A Stranger at Castonbury(71)

Catalina cried out, but Jamie seized Webster’s wounded arm as he went down and dragged him along. They grappled heavily in the damp dirt, and Catalina couldn’t see clearly what was happening. She heard grunts and dull thuds, barely audible over the crackle of the flames.

Webster’s arm arced back to deliver a killing blow. Seeing the tip of the blade come to within an inch of Jamie’s face, she screamed. But the sound strangled in her throat as Jamie twisted his assailant’s arm sharply and pushed him off.

It was a horribly confusing scene in the firelight, a tangle of limbs and strikes and shouts. She couldn’t see who was where, or get any kind of clear shot.

She fell to her knees with a frustrated sob just as Jamie’s dagger thrust upwards and landed deep in Webster’s chest. He fell face-first as Jamie rolled away, and then he was very still.

Jamie lurched to his feet to stare down at his fallen enemy, the man who had given them so much trouble. He carefully turned Webster over with his boot, and Catalina could see that he was truly dead. His eyes stared up at the night sky, glassy and sightless in the red light.

Jamie’s face was completely blank, no triumph or fear written there. Catalina dropped the heavy gun she held and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. She buried her face in his shoulder and held on to him as close as she could. He was alive! They were alive, and together at last. It hardly seemed possible after all that had happened.

But then she felt something warm and sticky on her skin, and swayed with a rush of dizziness. She suddenly remembered the blow to her head which she had forgot in the fight; it came back to her with a wave of cold nausea.

‘Catalina!’ she heard Jamie shout about the snap of the flames. Then she fell down into blackness.





Chapter Nineteen

‘Conde Niño, por amores es niño y pasó a la mar...’

Catalina slowly opened her eyes and pulled herself up from the soft, dark cloud of sleep at the sound of a voice singing. It was not a sweet siren’s song; the tone was cracked and dry, off-key. Yet she had never heard anything more beautiful. It made her want to struggle up out of the dreams that threatened to pull her back, even when pain pricked at the edges of her awareness.

But pain was as nothing compared to the hand that held on to hers. It made any torment of life worthwhile if she could just feel that touch for ever.

She opened her eyes to a piercing pale grey light. She was in her chamber at Castonbury, and rain pattered at the window. A tray sat on the bedside table, holding a pitcher of water, a bottle of some kind of medicine, a basin and a pile of cloths. The bedclothes were tucked around her, except for the hand that lay on the counterpane.

She slowly turned her head to find Jamie sitting by the bed. He slowly stroked her hand as he sang, his tousled head bent over her fingers. He looked rumpled and exhausted, his cravat loosened and his shirt wrinkled. He was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

‘Jamie,’ she whispered, and his head shot up.

‘Catalina, you are awake,’ he said. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Are you in any pain at all?’

She tried to shake her head, but a jolt went up from the base of her neck to her eyes and she winced. ‘A headache, that is all. But everything is a bit hazy to me. Is Webster...?’

‘He is dead. He will not work his evil schemes on anyone else again.’

Catalina remembered it all then—Webster’s body on the ground as the cottage burned down, his eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. She shivered, and Jamie’s hand tightened on hers. ‘No one else is hurt?’

‘The footman is dead. Everett brought men from Castonbury, but by then it had begun to rain and the fire was going out. He helped me get you to the doctor.’ Jamie’s hand tightened on hers. ‘Dear God, Catalina, but when you were so still and pale in my arms—I have never felt such fear. If I had lost you again...’

‘But you did not!’ Catalina covered his touch with her other hand and held on to him. ‘I am here. We are both here. We have been given such a rare gift, and I—I was a fool to think I could ever turn away from it. I knew that when I was locked in the cottage. I love you, Jamie, mi amor. And I always will, even if you go away from me.’

‘Go away from you?’ Jamie said hoarsely. ‘Never, Catalina. I love you too, more than my own life, more than anything. I felt dead inside when I lost you in Spain, and I never felt alive again until I saw you here at Castonbury.’