A Stranger at Castonbury (12 page)

Chapter Twelve

B
uxton was crowded and noisy as Jamie eased his curricle past a large, lumbering landau and turned down a side lane. Shop doors were thrown open for the customers who hurried in and out laden with packages, calling out to friends, finishing the morning’s errands. It was a warm day despite the heavy grey skies that threatened rain later and the damp air, and everyone wanted to be home before the storm came.

No one paid him any attention as he made his way through the town. He wore a plain grey coat and a broad-brimmed hat drawn low over his brow, and no one seemed to recognise the carriage. He liked those few moments of solitude, where there was only the horse and the road, and no one in his family there to watch him with ill-concealed concern in their eyes.

They never asked him questions, but he could tell they wanted to know what had really happened. One day he would have to tell them, but not yet. Not while he still had no words for the guilt that twisted at him when he thought of how he had left them, of the pain he had caused.

Not when the issue of Catalina was still unresolved. His wife.

She said she considered him free of her, that he had to do his duty to his family now. Yet what of his duty to her? He had to do what was right, but how could he when she would not let him? If she would not let him be her husband, he still had to take care of her.

And he had to start doing right by her and his family by settling old scores. As he had worked on the estate in the past few days after the assembly, he had thought about it all a great deal.

Jamie drew up at a small house set on a quiet street not far from the Assembly Rooms and climbed down from the high carriage seat. There was no one else passing by this row of small but respectable dwellings; it was far from the shops and the more fashionable neighbourhoods. The houses were plain and well-kept, quite unexceptional in every way. There were only a few shops across the street that catered mostly to the comfortably off merchants, widows and lawyers who lived in the houses.

And that made it the perfect place for someone to hide in plain sight.

Jamie knocked on the black-painted door at the top of a small set of stone steps, and it was quickly opened.

‘You are early,’ Alicia said as he bowed over her hand before slipping inside. ‘Crispin is taking his nap and the maid has gone out on an errand.’

‘Are you both comfortable here, Miss Walters?’ Jamie asked. He left his hat on a small bench in the hall and followed her into the tidy sitting room. A fire burned in the grate against the damp day, and an open work box sat on the table, spilling out colourful embroidery silks next to a tea set. A few toys were scattered across the floor.

‘Oh, yes, very comfortable,’ Alicia said as she scooped up the toys and deposited them in their box. ‘It was so kind of you to find this place for us. I certainly do not deserve it after...well, after everything.’

Jamie shook his head. ‘You have surely been punished enough for your mistakes. I am still paying for mine.’

Alicia gave him a puzzled glance. ‘Whatever do you mean, Lord Hatherton? What mistakes could you possibly have made?’

He smiled. ‘Nothing to worry about at the moment, Miss Walters. How is young Crispin settling in?’

‘Very well indeed. Though I think this street is a bit quiet for him. He does like to watch the horses go by.’ Alicia poured out two cups of tea. ‘I know I have no right to ask, but how is everyone at Castonbury? How is...’

She broke off, and a faint blush touched her pale cheeks.

Jamie sat down by the fire and took the cup she offered him. ‘How is Mr Everett?’

Alicia bit her lip. ‘How—how did you know?’

Jamie shrugged. ‘He has often expressed concern about you. He is a good man.’

‘A good man I do not deserve.’ Alicia sat down across from him and stared down into her cup. ‘Have you discovered where Captain Webster is hiding yet?’

‘Not at present, but he cannot stay hidden for ever. Have you had word from him?’

Alicia shook her head. ‘I left him a message in our old hiding place telling him where I am and offering to share a new scheme with him, just as you instructed. He has not yet replied.’ She gave a small frown. ‘But I think I saw him a few nights ago.’

Jamie’s senses sharpened. ‘Saw him where?’

‘In the lane behind the house, just past the garden that backs onto the Assembly Rooms. I was putting Crispin to bed in the nursery and happened to glance out the window. I thought I saw a man with red hair, but then he was gone so fast. I could have only imagined it.’

Jamie didn’t like the thought of Webster lurking about like a phantom, even if it was all part of the plan to draw him out. ‘You should let me set guards on the house, as I suggested before.’

‘No,’ Alicia said adamantly. ‘I don’t want to scare Crispin. And no one should know where we are. We have the maid, and she does seem to notice everything that happens in the kitchen and out on the street. She loves to tell me all about it.’

‘Then at least you must send me word immediately if you even suspect you see Webster again,’ Jamie said.

Alicia nodded. ‘Of course I will. I want him found as much as you do. That is the only way I can go on with my life. Whatever that may be.’

Jamie knew all too well how that felt. Life felt as if it was at a standstill until he could catch Webster and restore his family’s home and honour. Only then could he somehow move forward.

He and Alicia made more plans for trying to track down Webster and he left as the day moved into late afternoon. A few raindrops were falling from the sky as he drove out of town and turned back towards Castonbury. In the distance he glimpsed a figure hurrying along the side of the road, a slender woman in a blue dress and jacket. Her back was to him, her head bent, but Jamie could tell even from that distance that it was Catalina.

He urged the horse faster as the rain began to fall thicker and heavier. He came alongside her just as she stumbled in the mud. He leapt down from the carriage and ignored the twinge in his own leg to catch her as she fell.

‘Catalina?’ he shouted over the rain. ‘Where are you going? What are you doing here?’

She looked up at him, raindrops glistening on her lashes, and he was shocked to see the raw hurt in her eyes. It flashed there for only a second before she looked away, but he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything to take it away.

But first he had to get her out of this cursed rain.

Chapter Thirteen

J
amie was with Alicia Walters.

Catalina hurried as fast as she could down the lane, not even seeing where she was going as she tried to get away from Buxton and from that house. She hadn’t felt the first drops of rain at all.

The day had started in such an ordinary fashion. Lydia was working on some amateur theatricals with the other young guests, watched over by Lily, but they had needed some new fabric for costumes and Catalina had volunteered to go and fetch it. Phaedra was going a few farms over to look at some horses for sale, and had offered to drop Catalina in Buxton if she wanted to buy the fabric there and do some extra shopping. It had seemed like a fine idea, a chance to be alone and think in quiet. She had planned to walk back to Castonbury when she was done and get some exercise as well.

But then she had turned down that quiet street of small houses. When she had glimpsed Jamie there, so surprising and sudden, at first she had felt a rush of gladness. She had just raised her hand to wave to him when the door had opened and Alicia Walters had appeared there. Alicia, who everyone thought had run away after her crime was discovered. Yet she seemed to have been expecting Jamie.

And Catalina had been able to do nothing but rush off, forgetting even the errand that had brought her to town in the first place. She found herself now on the country road and couldn’t even really remember getting there.

The sky had burst open and dropped the heavy burden of rain onto the earth, as it had been threatening to do all day. Catalina hadn’t even noticed the first chilly drops, she had been so lost in the memory of Jamie holding Alicia’s hand, walking with her into that house. She had been lost in that terrible sense of feeling so foolish.

But she hadn’t been able to escape the rain for long. The drops had quickly become a deluge, cold and needle-sharp, pounding against her head and soaking through her spencer and dress. She had stumbled in a muddy hole and her half-boot had almost been sucked from her foot.

‘Maldición,’
she had cursed, and wrenched herself free. She had dragged her ruined straw bonnet from her head and turned her face up to the angry heavens. The storm seemed to reflect all her anger and confusion back at her.

‘Catalina! What are you doing, you foolish woman?’ she heard someone shout over the roar of the rain.

Jamie.
It was Jamie who had followed her from the town. Catalina laughed and covered her face with her dripping hands. She felt his strong arms around her waist as he lifted her free of the mud hole.

‘Catalina, where are you going?’ he asked roughly, setting her back on her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

Catalina shook her head. What was
he
doing here? What was he doing visiting a woman who had deceived his entire family? A woman no one had seen in weeks? Had they all been wrong about Alicia and her relationship with Jamie? ‘I was shopping,’ she said. When she had set out that morning on her errand it had seemed like such an ordinary day. How long ago that was.

The cold seemed to have seeped deep into her skin now, and she shivered.

‘Shopping?’ Jamie said. ‘Did you drop your parcels somewhere?’

‘No, I bought nothing,’ Catalina answered. ‘But you—what were you doing there? You said you were looking into a land purchase.’

Would he tell her about meeting Alicia? About what he was really doing with her? He stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes again so flat and still, so unreadable. She thought for an instant he might answer her, but then he just shook his head and gave her a crooked little smile.

‘We need you inside this very minute, before you catch the ague,’ he said. ‘It would be terrible if you missed the wedding festivities.’

Before she knew what he was doing, he bent and caught her under her knees to swing her up into his arms. She was so surprised by his sudden movement, and still so confused by the burst of cold rain and seeing him with Alicia, that she didn’t make a protest. Jamie’s body was so warm and alive under the wet layers of their clothes, she just wanted to curl close to him. So close she could disappear inside his heat and never be seen again.

‘Back to Castonbury?’ she murmured as he put her on his carriage seat and climbed up beside her.

‘Too far,’ he said. He led the horse onto a twisting pathway off the lane she hadn’t noticed before. When they could go no further, he tied up the horse under the shelter of a large tree and lifted her down again. She saw that he was limping a bit, his steps uneven on the muddy ground.

‘Put me down now,’ she insisted. ‘I can walk.’

‘In those ruined shoes? Certainly not. Now be still, woman, or you’ll tumble us both into the mud.’

His arms tightened around her, and one look at his grimly determined face kept her silent. She let her head fall to his shoulder and just held on to him as he carried her.

‘There is a shelter of sorts in those trees not far from here,’ Jamie said. ‘They once used it in sheep-shearing season, if it’s still there. Not grand, but you can get warm there.’

They walked on in silence, until they found that the shelter was indeed still there. It was a simple, square structure of weathered stone with pens outside for the sheep. There were no windows, but there was a chimney and even a small pile of firewood under a box. Jamie shoved open the rickety door with his shoulder and stepped inside.

For a moment the sudden silence after the rain was deafening. The drops pattered softly on the old roof, but it was dry in the room.

‘It’s not much,’ Jamie said as he lowered her to her feet. ‘But it’s home for now. Can you stand?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Catalina said, trying not to let her teeth chatter. She leaned against the closed door as Jamie went to kneel by the stone hearth. It
wasn’t
much, just a small room with no furniture that smelled faintly of sheep, but it looked like a miraculous haven to her. Shelves rose up one wall, holding stacks of woollen blankets and pottery jugs.

Catalina shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as she watched Jamie coax the first faint embers of the fire into real flames. They leapt higher, casting his damp skin and hair into a celestial golden light.

She remembered how he had bowed over Alicia’s hand, how well they had looked together, and she wondered again what he had been doing there. What was really going on in his life? Had she ever really known him?

Soon the fire was full of roaring life, the orange flames leaping high, cracking and snapping. Sweet-acrid smoke tinged the scent of the cold, damp air, curling around her as if it would draw her away from the door. Jamie looked at her over his shoulder. He didn’t smile now; his expression was strangely still and grim.

He ran his hands through his wet hair and pushed the strands straight back from his face. The light danced over the angles of his aristocratic features, the sharpness of his cheekbones and nose, the strong line of his jaw. The scar on his cheek. He looked so austere in that flickering light, like a medieval monk or king. Austere and beautiful.

Her heart ached with it.

Catalina shivered again, and he pushed himself to his feet. As she watched he crossed the room to get a blanket from the shelf. He came back to her to tuck the rough wool around her shoulders. ‘You should come and sit by the fire,’ he said quietly.

She let him slip his arm around her shoulders and lead her to the warm, welcoming circle of the blaze. He laid another blanket down on the rough floor for her to sit on.

‘You’re still shivering,’ he said.

Catalina nodded. She was shaking—but not just from the rain. He was so near to her she was dizzy with it, longing to reach out and touch him, to feel the strong warm reality of him and know again that he was no dream.

Jamie knelt beside her with a muttered oath and reached under her muddy hem for her foot. He placed it against his thigh and deftly slipped the buttons of her ruined boot from the stiffened leather.

‘Your clothes are wet through,’ he said, not looking up at her as he removed her other boot. ‘You should take them off and wrap up in more of those blankets. You’ll never get warm otherwise.’

Take off her clothes? Be
naked
with him? Catalina almost laughed aloud hysterically. What sort of insane things would happen then, if she felt this way when he just touched her foot? It didn’t seem like a sensible idea.

Of course it wasn’t as if he had never seen her unclothed before. He had taken off her clothes, kissed every inch of the skin he had bared....

Catalina shivered again. She turned her head to stare into the flames. ‘What of you?’ she whispered. ‘You are also soaked through, Jamie.’

‘I’m used to it,’ he said.

‘I don’t care if you
are
used to it. I would hate it if you caught a cold and missed your brother’s wedding festivities because you chased me down in the rain,’ she said. He shook his head, and she raised her hand in a gesture that said she would brook no arguments. ‘I insist. We should both get out of our garments. It seems so foolish to sit here in them when we are both adults who have seen so much of the world. I will even turn my back—very proper.’

Jamie burst out laughing. Catalina had never heard him laugh like that before, full out, nothing held back. It was a rich, glowing sound, brighter and deeper than any spiced wine on a cold night. It made Catalina feel warmer just hearing it, and she found herself actually giggling with him.

‘Oh, yes,’ he gasped. ‘Very proper indeed.’ He sat back on his heels and braced his palms on his thighs as he laughed. ‘As if I don’t remember what you look like naked, Catalina. Your beautiful skin, the curve of your back. Do you still have that little freckle just behind...’

‘Stop!’ Catalina cried. Her sides ached from laughing. She wrapped her arms around her waist and shook her head, trying to catch her breath.

Finally they were able to stop laughing, and somehow the tense atmosphere in the little room felt easier, lighter. Jamie leaned forward and rested his hands on the blanket on either side of her hips. He was so close she could smell the rain on his skin and see the drops of it sparkling in his hair.

‘When did we become so ridiculous, Catalina?’ he said. ‘So silly and prudish.’

‘I am not prudish,’ Catalina protested. ‘Of course I know we have seen each other before. I just think we should be...’

Naked together again? Kissing, touching? Yes, all of those things—if only it was not all too late.

‘Should be what?’ he said.

‘Cautious,’ she answered, far more firmly than she felt.

He studied her for a long, tense moment. Finally he nodded and pushed himself to his feet.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. He turned to face the corner, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘There now, my back is turned.’

Catalina slowly stood up and stepped closer to the fire, her own back turned to him. She unbuttoned and removed her spencer to spread it out on the hearth. She could hear nothing from Jamie except the soft sound of his breath mingled with the patter of rain on the walls outside. She eased the long sleeves of her dress down her arms, pulling at the high, gathered neckline until the wet, clinging muslin fell away. The fabric slithered down to a sodden pile at her feet until she stood in only her chemise and stockings. Her damp skin, bared to the warm air, prickled.

‘Now you,’ she said. After a long moment she heard the slide and rustle of Jamie’s clothes as he undressed. She closed her eyes tightly, but in that darkness it was even worse. She could see it all in her mind—that wet shirt falling away from Jamie’s chest, leaving him bare. The smooth, warm skin, the strong muscles of his chest and his shoulders flexing with his movement. His long, elegant hands loosening the front of his breeches, easing them away from his lean hips—oh, yes, she remembered it all. She could just imagine those breeches moving lower and lower....

Catalina groaned and pressed her hands over her closed eyes. Jamie was right—they were ridiculous. It had been so long; she shouldn’t still want him this much.

‘Catalina, are you all right?’ Jamie said. She heard a soft whisper of sound, his footsteps on the floor, a rustle of cloth, and then a warm, dry blanket eased over her shoulders.

‘You’re still shaking,’ he said, so quiet and deep.

Catalina swallowed hard and nodded. ‘The rain. When do you think it will end?’

‘Very soon. Don’t worry—I’m sure your charge, Miss Westman, is safe enough at Castonbury with my sister.’ Jamie stepped away from her, and Catalina opened her eyes to see that he knelt down to stir at the fire. ‘Come, sit closer, it will warm you.’

Under the shelter of the blanket, Catalina wriggled out of the chemise and unfastened the velvet garters to roll down her damp stockings. Now she had only the blanket over her nakedness—and Jamie still wore his breeches. All her wild imaginings were for naught.

Catalina almost laughed and she clapped her hand over her mouth. The other hand held her blanket closed at her throat.

‘Come, sit,’ Jamie said again. He pulled the blankets on the floor closer to the hearth.

‘I know Miss Westman is fine at Castonbury,’ Catalina said as she sat down. She tucked her legs up under her and watched the fire leap higher. ‘Your family has been very kind to her.’

‘They can be kind sometimes,’ Jamie said with a laugh. ‘We’re not always complete savages, no matter what the gossip says about us.’

They could be kind when they had a purpose? Was that how Jamie truly thought? Was that what had happened in Spain? Catalina blurted out, ‘They want you to marry her, you know.’

Jamie turned his head to look at her, that half-smile on his lips. Half his face was lit by the fire and half cast in shadows. ‘My father thinks I should. He considers her very suitable.’

‘And you?’

‘How can I marry her, Catalina, when I am married to you?’

And there it was, said aloud at last. They were married. What were they to do about it? The words seemed to hover in the air between them, filling the tiny building.

Catalina tightened her fist around the blanket. ‘We aren’t really. I would never stand in the way of your life here.’