A Stranger at Castonbury

chapterr Nine

‘I cannot tell you how happy I am you have come to Castonbury,’ Elena Montague said to Catalina in Spanish. They strolled together around the banks of the ornamental lake after an afternoon picnic. The others were still lying about in the shade, finishing the lemonade and the cook’s fine almond cakes, talking or napping. Phaedra led some of the visiting children about on a pony.

Lydia and another young guest were being rowed around the lake by Mr Hale, the handsome curate. She seemed to be having a good time, laughing at Mr Hale’s jokes and blushing, so Catalina was happy to spend an hour walking with Lord Harry’s wife.

Elena had obviously suffered a great deal in the wars in their homeland. Like Catalina she had lost her home and family and was trying to make a new start here. But she was very kind, with an engaging, easy manner that made Catalina feel at ease, not like a servant at the grand house. And it was very pleasant to speak Spanish again, to be with someone who understood so many things without the need of explaining a word.

It also distracted her at least a bit from thoughts of Jamie, from wondering what he had been doing since they parted and what he had been driven to in his work.

Catalina glanced from under her wide-brimmed hat at the house behind them. The windows gleamed back blankly, as if Castonbury itself watched her. He had not appeared for the picnic; Lady Phaedra merely said he had a great deal of work lately and had ‘become no fun at all.’ Catalina had felt a sharp pang of relief—or perhaps disappointment.

She wondered if he watched them now from behind one of those windows. Had he thought about her last night? She hadn’t been able to sleep at all for thinking about him. The past and the present had become so tangled up, and she didn’t know where to go next or what to do. What was the correct thing to do when one’s husband—one’s secret, dead husband—came up alive again?

Did he even remember what they had been to each other?

She had been able to read nothing in his eyes last night. He looked like her Jamie, though older and harder. His hands on her skin felt like Jamie’s hands. Yet she could not find a spark of him in those blank eyes.

It frightened her, and made her wonder again what he had done in Spain.

‘Mrs Moreno?’ Elena said. ‘Are you quite well?’

Startled, Catalina turned back to her. Elena looked concerned, and Catalina laughed reassuringly. ‘Oh, yes. I must have just been dazzled by the sun for a moment.’

Elena laughed too, and they continued on their stroll around the lake. ‘Enjoy it while you can. It seems as if it rains all the time here.’

‘Have you been at Castonbury long?’ Catalina asked.

‘Not long, and we shall soon be off to Harry’s next posting. I think he will miss his family, but we are ready for a new adventure.’

‘You met your husband in Spain, yes?’

A soft smile touched Elena’s face at the mention of her husband. She waved at him where he sat under a tree with his brother Giles, and he blew her a kiss. ‘Yes. That was certainly quite an adventure, and not one I should care to repeat. Though I did find my Harry through it.’

‘Why was Lord Harry in Spain? Was he in the army too?’ Catalina asked.

‘Yes, he was, but he was in Spain to find Jamie. Have you not heard the tale?’

So that was how Jamie had come to return home. His brother had searched him out. ‘No indeed. I have only been at Castonbury a day. It sounds most intriguing.’

Elena laughed. ‘It is a long tale.’

Catalina looked to see that Lydia was still on the lake with the curate and seemed to be having a very good time. None of the others appeared in any hurry to leave their sunny idyll. ‘I have time. I would love to hear your story.’

Elena nodded and led them to a bench set in the shade of a nearby tree. From there they could see the softly rolling green vista of the gardens and a gleaming white stone folly tucked amid a grove of trees, and Elena told Catalina the tale of how she had been caught in the siege at Badajoz and cast off by her family and betrothed. Like Catalina, she had been cut off from her old life and searching for a new purpose when she met Harry Montague, who was on a quest to find out the truth about his brother’s supposed death. Elena told her of the dangerous journey they had endured to find him, and what a shock it had been to find him alive at the end. She also relayed what she knew of Alicia Walters’s own little intrigue, the lies she told and how it had affected the family. It was a sad story of terrible pain, but also of great love.

Catalina was so shocked when it was finished that she couldn’t speak at all. It was a tale worthy of those novels Lydia loved so much—lost heirs, crumbling estates, spies, murders.

And a false wife exposed. Jamie’s imposter wife.

‘I can hardly believe it,’ Catalina murmured. She slowly shook her head. She did remember Alicia Walters from Spain, but she could hardly credit the woman would do such a thing. She had been so quiet, so proper. So...English. Exactly the kind of lady Jamie might actually be expected to marry.

‘I know,’ Elena said. ‘If I had not seen it all unfold myself I never would have believed it.’

‘And you are quite sure her tale was false?’ Catalina asked.

‘I was there when Harry told Jamie what had been happening here in his absence. No one could have been more shocked—more angry. But he has allowed no one to pursue her since she fled. He says he will fix it all himself.’

Catalina could well credit that. Jamie had always gone quietly and steadily about his tasks, and was all the more deadly for it. She knew that better than anyone. She could almost have felt sorry for Alicia, if she was not so angry with her.

She curled her hands into fists and buried them in the folds of her skirt to keep from shouting out. The woman had used Jamie’s name, used the tragedy of his death, to further her own ambitions. She had come here to his house, claiming a place that should have been Catalina’s, if so many things had been different.

Catalina closed her eyes and bit back a sob. She had never wanted this place; it would have been as nothing without Jamie. She could never have belonged here, especially not without him. Yet it sounded as if for a time Alicia had belonged here.

‘It was very hard for the duke to learn the truth,’ Elena said. ‘I understood he had become quite fond of the child. But now that Jamie is home again and the money troubles solved, I am sure all will be well. Everyone is eager for him to find a real wife soon. Especially Giles, I think. He never wanted to be the heir.’

Catalina laughed. If only they knew! And if only she knew what to do now. How to make it right. ‘A real wife?’

‘I think that may be why your Miss Westman was invited.’

‘Miss Westman?’ Catalina looked at Elena in astonishment. She had wondered herself if Lydia might make a match with another Montague cousin—but Jamie, the heir to the dukedom? ‘Is she truly thought of as a bride for Lord Hatherton?’

‘Did you not suspect? Harry is quite sure of it. No one has seen her in so long, and yet the duke insisted at the last minute that she must come,’ Elena said. ‘It does make a sort of sense. After all that has happened, the duke will want his heir’s wife to be someone he can be sure of.’

‘Lydia has a generous dowry, but not a large one,’ Catalina murmured.

‘That will not matter so much now that the inheritance troubles are in the past. Miss Westman is family, pretty and well-bred, well-behaved thanks to you. All of Jamie’s siblings have made slightly shocking marriages, some rather more scandalous than others. But Jamie is the heir. Miss Westman will be an extremely proper match.’

Catalina looked at Lydia where she sat perched in the boat. She held her lacy parasol on her shoulder and was smiling shyly at the curate, her red-gold curls and pink cheeks so pretty in the sunlight. Lydia was a sweet girl, and always eager to please. As open and kind as a warm summer’s day. She would never give the Montagues trouble or cause to fear more scandal. Unlike Catalina.

Yet Catalina also knew that being a duchess was no easy task, and the boisterous Montagues were no easy family. Like Jamie, they were complicated. Had she been sent here to help Lydia learn a new role? To help her be a suitable Marchioness of Hatherton?

It was so very strange she had to laugh. Could she let Jamie go to find a truly proper wife? She knew she could, that she had to. What they had in Spain had been nothing more than a dream, a wild folly. It could never have survived here with the pressures of everyday life. Lydia was truly more suited to this life in many ways. She was English.

Yet Catalina couldn’t stop the shiver that went through her when she remembered how it felt when he touched her last night. How she couldn’t quit staring at him, fearing that he would vanish again. And then she would never know the truth.

She rose from the bench and shook out her skirt. ‘I should make sure Lydia comes inside soon. I understand we are to go to the Assembly Rooms in Buxton tonight, and she should rest before then.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Elena said brightly. ‘I should see if I can persuade Harry to...take a rest as well. I have so enjoyed our talk, Mrs Moreno. I hope we can converse more soon.’

‘I have enjoyed meeting you as well,’ Catalina answered. It had been very educational—and given her a great deal more to think about. She turned and hurried down to the small boat dock to wait for Lydia to return to shore while Elena went to meet her husband.

Catalina saw what she had to do now. Let Jamie go to find his true wife. But how was she to do that?

And how was she to persuade her heart that it had to cease to care?