A Stranger at Castonbury(47)

Chapter Thirteen

Jamie was with Alicia Walters.

Catalina hurried as fast as she could down the lane, not even seeing where she was going as she tried to get away from Buxton and from that house. She hadn’t felt the first drops of rain at all.

The day had started in such an ordinary fashion. Lydia was working on some amateur theatricals with the other young guests, watched over by Lily, but they had needed some new fabric for costumes and Catalina had volunteered to go and fetch it. Phaedra was going a few farms over to look at some horses for sale, and had offered to drop Catalina in Buxton if she wanted to buy the fabric there and do some extra shopping. It had seemed like a fine idea, a chance to be alone and think in quiet. She had planned to walk back to Castonbury when she was done and get some exercise as well.

But then she had turned down that quiet street of small houses. When she had glimpsed Jamie there, so surprising and sudden, at first she had felt a rush of gladness. She had just raised her hand to wave to him when the door had opened and Alicia Walters had appeared there. Alicia, who everyone thought had run away after her crime was discovered. Yet she seemed to have been expecting Jamie.

And Catalina had been able to do nothing but rush off, forgetting even the errand that had brought her to town in the first place. She found herself now on the country road and couldn’t even really remember getting there.

The sky had burst open and dropped the heavy burden of rain onto the earth, as it had been threatening to do all day. Catalina hadn’t even noticed the first chilly drops, she had been so lost in the memory of Jamie holding Alicia’s hand, walking with her into that house. She had been lost in that terrible sense of feeling so foolish.

But she hadn’t been able to escape the rain for long. The drops had quickly become a deluge, cold and needle-sharp, pounding against her head and soaking through her spencer and dress. She had stumbled in a muddy hole and her half-boot had almost been sucked from her foot.

‘Maldición,’ she had cursed, and wrenched herself free. She had dragged her ruined straw bonnet from her head and turned her face up to the angry heavens. The storm seemed to reflect all her anger and confusion back at her.

‘Catalina! What are you doing, you foolish woman?’ she heard someone shout over the roar of the rain.

Jamie. It was Jamie who had followed her from the town. Catalina laughed and covered her face with her dripping hands. She felt his strong arms around her waist as he lifted her free of the mud hole.

‘Catalina, where are you going?’ he asked roughly, setting her back on her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

Catalina shook her head. What was he doing here? What was he doing visiting a woman who had deceived his entire family? A woman no one had seen in weeks? Had they all been wrong about Alicia and her relationship with Jamie? ‘I was shopping,’ she said. When she had set out that morning on her errand it had seemed like such an ordinary day. How long ago that was.

The cold seemed to have seeped deep into her skin now, and she shivered.

‘Shopping?’ Jamie said. ‘Did you drop your parcels somewhere?’

‘No, I bought nothing,’ Catalina answered. ‘But you—what were you doing there? You said you were looking into a land purchase.’

Would he tell her about meeting Alicia? About what he was really doing with her? He stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes again so flat and still, so unreadable. She thought for an instant he might answer her, but then he just shook his head and gave her a crooked little smile.

‘We need you inside this very minute, before you catch the ague,’ he said. ‘It would be terrible if you missed the wedding festivities.’

Before she knew what he was doing, he bent and caught her under her knees to swing her up into his arms. She was so surprised by his sudden movement, and still so confused by the burst of cold rain and seeing him with Alicia, that she didn’t make a protest. Jamie’s body was so warm and alive under the wet layers of their clothes, she just wanted to curl close to him. So close she could disappear inside his heat and never be seen again.

‘Back to Castonbury?’ she murmured as he put her on his carriage seat and climbed up beside her.

‘Too far,’ he said. He led the horse onto a twisting pathway off the lane she hadn’t noticed before. When they could go no further, he tied up the horse under the shelter of a large tree and lifted her down again. She saw that he was limping a bit, his steps uneven on the muddy ground.