A Stranger at Castonbury(2)

‘You are doing the right thing,’ she told herself. Her reflection stared back at her, her wide, uncertain brown eyes, the sun freckles splashed over her nose. As she pushed in the last pin, the sapphire ring on her finger caught the dying sunlight. Jamie’s mother’s ring, which he had slid onto her finger when he had asked her to marry him, sparkled. It was an oval sapphire, inscribed inside the gold band with the motto of the Montagues—Validus Superstes.

This was the right thing. She was seizing her happiness while she could.

Catalina stepped back and smoothed the skirt of her simple white muslin gown. She picked up the white lace mantilla from her trunk and swept it over her hair. She was marrying far from home, with none of her family, but she would go to Jamie looking as much like a proper Spanish bride as she could.

This was their time, and she would seize it with both hands. She would hold on to it for as long as she could.

She heard the sound of booted footsteps on the hard-packed dirt outside. ‘Catalina,’ Jamie called quietly. ‘Are you ready?’

Catalina’s heart leapt, and she felt that warm rush of excitement through her that always came when he was near. She caught up her prayer book and answered, ‘Sí, mi amor—I am ready.’

Jamie pushed back the flap of the tent and stepped inside. The sunset outside limned him in a fiery red-orange glow. For an instant, Catalina’s eyes were dazzled and she could barely see him. He seemed very far away, as if he stood poised on the edge of another world, one where she could not follow. As if he would fall back into some dark chasm and be lost to her even as she desperately reached out for him.

Don’t be so dramatic, she told herself sternly. She had once had a nursemaid who was full of old superstitions and would warn Catalina of all the things that could bring bad fortune at weddings—not crying before the nuptial kiss, forgetting to wear a lump of sugar in the bridal glove, all of which would cause a lifetime of misery. She had terrified Catalina so much that she had feared to make any move at all, until her mother had dismissed the nurse and scoffed at such warnings.

Catalina hadn’t thought of such things in years, but today felt so very strange with that blood-red sunset and her heart about to burst. She couldn’t help but fear that her feelings for Jamie were too much.

Jamie let the tent flap drop behind him. Without that fiery light surrounding him, Catalina saw that he was only a man, of real flesh and blood. Not a god or a spirit who would vanish when she touched him. But still she couldn’t quite breathe when she looked at him. She couldn’t even move. She could only gaze at him and marvel that he was here with her.

He wore his dress uniform, the buttons bright and shimmering against the fine red cloth, his boots polished to a high gloss. His hair, still damp from a washing, waved back from his face, revealing the sculpted angles of his features. She had seldom seen him looking so grand, not amid the rough and tumble of a camp constantly on the move. He looked every inch the fine English nobleman.

Except for his eyes. They were such a light, piercing blue-grey in the shadows and seemed to devour her as he looked at her.

‘Catalina,’ he said, and his usually velvet-smooth, deep voice was rough. ‘How beautiful you are.’

Catalina made herself laugh, even as those simple words made her want to cry. She knew she was not beautiful. She was tall and thin, her skin tanned by the sun, her hands roughened by her nursing work. But when Jamie said it, when he looked at her that way—she could almost believe it. She could almost believe she was worthy of him. Just for tonight.

‘No, Catalina,’ Jamie said. Suddenly he was beside her, taking her hands in his. His touch was warm and strong on her, turning her to face him. ‘I can see what you’re thinking. You are beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I knew that from the first moment I saw you.’

‘Oh, Jamie.’ Catalina raised their joined hands and pressed a soft kiss to the back of his sun-browned fingers. Like hers, his hands were scraped and scarred from their lives in camp. There was a thin line of white encircling his smallest finger, the mark of his family’s gold signet ring, which he had lost. But his hands were long and elegant, as aristocratic as the rest of him.

‘I felt I knew you from that first moment as well,’ she said. ‘As if I had always known you. How can that be?’

‘Because we were meant to find each other,’ he answered. He twined his fingers with hers and held her hands against his chest. Beneath the fine red wool, she could feel the rhythm of his heart, steady and reassuring. Precious.