A Stranger at Castonbury(20)

‘I am too old to do a worthy job here much longer, my lord,’ Mrs Stratton said with a laugh. ‘But I am training Rose, one of the upstairs maids who has been here a while, to take over as housekeeper. It will be nice to be closer to my son.’

‘I hope that he is happy in his marriage,’ Jamie said, a vision of Catalina in her lace veil flashing through his mind. Hopefully Adam and Amber would enjoy a long and happy life together, the kind he had hoped to have with Catalina.

‘Indeed he is. We have all hoped...’ Mrs Stratton suddenly broke off and gave him an odd glance, her smile flickering into a frown.

Jamie was sure she wanted to ask about his own supposed ‘marriage’, and he was reminded of all the strange things that must have happened at Castonbury while he was gone. And of all he still had to do.

Which probably included finding a future duchess to marry. He shook his head. There was enough to do without torturing himself with that now.

At the end of the gallery, Mrs Stratton turned not towards his father’s grand suite of ducal chambers but to another, narrower corridor.

She seemed to see his surprise for she gave him a small smile. ‘Your father prefers to spend his days in a small sitting room he set up for himself when Lord Edward died. It’s quieter on this side of the house.’

‘I see,’ Jamie said, though in truth he did not. He still had a lot of things to relearn here.

‘His health has been so much improved since Lord Harry returned from Spain,’ Mrs Stratton said. ‘I believe he is even looking forward to the wedding! But I must tell you, my lord, that the doctors say he should be kept as calm as possible.’

Jamie almost laughed aloud at the thought that anyone could keep his father ‘calm’ when he did not wish to be. But he merely nodded as Mrs Stratton knocked at a door.

‘Your Grace?’ she called softly. ‘You have a visitor.’

‘Not another cursed visitor!’ a hoarse voice answered, muffled by the thick wood of the door. ‘This place is full of them.’

Mrs Stratton just opened the door and stepped inside. Jamie followed her, his hand curled hard around the head of his stick. The room was dim, the only light from a crackling fire that burned in the grate despite the warm day outside. The draperies were drawn over the windows, and a large, overstuffed armchair was drawn close to the hearth.

At first Jamie thought the housekeeper had brought him to the wrong room and a stranger sat before him. An elderly stranger, thin and spare compared to his robust, hearty father, the man who had ridden hell for leather with the local hunt and whose voice could thunder down the vast corridors of Castonbury. The man who sat before the fire had grey hair and a thick shawl wrapped around his shoulders. The air was heavy and stifling.

‘You gave orders that you wanted to see this visitor right away, Your Grace,’ Mrs Stratton said. She glanced at Jamie and gave him a small, encouraging smile before she left.

‘I did no such...’ The man twisted around in his chair, and a pair of blue-grey eyes—Montague eyes—looked at Jamie from the gloom. It was his father, after all, grown old while he had been gone.

‘James,’ his father whispered. He braced his age-spotted hands on the chair’s arms and tried to push himself to his feet, but he fell back to the cushions. ‘James, is it you? Is it?’

Jamie hurried forward as fast as his cursed leg would let him. He caught his father on his second attempt to rise and held him upright. ‘Yes, Father,’ he answered. ‘It is me. Past time I came home, eh?’

To his shock, the duke—a man who had seldom had time for his children when he was so busy with his duties and his sporting life—caught Jamie’s shoulders in his thin hands and dragged him closer.

‘James, James,’ he whispered. ‘Harry did say—but I didn’t dare think it was true.’

Bewildered, Jamie patted his father’s shoulder. What a sorry pair we are, he thought wryly. A duke and a marquis, an old man and a cripple with their house falling down around them.

‘Where have you been?’ the duke said.

‘Here, Father, sit down and I will tell you what I can.’ Jamie helped his father back down to the chair. He quickly poured them each a measure of brandy from the tray on the sideboard by the wall and sat down across from his father to tell of his adventures in Spain.

‘I’m sorry for everything, Father,’ he said. He gulped down half the glass, relishing the bite of the brandy down his throat. ‘It’s not at all adequate, I know, but I do mean it.’