A Stranger at Castonbury(24)

Or maybe it was the knowledge of what he had to do now that made his leg ache. He had hoped that in coming back to Castonbury he would at least have been able to find some peace, to cease to fight the battles of the world. But there could be no peace until this strange matter was dealt with once and for all.

And he was the only one who could do it. It was his name that had been used to dishonour his family. He had to end it.

Jamie lowered himself from the high seat and tied the horse up to the garden fence. He watched the house surreptitiously the whole time, pretending to be absorbed in his task, and he was rewarded by the flicker of a curtain at an upstairs window. He glimpsed a flash of pale hair before the fabric fell back in place.

Someone was there, after all. Was she alone?

Jamie pushed open the broken gate and made his way carefully up the overgrown path. The silence seemed to roar around him, the wind through the trees, the rustle of the old, dried leaves and dead flowers under his boots, the creak of the house.

At the door, Jamie rested one hand on his hip where he could feel the weight of his pistol tucked inside his coat and raised the other to knock. The sound echoed hollowly, and for a moment he could hear nothing. Then it came to him, the faintest brush as of slippers on a dusty floor. If his senses hadn’t been trained to high alert in Spain, he would have missed it.

Then it went quiet again.

‘Miss Walters?’ he called gently. ‘I know you are there. It’s Jamie Montague. I just want to speak with you.’

There was a small rustle again, and then nothing.

‘Please, Miss Walters,’ he said. ‘I mean you no harm. I don’t want to have to return with my brothers, who might not be so peaceable.’

After a long, tense moment, there was the scrape of a lock being drawn back and the door opened a couple of inches. Through the crack Jamie saw a blue muslin skirt and a flash of a pale cheek. She gasped when she saw him, and he thrust his booted foot into the gap in case she decided to slam it shut again.

‘It is you,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ he answered. ‘Not quite as dead as you thought, I fear.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘I have my ways. Now, please let me in so we can talk in private.’ Not that there was anyone to hear but the wind and the trees, but Jamie still didn’t want his family’s business conducted out of doors.

Alicia glanced back over her shoulder and hesitated. But finally she nodded and pulled the door open all the way.

Jamie stepped into a tiny hall just as she spun around and hurried away. He followed her into a small sitting room, filled with furniture draped in holland covers and an empty fireplace surmounted by a dusty mantel. One settee was uncovered and piled with blankets. Alicia rushed over to it and picked up the child who sat there playing with some wooden blocks, a cherubic toddler with blue eyes and golden curls.

She held him tightly to her shoulder as she turned to face Jamie. Her eyes, the same china-blue as the baby’s, were bright with unshed tears but she held her head high.

Jamie remembered her from Spain, how she had scurried so quietly behind Colonel Chambers’s noisy wife, how her pale hair and plain clothes had blended into the background. Now she was just as quiet, trembling but calm, and he could scarcely credit she was the same woman who had pulled such a bold, dangerous scheme.

Perhaps Everett was right. Perhaps someone had driven her to it. Perhaps someone had forced her, blackmailed her.

But that didn’t change the fact that she had done it. And he needed answers.

‘Have you come to arrest me?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ Jamie answered. As he watched, the child popped his fingers into his little mouth and grinned at Jamie. Jamie could see why his father had loved the child. But it was not his son. Not the son he had once dared to dream of having with Catalina.

‘I need to know what happened,’ he said.

‘We thought you were dead!’ Alicia burst out, her calm cracking. ‘I didn’t think it would hurt anyone, and your father seemed so happy. I only wanted to take care of my little Crispin.’

‘Crispin?’ Jamie laughed. ‘You named him after my father? You are bold.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Alicia said again.

‘So you came up with this whole elaborate scheme all on your own?’ Jamie said. ‘You found my lost signet ring after it was stolen, forged a marriage licence and found my family. Put the whole plan together and thought you could fool everyone. Very clever.’