A Stranger at Castonbury(17)

‘Thank heavens for that! I could never bear another sea voyage,’ Mrs Burnes said. ‘Once my dear general is home, I shall insist we never leave again.’

Catalina laughed. ‘I can definitely agree to that, Mrs Burnes. The sea is not so agreeable as land.’

‘Oh, but surely you will want to return to Spain one day, Mrs Moreno. When things are settled there.’

Catalina shook her head. ‘This will be my home now.’ She couldn’t go back to Spain, not with the king returning. Not with all the memories lurking there.

‘Well, I hope you will like England, then. It’s very different from Spain, but there are interesting sights and people to be found here as well, if one only looks.’ Mrs Burnes chattered on as the ship lumbered towards shore, telling Catalina about all her friends in London she hoped to see again and the country house she wanted to buy as soon as her husband returned so they could retire there together.

‘...it is very near Castonbury Park, the seat of the Duke of Rothermere,’ Mrs Burnes said.

The words caught Catalina’s attention. ‘Castonbury?’ she said, and all the tales Jamie had told her of his home came flooding back to her.

‘Oh, yes. Have you heard of the house? It is one of the loveliest in all England, and surely one of the grandest. I toured it once as a girl, and I still remember the great marble columns and the lovely frescoes on the ceilings! Just what a Roman emperor’s palace must have been like, I imagine. I even caught a glimpse of the duchess, who was just going out for a ride. She was so very beautiful and elegant, just what an English duchess ought to be.’ Mrs Burnes sighed. ‘That is the sort of thing I will be happy to return to, something so English.’

Catalina almost laughed. Once, she might have been mistress of that place, a new duchess. Yet all she had wanted was Jamie, Jamie who turned out to be a dream creation of her own romantic heart.

But she still almost wished she could see the house just once. See it, and imagine Jamie was somehow still with her there...





Chapter 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.