A Stranger at Castonbury(42)

‘Mmm.’ Catalina sighed at the taste of him. So dark and rich and just as perfect as she remembered. The smoothness of sweet brandy overlaying something more enticing and dangerous, something that was only him. She held on to him tightly and traced her tongue over his.

Jamie groaned and his arms closed hard around her. He drew her up against him until their bodies were as close as layers of silk and wool allowed them to be. But Catalina wanted to be even closer.

She slid one hand along the side of his throat and traced her fingertips over his chest. She could feel his strength through the crisp linen of his cravat and the smooth brocade of his waistcoat. She felt the small bump of her ring on its chain, and his heart leapt under her palm. A rush of joy went through her at the feel of its rhythm—it meant he was alive, that his heart at least still responded to hers even though their lives were separate now.

Then everything around her went soft and dark, and she was utterly lost in the kiss. Jamie’s kiss, his touch, had become the beginning and the end of the whole world, all she knew and wanted.

His lips slid away from hers and trailed over her cheek to press the tender spot just behind her ear. His breath brushed over her skin and she shivered. ‘Jamie,’ she whispered, clinging to him as the ground seemed to rock beneath them.

‘Say that again,’ he whispered as his fingertips softly brushed the underside of her breast through her grey silk gown. ‘Damn, your voice, Catalina—I’ve never heard anything like it.’

‘Jamie, I...’ she began, but her whispers and the harsh sound of his breath were cut off by a burst of laughter from further in the garden. Real life intruding on them yet again.

Catalina’s eyes flew open and she stumbled back from Jamie. His arms fell away from her and he stared at her with burning bright eyes. For an instant his cold, distant mask had dropped and she saw her own desire reflected in the raw agony on his handsome face.

But then he stepped back as well, and that smooth facade dropped back over him. It was as if he vanished from her all over again. Bitter disappointment flooded coldly through her veins, drowning out all the burning delight of rediscovering something that had once been so magical.

He ran his hand roughly through his hair and he stared at her as if he had never seen her before. ‘Catalina,’ he said, his voice low and harsh. ‘I am sorry—I don’t know what came over me. Old memories, perhaps.’

Old memories. Catalina nodded sadly. That was all that was left for them now, surely that was what Jamie was saying. ‘No. There is nothing to be sorry about, Jamie. Tonight was only an old dream of Spain, yes? It will vanish in the light. We will be as we are now. You don’t—you needn’t worry about me. I understand how things are for you. And I will never tell anyone what happened. As far as I am concerned, you are free.’

Jamie gave his head a fierce shake and opened his mouth as if he would say something more. As if he would argue or, even worse, apologise again. She couldn’t bear it if he regretted that perfect kiss along with everything else.

‘Just a dream,’ she repeated quickly. She gave him one more smile and whirled around to hurry from the garden as fast as her shaking legs could carry her. The laughing group that had emerged from the Assembly Rooms didn’t even notice her and she slipped past them into the corridor. She didn’t stop, and she didn’t—couldn’t—look back.

It wasn’t until later that she realised she had lost her shawl.

* * *

Jamie stood in the garden for long moments after Catalina left, letting the cool evening breeze wash over him. He was still not fit for polite society, for assemblies and dinners, polite conversation and manners. He should hide away in a quiet room, like a wounded bear, or he would only do such things as grab women and kiss them in public gardens.

No—not just any woman. Catalina.

He had only meant to speak to her, to find out what she was watching so intently out on the street, but as soon as he touched her it had had to be more. He’d had to do more.

Despite everything that had happened, all the complications of their past, the fact that she seemed to want nothing more than to forget him, he wanted her. The sparks that had ignited between them the first time they’d met were still there, binding them together. She drove him mad, as no other woman had ever done. And the taste of her kiss...

‘Blast it all,’ Jamie cursed, and turned away from the garden. As he looked back to the building, he glimpsed a length of pale fabric on the ground. Catalina’s shawl.