A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Eight

‘Are you sure my gown is quite right, Mrs Moreno?’ Lydia whispered as they made their way down the staircase.

Catalina gave her a reassuring smile. ‘You look lovely,’ she said truthfully. Lydia looked like a blooming summer rose in her pale pink muslin, with pink and white ribbons twined in her shining curls. Catalina could scarcely remember ever being so young and fresh, so eager to see what life held next. She had felt like an old lady for so long. Too long.

She caught a glimpse of herself as they passed an antique looking glass on the wall, and for an instant she thought she was a ghost in her grey taffeta gown, her hair twisted back in a plain knot. Once Lydia was safely married, Catalina knew she should try do something fun in her life again, something interesting. Not just another position, but something real, like when she had been nursing in Spain.

Catalina almost laughed aloud at herself. What else was there she could do but keep working? Keep taking each day as it came? That was her life now, and she was content with it. At least it didn’t hurt as it had when she lost Jamie. When she lost her husband.

‘I do want them to like me,’ Lydia said as she smoothed her white satin sash again.

‘They cannot help but like you,’ Catalina answered. ‘They are your family, are they not?’

Lydia glanced at her with wide eyes. ‘I suppose they are, though I hardly know them. I think I never really had a family. Just my guardian, and he’s only my father’s grumpy old great-uncle, you know.’

‘Well, now you do have a family. And it’s a large one, if all the portraits we’ve seen today are any indication.’

Lydia was silent for a moment. ‘Do you miss your family greatly, Mrs Moreno?’

Catalina looked away. Aside from talking in a general way about Spanish history and literature, she had never spoken of her old life to Lydia. It seemed better to keep that all in the past, hidden away. It must be this house, with all its history and memories that made them both feel so wistful.

‘I do miss them sometimes,’ she said. ‘But my parents and my poor brother have been gone now for many years. And they would have been terribly unhappy about what has happened to our country if they could see it.’

‘What of your husband? Do you miss him?’

For one startled instant, Catalina thought she meant Jamie. Her throat tightened and she could only stare at Lydia in silence.

‘Do you not miss Mr Moreno?’ Lydia asked.

Of course. Her first husband. As far as anyone knew, her only husband, and it would have to stay that way. The opulent history of Castonbury, the weight of family and tradition, seemed to press in around her, and she realised again how foolish she and Jamie had been to ever think they could make a future together. She could not have belonged here. They would have made each other unhappy and their passion would have faded. She would have remembered his work in Spain, and he would remember how she opposed him.

‘He has also been gone a long time,’ she said quietly. ‘He was much older than me, and we were not married long. Our families had wanted an alliance for many years.’ And when her brother died opposing the king, that alliance had seemed even more important.

‘How dreadful,’ Lydia declared. ‘I shall not marry like that. I shall only marry someone I love.’

Catalina smiled at her. ‘I do hope so, my dear. Only you must fall in love with someone who can also take proper care of you.’

They reached the main hall, and a balding man with protuberant eyes and a black coat stepped out of the shadows to bow to them.

‘Miss Westman, Mrs Moreno—I am Lumsden, butler here at Castonbury,’ he said in a stentorious, deeply important voice. ‘The others are gathered in the drawing room, if I may show you the way.’

‘Thank you, Lumsden,’ Catalina answered. Lydia seemed struck silent again.

Lumsden bowed again and led them down another series of grand corridors. Castonbury seemed full of such spaces, lined with fine objets d’art and paintings, with jewel-like carpets on the floors and a few old tapestries on the walls. But Catalina couldn’t help noticing that here and there were empty spaces, as if whatever had sat there for years and years had been taken away. Some of the draperies and upholsteries were worn, and a few patches of plaster on the moulded ceilings needed to be repaired.

She glanced at another faded square on the wallpaper where a painting had once hung. It could just have been taken down for repair or restoration, of course, but—was Castonbury in some kind of trouble after losing its heir?

Catalina looked at the girl beside her. Lydia had a fine but not exorbitant dowry. But perhaps any amount of money would be useful enough here for her to make a match with one of the Montagues? If there were any unmatched males left, that was. Perhaps the girl’s dreams of true love would have to be replaced by ducal strawberry leaves if that was the case.

She could hear the buzz of voices and laughter before Lumsden even opened the drawing room door. They stepped into a vast chamber with soaring ceilings decorated with elaborate white plasterwork and walls papered in blue silk and hung with landscapes and portraits. A fire burned in the white marble grate, and gilded blue damask sofas and chairs were scattered in groupings around the room, interspersed with tables laden with figurines and enamelled boxes and vases. A pianoforte and a harp sat in the corner.

But the elegance of the room was overshadowed by the people who gathered around the space. They were all laughing and talking exuberantly, the gloomy silence of the house banished.

Lydia gave Catalina a look that seemed distinctly frightened. Catalina smiled and gave her arm a little squeeze, but she had to admit she herself felt a little nervous faced with so many Montagues.

A lady broke away from the crowd and came towards them, her green silk gown shimmering.

‘You must be Miss Westman,’ the lady said with a kind smile. ‘I have been looking forward to meeting you. I am Lily Seagrove.’

The bride. Catalina studied her with interest, this lady who was marrying into the family she herself had once so briefly dreamed of joining. She seemed kind and welcoming, her eyes warm as she smiled.

‘How do you do,’ Lydia said, and gave her a small curtsey with a poise that made Catalina proud. ‘I am happy to meet you as well. This is my companion, Mrs Moreno.’

‘Of course,’ Lily said, turning her friendly smile to Catalina. ‘We have heard so much about you. My brother-in-law Lord Harry and his wife, Elena, have talked of nothing but how they look forward to meeting you. They have recently returned from Spain themselves for the wedding, though soon they will be off to their new posting. He is in the diplomatic service.’

‘I look forward to meeting them then,’ Catalina said politely, though in truth she wasn’t sure if talking about Spain would make her more or less homesick, more or less full of memories. She didn’t want to remember old hopes for her country and how they had been shattered in reality.

‘Then you must meet them now!’ Lily declared. ‘Come, let me introduce you both to everyone.’

Lily led them around the room and made the introductions to the people gathered there. There were so many of them that Catalina was quite sure she would never remember them all. There was the bridegroom, Lord Giles, a tall, handsome man with the same grey eyes most of the Montagues seemed to possess. His smile was so tender, so full of happiness, when he looked at his bride that it made Catalina’s heart ache to see it. They just seemed to belong together, to fit in a way so few couples did.

There was Lady Phaedra, Jamie’s sister, who Catalina remembered from the portrait Jamie carried, and her husband, Bram Basingstoke, who held her hand while she talked. Phaedra asked Catalina if she rode, and, on hearing that she had used to enjoy it very much but hadn’t had the chance in years, told her that she must come and inspect the facilities that were being built for Phaedra’s new stud at Castonbury.

‘I would enjoy that very much,’ Catalina said, and indeed she would. She missed riding, and Lady Phaedra’s great enthusiasm was infectious. She added quietly enough that Lydia could not hear, ‘But I fear Miss Westman has not had many chances to ride and isn’t sure how, though she is very curious about horses. She has lived all her life in London.’

‘Hasn’t been able to ride much?’ Phaedra gasped, her eyes large with shock. ‘Good heavens. Well, she is in the country now. We must teach her. You should both come to the stables with me first thing after the wedding.’

Her husband laughed and squeezed her hand. ‘My dear, they will probably be quite busy with everything that is going on at Castonbury. Touring the stables many not be first on their list.’

Phaedra gave a rueful laugh. ‘Of course, Mrs Moreno, Miss Westman. I do get rather carried away when I talk about my horses. But you must come and ride with me any time you choose. I have the sweetest, kindest little mare that should just suit Miss Westman.’

‘That is very kind of you,’ Catalina answered. Lydia still looked too terrified to say much at all.

They were led around the room again to meet yet more people, including a plethora of guests who had come in from the village and neighbouring houses for the dinner. There was also Lord Harry, the diplomatic son, and his wife, Elena, who declared herself so full of happiness to meet a countrywoman and said they had to sit down for a long talk as soon as possible. Not as congenial was Mrs Landes-Fraser (‘Aunt Wilhemina,’ Lily whispered with a shiver), an elderly lady ensconced by the fire and swathed in layers of silk, Indian shawls and a plumed turban, despite the warm evening.

She inspected them closely before snorting. ‘Pretty enough,’ she declared of Lydia, ‘but much too pale. Like your mother, are you, girl? She had no spirit either.’

Lily led them away from ‘Aunt Wilhemina’ as quickly as she could with an apologetic smile. ‘You must not mind her,’ she whispered. ‘She is that way with absolutely everyone. I was terrified of her when I first came to Castonbury.’

Catalina saw that Lydia regained her ‘spirit’ quickly enough when they met a certain Mr Hale, a handsome young man with a cap of bright blond hair and friendly eyes who was the new curate at the Castonbury church. He eagerly bowed over Lydia’s hand and smiled down at her as she stared up at him.

Catalina could see at one glance that this was a situation that called for a close watch.

‘Mr Hale has only been here a short time,’ Lily said. ‘But the vicar, my adoptive father Reverend Seagrove, cannot stop singing his praises. He has certainly brought a new life to the parish.’

‘You are too kind, Miss Seagrove,’ Mr Hale said with a smile. He still smiled at Lydia. ‘I am only doing my duty.’

‘I am sure you are absolutely marvellous at it, Mr Hale,’ Lydia said softly.

‘Where is the duke?’ Mrs Landes-Fraser suddenly cried. ‘It is past time for supper to be served. I don’t know why he suddenly insists on eating with us anyway. Most inconvenient after all this time. I shall need to eat soon or my digestion won’t be able to bear it.’

‘I’m sure Father will be here very soon,’ Phaedra said. ‘You know how excited he is about all that has happened. It’s like he has a new life in him.’

Mrs Landes-Fraser gave another snort and adjusted her shawls around her. ‘New life? Hmph! We were doing just fine with the way our life was before.’

Phaedra frowned and looked as if she very much wanted to argue, but the drawing room door opened before she could say anything.

Catalina glanced towards the man who had just come into the room. It had to be the duke himself, an imposing man with faded dark hair and clothes that looked a bit too large for him.

‘About time,’ Mrs Landes-Fraser muttered.

Harry stepped to his father’s side. ‘Here, Father, let me help you to your chair by the fire.’

The duke shook him away. ‘I am quite all right, my boy. Quit fussing so.’ His sharp grey eyes, half hidden under lowered brows, suddenly focused on Lydia. ‘And who is this, then? Must be Miss Westman, eh?’

Lydia gave a little squeak, and Catalina squeezed her hand to hold her still.

‘I—I am Miss Westman, Your Grace,’ Lydia said, and managed a wobbling curtsey.

‘Well, come here, girl—let me get a closer look at you,’ the duke barked.

Lydia had just taken one slow step in his direction when another man moved into the room behind him. He moved so quietly, keeping to the shadow of the door so that no one seemed to notice him. But something seemed to close around Catalina’s heart as soon as she glimpsed him and she slid closer involuntarily.

Surely—no, no, it could not. It had to be another Montague brother, or perhaps a cousin, and just being in this house had made her overly imaginative. It had already happened more than once. She had been thinking about him too much and now she thought she did see him. That was all it was.

But—but there was something about the man who stood there at the edge of the room so very still. Something watchful that reminded her of Jamie. And he looked so very much like him with that close-cropped dark hair, those strong shoulders under the finely cut coat.

‘James, come and meet Miss Westman,’ the duke called with an imperious wave of his hand.

James. As Catalina watched dizzily, the man stepped forward. He didn’t have Jamie’s graceful, panther-like movements; he limped a bit, but still that impression remained. Catalina felt icy cold, frozen to the spot as she watched him come nearer. She shrank back into the shadows as much as she could.

But he saw her. His eyes widened and then narrowed, and a muscle tensed along his jaw. He bowed to Lydia, yet his stare never wavered from Catalina.

‘Miss Westman,’ he said. ‘I’m always pleased to meet a new-found relative.’

‘Miss Westman, this is Lord Hatherton, my almost brother-in-law,’ Lily said quickly. ‘And, Jamie, this is Miss Westman’s companion, Mrs Moreno.’

Jamie straightened to his full tall height and looked directly into Catalina’s eyes, and she saw that it really was him. Her husband, who she had so long thought dead. She pressed her hand to her throat and shook her head.

‘Madre de Dios,’ she whispered. Jamie? Here, alive. No, it could not be. She was asleep and dreaming. The journey had tired her and she was imagining things again, just like with that man in the garden.

But then he took her cold, limp hand in his and looked at her with those bright grey eyes. She felt his skin against hers, so warm, so real. So alive. Not a dream, not a vision that would dissolve when she awoke.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered so only she could hear. His voice, too, was real, just as she remembered it.

The whole crowded room spun around her, and there was such a roaring in her ears, like a dozen rushing rivers. Just like the river that had supposedly swallowed him up. She stumbled back against the nearest table, her legs too weak to hold her up.

‘You’re not going to swoon, are you, Catalina? Not now,’ Jamie said. His voice was exactly the same, just as she heard it so often in her haunted dreams. Rough and warm all at the same time.

‘No,’ she managed to say, just before darkness closed in around her and she felt herself falling and falling.

Until strong arms closed around her.

She came to when she heard Lydia sobbing and crying, ‘Mrs Moreno! Oh, Mrs Moreno, please wake up.’

‘Give the lady some air, for heaven’s sake,’ Lady Phaedra said impatiently.

‘I have my vinaigrette,’ Aunt Wilhemina said. ‘No one should ever go anywhere without their vinaigrette. Here, James, give her this.’

Catalina tried to open her eyes, to tell them all she was quite all right, but she felt so very cold. She couldn’t quit shivering. And she felt so silly. She never fainted, not even during her nursing duties in Spain when there had been blood and limbs everywhere.

‘I think she is in shock,’ Jamie said. He sounded so calm, just as he had whenever a crisis threatened in the military camps, but there was tremor running just beneath the words. ‘Everyone move aside, please. Phaedra is right, she does need some air. It is much too warm in here.’

Jamie scooped her up in his arms and Catalina felt him carry her across the drawing room and nudge open a door with his shoulder. The noise of everyone arguing over the best way to treat a faint faded behind them.

He lowered her carefully until she felt satin cushions at her back and she finally opened her eyes. He had carried her into a small sitting room crowded with furniture, and the only light was the silvery glow of the moon from beyond the window. He leaned over her, watching her in silence, and she stared up at him in the moonlight. He was a stranger, yet once he had been her husband.

He was certainly as handsome as ever, tall and elegantly lean, dark and bright all at the same time. Yet there was something there that had not been in the man she married. Deep lines bracketed his sensual mouth. His grey eyes were so wary, as flat and still as a millpond, hiding his emotions. It was almost as if another soul had come to inhabit the body of the man she loved.

Was her Jamie still behind those dead eyes? What had happened to him? Had he finished his work in Spain? Above all—how was he here, alive, when he had been gone for so long?

‘I—I thought you dead,’ she managed to say. ‘They told me you were drowned that day.’

‘Catalina. What an impasse,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought you were dead.’

She stared up at him, aghast at his words. ‘You thought I was dead? Why?’

‘After the river, and many days in a makeshift field hospital nearby, I managed to make my way back to the camp, but it had been destroyed. I found a farmer who told me the French had attacked the contingent who had been left behind after we departed, that almost everyone had been killed—including the surgeon you worked with and the chaplain who married us. He showed me the place where they buried everyone. He showed be your grave. And he gave me...this.’

Jamie untied his cravat and reached inside his shirt to draw out a thin gold chain. The moonlight caught on the object that dangled from it, a sapphire ring. ‘He was an honest man indeed to give it up,’ he said quietly. ‘I knew you would not have parted from it willingly.’

Catalina rubbed at her bare finger and closed her eyes as the terror of that long-ago day washed over her again. She remembered so well running, fleeing blindly to she knew not where until she found that hidey-hole in the woods. By then it was too late to go back and search for her precious ring. All that she had left of Jamie.

But Jamie was here. And he wore her ring. Surely that meant something. Anything.

She opened her eyes again, only to find that he still looked down at her with that steady stillness, that lack of expression that made him resemble one of the marble statues that dotted Castonbury’s lush gardens. Jamie was so different here, like an entirely separate person from the man she had married. What had happened to him? Where was he?

What was he capable of, this man she had once thought she knew so well and then turned out not to know at all?

Perhaps the ring was not a memento of her, then. Perhaps it was merely to remind him not to make the mistake of marrying in haste again.

Slowly, cautiously, she reached up and brushed the scar on his face with her fingertips. It felt rough under her touch, but his skin was so warm. So real. He tensed, that muscle in his jaw flexing, but he didn’t pull away.

‘Where did you go after that?’ she whispered. ‘What have you been doing?’ Had he done his task of restoring the king to the Spanish throne? What lengths had he gone to in order to do that?

‘That is not important,’ he answered, his voice low and rough. ‘I can hardly think of anything tonight. It has all been turned upside down.’

Catalina nodded. She knew how that felt—it seemed like a hundred years since she had walked downstairs with Lydia. The moment before and the moment after she saw him again marked a vast chasm of time. Right now she felt as if she floated free in the night sky, untethered to any kind of reality at all.

Jamie took her hand in his with a terrible gentleness and held her fingers on his palm as he studied them. ‘Why did you come to England? Did you journey here alone, or on some mission?’

Catalina stared at him. Just like him, she couldn’t remember why she had come to England, or anything else. Just him, just this moment. ‘I came to England because I couldn’t bear Spain any longer. With the Bourbons returned—it was not my home, you know. I wanted to make a new start here.’

‘Ah, yes. I remember how you hated the king.’ Jamie carefully laid her hand back at her side. ‘You were so passionate about it.’

And she suddenly recalled how he had been meant to help restore the monarchy, to send Spain back to the terrible torpor it had known before Napoleon, with no chance for a new start. Until he died.

‘Jamie, what did you...’ she began, only to break off when a soft knock sounded at the door. It was as if the cold knife of reality sliced into the moment with Jamie and shattered it.

‘Jamie?’ Lily called. ‘Is Mrs Moreno quite all right?’

‘Come in,’ Jamie answered. He rose from the settee and moved over to the empty fireplace. He turned his back to Catalina and braced his forearm on the mantel.

Catalina pushed herself up until she could swing her feet down to the floor just as Lily slipped into the room. She held a goblet in her hand.

‘Goodness, but it is dark in here,’ she said, but she seemed calm and not shocked at all that a man and a woman would be in a dim room together. ‘Are you feeling better, Mrs Moreno? Everyone is quite worried, especially Miss Westman.’

Lydia. How could she have forgot? Catalina quickly stood up, only to sway dizzily as her head swam. ‘I must go to her.’

‘Not until you feel better,’ Lily said. ‘She is very well looked after by Phaedra and Elena. Here, drink some of this.’

‘I feel so foolish,’ Catalina murmured as she sipped at the cool water. It helped steady her, but she was still all too aware of Jamie standing there by the fireplace. So near yet so very far away.

‘Nonsense. It’s always far too stuffy in the drawing room, and you have had a long day.’ Lily slanted a glance at Jamie. ‘You moved very quickly to catch her, Jamie.’

He gave them a wry smile over his shoulder. ‘I am not so useless, then. I can still rescue damsels in distress.’

‘You will surely be kept busy around here, then,’ Lily said.

Catalina set her empty glass down on the nearest table. ‘I feel quite well now. I should rejoin Miss Westman.’

‘I will walk with you,’ Lily said. ‘Jamie, will you join us?’

‘In a moment,’ he said, his back turned again.

Catalina gave a lingering glance at his silent figure. There were still so very many things to say, things that could fill days and days. She still longed to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, and know that he was real and not just another dream. That he was real, both the good and the bad.

But this was not the moment. They couldn’t be alone, not without everyone in the house knowing it, and she didn’t want gossip or speculation. She followed Lily from the small sitting room and back down the corridor to where Lydia and the others waited.

Yet her head still spun with only one confusing, fantastical, glorious thought. Jamie was alive.

* * *

Catalina was alive.

Jamie braced his fists on the fireplace mantel and fought against the surge of fierce emotion that swept through him. He wasn’t even sure what he felt, it was all so tangled up. Joy, shock, appalled fascination. But in the end it just came down to those three powerful words.

Catalina was alive. His wife was alive.

Jamie stared down blindly into the empty grate. He saw her again as she was when he first glimpsed her across that crowded army camp, laughing in the brilliant Spanish sunshine. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He remembered how he had wanted that laughter, craved it as he never had anything else. Those days with her had been magic, the most perfect he had ever known.

In the end it was all destroyed, vanished in the face of the reality of what they were living through in the midst of war and upheaval. Then she was dead, gone. And he had gone on to do things she would have hated him for.

He thought again of the pain in her dark eyes when he had told her of his work to bring the Bourbons back to Spain. Then the vision melted into Catalina as he had seen her tonight.

For an instant he had almost thought she was a ghost, come to Castonbury to haunt him as he struggled to make a new life here with the family he no longer belonged to. She was so quiet, hovering at the edges of the crowd in her grey gown, that he imagined he was the only one who could see her. But she had smiled at the young lady who stood beside her, and he had seen a flash of his Catalina again. She was real, she was there, miraculously deposited into his own home.

He almost shouted out her name as a wondrous exultation flashed in his heart. It was as if his life, so cold and pale for so long, turned back to vivid colour and he felt the heat of it on his skin, in his blood. In his very soul. The only place he had ever belonged was there. He wanted to run to her, hold her in his arms and feel her body warm and real against his.

Until she looked at him—and turned as white as if she was a real ghost. He saw only shock in her eyes, and then she had fainted at his feet.

When everyone cried out and gathered around her, all his family, he remembered where they were. In the drawing room at Castonbury. No one knew about her, about Catalina and their impetuous marriage. And the family had only just been rid of one of his supposed wives. And imposter, for sure. But now it was Giles and Lily’s moment, a moment they had waited for for a long time. Because of him, his absence, his supposed death, his supposed wife, the near-collapse of the family fortune... He was responsible for delaying their happiness. And his father was still fragile, despite all his bluster. Jamie couldn’t just shout out, ‘There is my wife!’

No matter how much he wanted to.

But even more than his family, what held him back was Catalina herself. The frightened look in her eyes, the way she had trembled when he touched her. No matter how vivid his memories were, they had been apart for a long time. So much had happened since he last saw her. He had done so much he was not proud of. What had she been doing all this time? And how had she escaped the camp when so many had not? When she had known things others had not, because he had confided in her.

Jamie pounded his fist on the mantel. There was so very much they needed to talk about. Years’ worth. She was his wife, whether she wanted to be or not.

What was he going to do about that? What did she want from him now?

There was a brisk knock at the door, and he turned around just as Phaedra poked her head inside.

‘We’re all going in to dinner now, except for Mrs Moreno,’ she said. ‘Lily insisted she go straight to bed with some ridiculous posset Lily’s old Gypsy grandmother, Mrs Lovell, used to make.’

‘Mrs Moreno has retired?’ he said. He thought he sounded calm and indifferent but perhaps not, as Phaedra frowned as she looked at him. His sister often seemed as if she was completely distracted by her horses, but Jamie knew she was always most aware of everything around her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Does that make you more or less inclined to come to dinner?’

‘Of course I am coming to dinner,’ Jamie said irritably. Dinner with his family and a gaggle of guests, all gaping at him like he was a creature in a menagerie, sounded unbearable.

And so did knowing Catalina was somewhere in the house and he could not be with her.

‘Then you may want to retie your cravat,’ Phaedra said matter-of-factly.

Jamie glanced down to see that his cravat was indeed still untied and the ring hung against his shirt. He laughed ruefully and got himself put together again. Once he looked somewhat respectable, he offered Phaedra his arm and they started towards the dining room.

‘It feels almost as if Castonbury has become a small Spain of sorts,’ she said. ‘What with you and Harry just now home from there, and Elena, and now Miss Westman’s mysterious companion. Most interesting.’

‘Can you even find Spain on a globe, Phaedra?’ Jamie teased.

She laughed. ‘Of course I can. They have the most astonishing Andalusian horses there. I would love to import some for Castonbury. Perhaps Mrs Moreno knows something about them. I must talk to her more.’

Jamie had the suspicious feeling that horses were not the only thing Phaedra wanted to talk about with Catalina. He needed to see his wife again and get some answers—soon.