A Stranger at Castonbury(3)

‘My family didn’t want me to come here,’ he said. ‘And they were quite right to say I have duties at home, that I shouldn’t go off searching for adventure. But something told me I had to go, that I couldn’t stay still. Not yet.’

Catalina laughed, for it was that very spirit, that energy and life, that drew her to him. ‘It is true, Jamie. You are a restless spirit. I never see you still for a moment.’

‘Only when I’m with you,’ he said. Catalina looked up into his eyes and saw how very serious he was in that instant. ‘When I’m with you, I feel peace like I’ve never known before. This is a terrible place we’re in, Catalina, full of death and treachery. But with you...I see none of it any more. I only see your goodness. I don’t want to wander or seek when I’m with you. I wish...’ His voice broke off and he shook his head, as if words vanished.

‘I know,’ Catalina said. Her throat ached as if she would cry, sob with all the happiness and fear that was trapped inside of her. ‘Oh, Jamie, I know. If we could only stay like this, have it always be like this moment...’

Jamie pressed a soft kiss to her wrist, just where her pulse beat. ‘But the chaplain waits for us.’

‘We don’t have to go, you know,’ Catalina said as she thought of his words about his family—they had not wanted him to come here, and quite rightly so. What would they say if he returned to them with her? ‘We don’t have to marry to be together as we are now.’

‘Don’t have to marry?’ Jamie’s eyes narrowed and his hands tightened on hers, as if he thought she might fly away from him. ‘Catalina, don’t you see? I’ve finally found you. I don’t want you just for a day or an hour. I want you always. I can’t let you go.’

‘Oh, Jamie.’ She felt the hot tears well up in her eyes and she couldn’t hold them back any longer. They fell onto her cheeks and she shook her head. ‘I want you for always too. I never thought such a thing was possible. But it...frightens me.’

His hands held her even closer. ‘I frighten you?’

‘No, never you. But the way I feel, it will surely explode inside me. I feel like I’ll burst with it when I look at you. Such things can’t last.’

‘Then we need to hold on to it when we find it.’ Jamie’s arms came around her and he pulled her against him. ‘This is life, Catalina, and it’s ours right now. Please don’t send me away. Please be my wife. Once this war is over and we can return to England, I vow I will spend the rest of my life making you happy.’

To be his wife—it was all she could want. But still she wanted to cry and she didn’t even know why. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly. She breathed deeply of his citrus-sharp cologne, of that smell that was only Jamie, and she knew she would always remember it. That it would always remind her of this one night when he was hers.

‘If you are sure,’ she whispered, ‘then I will marry you.’

He pressed a kiss to her brow, and she felt the curve of his lips against her as he smiled. ‘Then let’s go to the church.’

Catalina nodded, and Jamie took her hand to lead her from the tent. The sun had sunk low to the horizon and was just a thin line of glowing red-orange along the edge of the dusky purple sky. The camp was settling down for the night. Only a few people still moved about between the rows of tents, women stirring pots over the fires, men cleaning their weapons and talking together quietly.

Later, when the ale and wine had been flowing, more people would come out to laugh and play music, dance, tell ribald jokes or grow melancholy about faraway homes. But for now everything was calm, and there was no one to pay attention to Catalina and Jamie as they made their way along the roadway.

Catalina caught a glimpse of two people walking in the opposite direction, laughing and chattering. She recognised Mrs Chambers, wife of Colonel Chambers. As usual the lady was rather elaborately dressed for camp life, in a blue silk gown trimmed with blond lace and silk roses, her hair piled in curls atop her head. She was laughing with the red-haired man who walked beside her, Hugh Webster, a man Catalina did not much care for. His eyes were always too cold, too speculative, when he looked at her, and she avoided him whenever she could.

Behind them scurried Mrs Chambers’s companion, Alicia Walters. Unlike her employer, Alicia was simply dressed, her pale golden hair pinned up in a tight knot. She always seemed so quiet, so intent on fading into the shadows, but Catalina rather liked her on the rare occasions they’d met. Alicia was polite and refined, kind.