A Stranger at Castonbury(32)

Mrs Landes-Fraser gave another snort and adjusted her shawls around her. ‘New life? Hmph! We were doing just fine with the way our life was before.’

Phaedra frowned and looked as if she very much wanted to argue, but the drawing room door opened before she could say anything.

Catalina glanced towards the man who had just come into the room. It had to be the duke himself, an imposing man with faded dark hair and clothes that looked a bit too large for him.

‘About time,’ Mrs Landes-Fraser muttered.

Harry stepped to his father’s side. ‘Here, Father, let me help you to your chair by the fire.’

The duke shook him away. ‘I am quite all right, my boy. Quit fussing so.’ His sharp grey eyes, half hidden under lowered brows, suddenly focused on Lydia. ‘And who is this, then? Must be Miss Westman, eh?’

Lydia gave a little squeak, and Catalina squeezed her hand to hold her still.

‘I—I am Miss Westman, Your Grace,’ Lydia said, and managed a wobbling curtsey.

‘Well, come here, girl—let me get a closer look at you,’ the duke barked.

Lydia had just taken one slow step in his direction when another man moved into the room behind him. He moved so quietly, keeping to the shadow of the door so that no one seemed to notice him. But something seemed to close around Catalina’s heart as soon as she glimpsed him and she slid closer involuntarily.

Surely—no, no, it could not. It had to be another Montague brother, or perhaps a cousin, and just being in this house had made her overly imaginative. It had already happened more than once. She had been thinking about him too much and now she thought she did see him. That was all it was.

But—but there was something about the man who stood there at the edge of the room so very still. Something watchful that reminded her of Jamie. And he looked so very much like him with that close-cropped dark hair, those strong shoulders under the finely cut coat.

‘James, come and meet Miss Westman,’ the duke called with an imperious wave of his hand.

James. As Catalina watched dizzily, the man stepped forward. He didn’t have Jamie’s graceful, panther-like movements; he limped a bit, but still that impression remained. Catalina felt icy cold, frozen to the spot as she watched him come nearer. She shrank back into the shadows as much as she could.

But he saw her. His eyes widened and then narrowed, and a muscle tensed along his jaw. He bowed to Lydia, yet his stare never wavered from Catalina.

‘Miss Westman,’ he said. ‘I’m always pleased to meet a new-found relative.’

‘Miss Westman, this is Lord Hatherton, my almost brother-in-law,’ Lily said quickly. ‘And, Jamie, this is Miss Westman’s companion, Mrs Moreno.’

Jamie straightened to his full tall height and looked directly into Catalina’s eyes, and she saw that it really was him. Her husband, who she had so long thought dead. She pressed her hand to her throat and shook her head.

‘Madre de Dios,’ she whispered. Jamie? Here, alive. No, it could not be. She was asleep and dreaming. The journey had tired her and she was imagining things again, just like with that man in the garden.

But then he took her cold, limp hand in his and looked at her with those bright grey eyes. She felt his skin against hers, so warm, so real. So alive. Not a dream, not a vision that would dissolve when she awoke.

‘Catalina,’ he whispered so only she could hear. His voice, too, was real, just as she remembered it.

The whole crowded room spun around her, and there was such a roaring in her ears, like a dozen rushing rivers. Just like the river that had supposedly swallowed him up. She stumbled back against the nearest table, her legs too weak to hold her up.

‘You’re not going to swoon, are you, Catalina? Not now,’ Jamie said. His voice was exactly the same, just as she heard it so often in her haunted dreams. Rough and warm all at the same time.

‘No,’ she managed to say, just before darkness closed in around her and she felt herself falling and falling.

Until strong arms closed around her.

She came to when she heard Lydia sobbing and crying, ‘Mrs Moreno! Oh, Mrs Moreno, please wake up.’

‘Give the lady some air, for heaven’s sake,’ Lady Phaedra said impatiently.

‘I have my vinaigrette,’ Aunt Wilhemina said. ‘No one should ever go anywhere without their vinaigrette. Here, James, give her this.’

Catalina tried to open her eyes, to tell them all she was quite all right, but she felt so very cold. She couldn’t quit shivering. And she felt so silly. She never fainted, not even during her nursing duties in Spain when there had been blood and limbs everywhere.