A Stranger at Castonbury(64)

‘I am. It has been a pleasure to spend time with her.’

‘She appears to have an admirer in Mr Hale.’

‘Yes. I am not sure I should encourage their attachment,’ Catalina said.

‘My sister says Mr Hale is considered quite eligible in the neighbourhood. All the young ladies wear their finest bonnets to Sunday services now, I hear.’

Catalina laughed. ‘Her guardian did hope for a, shall we say, grander match. But I think a country vicarage would suit Miss Westman very well.’

‘What if I were to put in a good word for Mr Hale with her guardian?’

When Jamie himself was meant to be the ‘grander match’? Catalina wasn’t sure it would help, but any ally she could find for Lydia would be welcome. ‘That would be very kind of you, Jamie. Thank you.’

‘I want to help you in any way I can, Catalina,’ he said quietly. ‘If you will only let me.’

Catalina wasn’t sure what to say. Her heart was pounding at his words. She nodded silently, and they continued on with their walk in silence through the lovely summer day.

* * *

Jamie studied the way the sun shone on Catalina’s hair, turning it to a gleaming ebony. She turned her face up to its warmth and smiled, and for a moment she looked so very happy.

He suddenly had the urgent desire to make her feel like that every day. To make all her moments happy and free of any care or trouble. Because all of the happiest moments in his life had been spent with her.

When he thought she was dead, everything had gone grey and blank. It had been one of the reasons he took on the secret task in Spain; without her he hadn’t cared about anything. Perhaps he had even hoped he might truly die. But then he saw her again, here at Castonbury, and all seemed right again.

As he watched her smile up at the sun, it hit him like an explosion—Catalina was his wife. She had been since that day in Spain, and she always would be even if she pushed him away. He didn’t know what her real reasons were for running from him now, but he would find them out and overcome them all. He would find a way to make her stay.

Because he suddenly realised he could not go on without her. That he loved her, and she was his true wife. She always had been, and he wanted her always to be so....





Chapter Sixteen

‘It is very kind of you to give me a ride into Buxton again, Lady Phaedra,’ Catalina said as the carriage bounced down the road out of Castonbury. She had got up very early that morning, knowing that Phaedra was going on another horse-bound errand. She had to talk to Alicia again, alone this time.

‘Not at all,’ Phaedra answered. ‘I am glad of the company, Mrs Moreno, especially since Lily is taking Miss Westman to visit her grandmother, Mrs Lovell, today. Though I am rather surprised you had an errand into town again so soon.’

‘I have a friend there I must call on,’ Catalina said.

‘Indeed? A friend?’ Phaedra arched her brow, and for an instant she looked so very much like Jamie in his sceptical moments. ‘You know, Mrs Moreno, you are most intriguing.’

Catalina laughed in surprise. ‘Intriguing? Me? No, I assure you, I am very dull.’

‘Just the chaperone who keeps to the background?’ Phaedra shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I think there is much more to you than that.’

‘There is not,’ Catalina said, wishing the Montagues were not so very observant. She wanted to be in the background. She wanted not to leave any mark on Castonbury.

‘Everyone thinks I see only my horses, but that is not true,’ Phaedra said. ‘And I know my brother Jamie finds you intriguing as well.’

‘Now that cannot be true,’ Catalina protested.

‘Why ever not? You are very pretty. Why should he not watch you?’ Phaedra turned her head to stare silently out of the window for a moment. When she spoke again, it was almost wistful. ‘I fear Jamie was a lonely man, even before he left for Spain. Being the heir, having so many expectations on one’s shoulders, will do that, I suppose. But since he came home—I don’t know. He seems in such pain. None of us can really reach him.’

She suddenly turned back to Catalina, her eyes solemn and direct. ‘But when he looks at you, he smiles.’

Catalina closed her eyes against the pierce of hope and fear. She wanted so much to confess everything to Phaedra, but she knew she could not. ‘He seems a very good man, Lady Phaedra. And—and he makes me smile as well. But I know he needs a different sort of wife than I could be. A proper English duchess.’