. ‘Duty!’

Jamie shook his head. Duty—it had followed him all his life, like a ghostly spectre. He had fled from it to Spain, but still it was always with him. And now it was all he had. A consolation as well as a burden.

He knew his father was right. He would have to marry. But not yet. He had an imposter wife to dispatch and money matters to organise before he could start to restore Castonbury.

And he had another wife to forget.

Jamie made his way to the head of the grand staircase and peered down over the carved banisters to the entrance hall. It was as grand and forbidding as he remembered, with its carved columns soaring up to the Marble Hall above and the vast empty fireplaces. The classical statues in their niches stared out blindly.

It was quiet for the moment, all the servants off preparing for dinner and his family in their rooms dressing for dinner.

Jamie braced his palm on the banister and remembered how, long ago, the dignified silence of the house had been broken by him and his siblings as they dashed across the floor, shouting at one another, driving Mrs Stratton and the starchy, proper butler, Lumsden, to distraction. If his father had his way, soon enough Jamie’s own children would be breaking free of the nursery to run through the house. But Jamie could not picture it. Not without Catalina.

Suddenly the solemn hush was broken when the front door burst open, letting in the light and wind of the dying day. A tall woman appeared there, the train of her dark green riding habit looped over her arm and a crop in her hand. Her boots rang out on the floor as she hurried towards the staircase, the sunset bright on her honey-coloured hair.

‘Late again,’ she muttered, dashing up the steps. ‘Bother it all!’

Jamie laughed. Some things at Castonbury had clearly not changed, especially not his sister Phaedra. When she was with her horses everything else vanished for her.

She glanced up at the sound and a smile broke across her face. She ran up the stairs and threw her arms around him, and for the first time he felt like he had truly come home.

‘Jamie!’ Phaedra cried. ‘Oh, Jamie, is it really you? Are you truly back here with us at last?’

‘I am,’ he answered, holding her in his arms. His little sister, all grown up.

Suddenly she pulled back and smacked him hard on the arm. ‘How could you have been gone from us all this time? I can’t tell you how much we missed you, how much Castonbury has suffered.’

‘I know,’ Jamie said solemnly. ‘And I am here to fix all that, I promise. You have worked alone here too long.’

‘I have not been entirely alone. You know I have married.’

‘Yes. A bloke named Basingstoke.’

‘Bram,’ Phaedra said, a soft smile replacing her frown. ‘You will meet him at dinner. And tomorrow I am going to take you to look at the stables so we can talk about what is needed. I intend to make Castonbury the finest horse stud ever seen in England!’ She linked arms with him and walked with him up the stairs, chattering away as she always had when they were children. ‘You will be so proud of what we are doing here, Jamie! I can’t tell you how glad I am you are home at last....’