A Stranger at Castonbury(26)

Catalina bit her lip to keep from laughing. ‘I am sure they are no more peculiar than any other ducal family. Such people are entitled to their eccentricities, I believe, especially here in England.’

‘Do you not have dukes in Spain, Mrs Moreno?’

‘Of course we do. But they are rather different.’ Catalina drew a volume of Don Quixote from her valise and handed it to Lydia. ‘Why do you not read that for a while? There are lots of mad people in that tale, and you can practise your Spanish a bit. You have been doing so well with it.’ Learning languages was one of the reasons Lydia’s guardian had hired a foreign companion for her, that and Mrs Burnes’s stellar recommendation.

Lydia frowned as she turned the book over in her hands. ‘It looks rather...long.’

‘We still have some time before we reach Castonbury.’

Lydia nodded and opened the volume, and as Catalina had expected she was soon lost in the don’s adventures with Sancho Panza. And Catalina was left alone again.

She gazed out of the carriage window as the scenery bounced past. It was so green and soft, so very different from the rolling brown hills and enclosed gardens of Spain.

But different was what she had sought when she had fled Spain. There was nothing for her there. Even if she had sought to reclaim her family’s place, her well-known anti-monarchical ideas would have made life in Spain uncomfortable. And she had little money. When the chance had come to travel to England as nurse to an English general’s sickly wife, it had seemed like an opportunity. A chance to begin life again after all that had happened.

Even though it meant beginning in England, Jamie’s homeland. Yet she had never imagined her new position, as governess and companion to a pretty debutante, would take her to his actual home. She had only got the job thanks to Mrs Burnes’s glowing reference and had known little about the task at first. She and Lydia had been staying in the countryside, away from Town gossip.

Castonbury. She remembered how he had spoken of it, his family’s home, and it hadn’t sounded like it could be a real place. It had sounded like a whole world in itself, a green land of lakes and follies and hidden bowers. Catalina had loved his tales of it, because her own home was gone and she had never really felt like she belonged there anyway. She didn’t belong anywhere, except for those few moments in Jamie’s arms when she hadn’t been able to imagine being anywhere else.

But that had been an illusion in the end, a dream she had conjured up all on her own. The only reality in life was to be alone. Twice widowed, she had learned that well, and she was content with it. She had learned to put Jamie away, hidden deep in her heart. To forget about what had been—and what might have been, if he had come back and they had been able to work things out between them. If everything had been as she dreamed.

Never had she thought she would go to his home and see his family. When Lydia’s guardian had asked her to go with the girl for this wedding, her first instinct had been to refuse, to quit her position and find a new one where she would never have to see this place. Never be so starkly reminded of Jamie, and how her dreams had been shattered by his work and then by his death.

Catalina looked across the carriage at Lydia. The girl had her head bent over her book, the daylight playing over the red-gold curls that peeked from under her chip straw bonnet. Catalina liked Lydia. In truth, she had become quite fond of her in the short time they had been together, and she sensed that Lydia needed her. The girl had been motherless for a long time, and in her one Season weathering the storm of Society life hadn’t been easy for her. Catalina couldn’t just leave her.

Even if it did mean going to Castonbury.

It is only for a few days, Catalina told herself. Just a few days in a house that she would surely find was only a house, a place of stone and brick where no trace of Jamie remained. She would be quiet and unobtrusive, as she always was, and the family would take no notice of her.

Then they would go back to London and it would be over.

As if she sensed Catalina watching her, Lydia glanced up and smiled. But it wasn’t her usual sunny smile. It seemed strangely tentative.

‘Is something wrong, pequeña?’ Catalina asked.

Lydia shook her head. ‘No, of course not. What could be wrong? I just...’

‘Just what?’

‘I just wonder—will they like me? The Montagues?’ Lydia sounded so young and unsure.

‘Of course they will like you,’ Catalina said. ‘They are your family.’