A Stranger at Castonbury

by Amanda McCabe

  The man shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t want to bring curses onto my family. What if the woman’s spirit attached to the ring?’

  Jamie stared down at the sapphire, almost wishing that he, too, could believe in curses. That Catalina could stay with him through her ring. ‘What happened to the woman’s body?’

  The man turned away silently, and led Jamie over the field to an empty meadow that lay just beyond. There the dirt was piled in a long, heaped-up mound, with a line of roughly hewn crosses.

  ‘They were all buried here,’ the man said. ‘She is down there at that end. I laid her there myself.’

  Jamie moved slowly towards the grave. The world slowed to a blur around him, and he felt so numb again, old, remote from everything. All he could see was that patch of earth.

  He knelt down and for a moment grief pressed in all around him and he was utterly alone. Catalina was buried here; he could feel it. His family was far away, and in this, the most profound moment of his life, he was alone.

  ‘I am so sorry, Catalina,’ he said. Sorry he had not been there for her; sorry he could not have been what she needed him to be. Sorry he had ever hurt her at all.

  He tilted back his head and stared up into the sky, feeling so very empty. He had to finish his task here in Spain, no matter how distasteful it was. He had to do it for his family.

  But he feared he himself would never feel anything again.

  * * *

  Catalina leaned against the railing of the ship and peered through the thick, wet grey mist at the slowly approaching shoreline.

  England. She was in England at last. And she didn’t notice the sharp, cold wind that tore at her hat or the noise and activity on the deck behind her. She could only think about how close her destination was, after weeks of weary travel—and of how different this arrival was from how she had once so briefly pictured it. How she had once dreamed it might be, with Jamie by her side, taking her home with him.

  She curled her gloved hand into a tight fist. The brief, dizzying days of her romance and marriage seemed so far away now, a vision clouded by months of trying to survive as she travelled across war-torn Spain. Yet still she could see Jamie’s face so clearly in her mind, could hear his voice calling her name and feel his hand on hers.

  At night she lay awake, unable to sleep as she remembered him. She was plagued by so many thoughts, so many questions she was sure could never be answered now that he was gone. What had really happened to him? Who had gone on to do his mission of restoring the Spanish king?

  Had he thought of her there at the end? Had he loved her? Had their time together brought him any peace at all?

  She did hope so. And she hoped that one day her heart would not feel so shattered and lonely whenever she thought of him.

  The shore was looming closer with every moment, dark and shadowed in the rain but unmistakably green, just as she had pictured England when Jamie told her about his homeland. Somewhere out there was his home, Castonbury, and his family, mourning him as she was.

  ‘Mrs Moreno! There you are,’ she heard her employer, Mrs Burnes, say. Catalina turned to see the lady emerging from below decks, bundled in shawls and scarves, her face pale under her fashionable bonnet.

  Catalina smiled and hurried to her side. She liked Mrs Burnes, and considered herself fortunate to have the job of her companion on the voyage home to England. Her husband, General Burnes, had sent her away from Spain for the sake of her health and safety. Mrs Burnes was rather sickly and sometimes quite demanding, but she was not mean as Mrs Chambers had often been to poor Alicia Walters. She enjoyed hearing Catalina read to her to distract her from the rough seas, and the days passed well enough on the voyage.

  It was the nights, when she was alone with no duties to perform, that filled Catalina with thoughts of Jamie.

  She helped Mrs Burnes onto a deckchair and tucked the shawls closer around her. ‘We are almost there now, Mrs Burnes. Land at last.’

  ‘Thank heavens for that! I could never bear another sea voyage,’ Mrs Burnes said. ‘Once my dear general is home, I shall insist we never leave again.’

  Catalina laughed. ‘I can definitely agree to that, Mrs Burnes. The sea is not so agreeable as land.’

  ‘Oh, but surely you will want to return to Spain one day, Mrs Moreno. When things are settled there.’

  Catalina shook her head. ‘This will be my home now.’ She couldn’t go back to Spain, not with the king returning. Not with all the memories lurking there.

  ‘Well, I hope you will like England, then. It’s very different from Spain, but there are interesting sights and people to be found here as well, if one only looks.’ Mrs Burnes chattered on as the ship lumbered towards shore, telling Catalina about all her friends in London she hoped to see again and the country house she wanted to buy as soon as her husband returned so they could retire there together.

  ‘...it is very near Castonbury Park, the seat of the Duke of Rothermere,’ Mrs Burnes said.

  The words caught Catalina’s attention. ‘Castonbury?’ she said, and all the tales Jamie had told her of his home came flooding back to her.

  ‘Oh, yes. Have you heard of the house? It is one of the loveliest in all England, and surely one of the grandest. I toured it once as a girl, and I still remember the great marble columns and the lovely frescoes on the ceilings! Just what a Roman emperor’s palace must have been like, I imagine. I even caught a glimpse of the duchess, who was just going out for a ride. She was so very beautiful and elegant, just what an English duchess ought to be.’ Mrs Burnes sighed. ‘That is the sort of thing I will be happy to return to, something so English.’

  Catalina almost laughed. Once, she might have been mistress of that place, a new duchess. Yet all she had wanted was Jamie, Jamie who turned out to be a dream creation of her own romantic heart.

  But she still almost wished she could see the house just once. See it, and imagine Jamie was somehow still with her there...

  Chapter Five

  England, two years later

  Jamie stared out of the carriage window as the hedgerows rolled by, a blur of bright green in the English summer sunshine. It could be anywhere in England, any country lane, yet he knew it could only be one place. Home. So familiar, like it was a very part of his blood and bones, and yet so very alien. So different from the Spanish landscape he had lived with for so long.

  His leg ached after the long days of travel, and he shifted it across the cramped confines of the hired carriage. It was so strange that this land seemed to have remained over the years so unchanged when he was a different person. All he had seen and done. All the mistakes he had made.

  He couldn’t imagine what they would say when he reached Castonbury, or what he would find there.

  Jamie closed his eyes wearily and ran his hand over his jaw. He could feel the rough growth of a couple days’ beard over the slashing arc of his scar. Yes, he was different now, not the reckless young man who had dashed off in search of adventure all those years ago. The scars were only the outward show of his darkened soul. He had a sudden image of his family fleeing before him, of his father slamming the doors in his face.

  And he would be within his rights to do so. Jamie was sure he had failed as a son and brother, just as he had failed as a husband. He had left his family to financial hardship and mourning; he had lost Catalina and betrayed her ideals.

  Jamie cracked his walking stick against the floor, as if the violent movement could erase Catalina’s face from his mind. But she was still there, as she always was, reminding him of what he had lost. The sapphire ring he wore on a chain around his neck.

  He couldn’t save Catalina now, she was beyond him. But he could do his duty to his family now and make up for all his mistakes. All his life he had secretly fought against the idea of being the duke, of having the power and the responsibility in his hands. But surely he was ready now.

  He had to be. He had to see to solving his family’s financial troubles, and disposing of this impos
ter trying to claim the dukedom for a child that wasn’t his.

  The carriage lurched as it swayed around a sharp turn in the lane, and Jamie looked up to find the ornate iron gates of Castonbury before him. They stood open, as if to welcome him home, the prodigal son. He remembered running out of them and down the lane, chased by his siblings—Kate, Phaedra, Giles, Harry and poor lost Edward.

  The gardens beyond the gate were not quite as he remembered. The flower beds were not as impeccably tended as they once were, the vast, rolling lawns not as green and velvety, and some of the statues and marble benches were chipped and overturned. But financial solvency would soon fix all of that and set it to its rightful splendour.

  And just ahead was Castonbury, gleaming white in the sunshine, its staircase twining around to sweep up to the pillared portico built to impress every guest who approached.

  As the carriage slowed along the curve of the drive, with the grand portico just before them hung with fresh beribboned garlands, Jamie looked up at the windows glowing like diamonds in the light. One of them was open, pale curtains fluttering in the breeze, and he suddenly pictured all the eyes that could be peering out through that old glass. Eyes that would watch him lurch from the carriage and limp up the steps of his home.

  He lowered the carriage window and called out, ‘Around to the back, I think.’

  The hired coachman shrugged and turned the horses around the lane to follow the side of the house. In the distance he could see a paddock with new horses.

  The carriage finally drew to a halt outside the servants’ entrance. Jamie pushed the door open and lowered himself to the gravelled drive, leaning on his walking stick. For an instant, the sun was in his eyes and he peered up at the shadow of the house as the warm breeze swept up from the kitchen gardens. It even smelled the same, of fresh, green grass, herbs from the garden, the scent of baking bread that rolled out from the kitchens all the time.

  Jamie closed his eyes and thought of how many times he had stolen sweets from the kitchens with his brothers and sisters and gone running out of those doors and down the path to the lake. How they had shouted to one another and laughed and teased, as if there was no other time but that moment, no one in the world but themselves. Giles, Harry, Edward, Kate and Phaedra.

  Edward. A spasm of raw pain went over him as he thought of how he would never see Edward again. His brother was gone, lost at Waterloo, and Jamie hadn’t been at Castonbury with the others to mourn him.

  ‘I am here now,’ he said. Even though Castonbury felt like a dream, like something completely unreal, he was there. And he had work to do.

  The door to the kitchen was half open, and Jamie pushed his way through it into the corridor. The hallway was deserted, but he could hear the echo of voices and the clatter of china from the warren of rooms beyond. He followed the sound, the tap of his boots and stick hollow on the flagstone floor.

  ‘No, not there!’ he heard the housekeeper, Mrs Stratton, say sternly. ‘Those must be put on ice immediately, and the flowers should be put there to be arranged. This wedding must be perfect, we have waited for it so long.’

  A wedding—of course. That would explain the garlands out front and the hectic air here in the servants’ hall, the haze of excitement that seemed to hang over everything. Jamie remembered Harry saying their brother Giles was set to marry Lily Seagrove after a long engagement, but he hadn’t said when it was to be. If Jamie had known when it was, he might have stayed away until it was all over.

  Weddings were not his favourite things. Not since that quiet little chapel in Spain.

  He glanced back at the open door and the ray of sunlight that seemed to beckon him to freedom, but it was too late. A maidservant suddenly came scurrying out of the servants’ corridor, her arms full of roses and lilies bound up in paper. Jamie stepped back, but she collided with him anyway and the flowers fell in a scatter of pink and white over the floor.

  ‘Oh, laws, but you scared me!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t half expect anyone to be there.’

  ‘I am so very sorry,’ Jamie said ruefully. What a beginning he was making of his homecoming! ‘Here, let me help you.’

  He started to kneel down to gather the flowers, but the girl let out another shriek. ‘Are you a ghost?’ she said, and Jamie looked up to see that she had covered her face with her hands.

  ‘I—no,’ Jamie said, completely bemused. ‘Sometimes I feel rather like one, but I am told I’m still alive.’

  ‘You look like the one in that painting that’s all draped in black and such,’ the girl sobbed. She peeked between her hands and shook her head. ‘I swear that’s you!’

  His portrait was hung in black? Before Jamie could ask the girl about it, or tell her to pinch him to show her he was alive, he heard Mrs Stratton call, ‘Mary! What are you doing making so much noise out there?’

  Jamie heard the rustle of fabric and looked up to find the housekeeper standing in the doorway. She looked so much as she had on those long-ago days of childhood wildness, her blonde hair mixed with silver, her blue eyes kind. She stared at him with her mouth open, a rare instance of discomposure from the woman who had run Castonbury with such efficiency for so long.

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Stratton,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I startled her.’

  ‘L-Lord Hatherton?’ she whispered. ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘It is me,’ Jamie said. He could think of nothing else to say, nothing that could smooth his homecoming. ‘I’m sorry to have arrived at such an inconvenient time. I understand a wedding is imminent.’

  Mrs Stratton shook her head, her eyes bright. ‘We thought never to see you again, my lord. Any moment you arrived would be...’ She shook her head again and seemed to compose herself. ‘Welcome back to Castonbury, my lord.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Stratton. It’s...’ Strange? Difficult? Painful? ‘...good to be back.’

  Mrs Stratton reached down for the maid’s arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Stop that caterwauling at once, girl. It is only Lord Hatherton. You need to gather those flowers immediately and see that they get to Ellen for arranging. They need to be in the drawing room well before tonight’s dinner party.’

  Mary gave a squeak and hurriedly scooped up the flowers before she ran off.

  ‘A dinner party?’ Jamie said in alarm.

  ‘Merely a small dinner, my lord,’ Mrs Stratton said. ‘The family is upstairs getting dressed after an afternoon in the gardens. Your father will probably not attend, I think.’

  Jamie remembered what Harry had said about their father’s health, that he seldom left his rooms these days. ‘Is he unwell today?’

  ‘No, it has been rather a good day for the duke, my lord. He is excited about the wedding, as we all are. But he does have his good times and his bad times.’ Mrs Stratton gave him a smile. ‘I am sure seeing you will make this the best of days.’

  Another twinge of guilt touched Jamie. ‘I hope I can be of help now that I am home, Mrs Stratton. I will try to stay out of the way for the wedding.’

  ‘Nonsense, my lord! You could never be in the way. You were always the best behaved of all the Montague children.’

  Jamie laughed wryly, remembering all his childhood pranks. ‘I fear you are too kind to me.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Mrs Stratton’s eyes were suspiciously bright again, but she shook her head and said, ‘Shall I take you to the duke, then, my lord? He likes to have a small brandy and some cakes at this hour. It livens up his evening a bit.’

  Brandy and cakes? It seemed like such a small world for the man he remembered as larger than life. ‘Thank you, Mrs Stratton. I would appreciate that.’

  As Jamie followed the housekeeper through the kitchens, he saw how truly busy everyone was. The maids and footmen dashed around, bearing gowns and cravats to be pressed, flowers to be arranged and trays of refreshments. The clatter of pots and pans and silver was in the air, which smelled of roasting chicken and cinnamon spices. But as he passed, they all froze in their paths to stare.
When he nodded to them, they hurriedly curtsied and bowed and scurried on their errands.

  Did they think he was a ghost as well? A spectre haunting the party.

  He followed Mrs Stratton up the winding stairs, past more maids carrying flowers, and through the green baize doors that divided the warm, noisy servants’ realm from the outer world of Castonbury.

  But even here everything was noise and movement, splashes of colour amid the shadows. Vases of flowers stood against the dark walls and garlands were twined along the staircase banisters. Jamie couldn’t remember so much colour in the house since his mother, with her love of parties, had died so long ago. It felt almost like the house was coming awake again after a long sleep.

  If only it could thaw his own soul.

  ‘How is your son faring, Mrs Stratton?’ he asked as they turned down a long, narrow gallery lined with portraits in their old, heavily gilded frames. The first duke who had once been an earl, his grandfather, his uncle, his mother with Jamie in his infant days clinging to her skirts. All as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror.

  Yet even they seemed very far away, not a real part of him at all.

  ‘Adam?’ Mrs Stratton said. A smile touched her lined face. ‘He is quite well, my lord. He is married now, you know, to Amber Hall from the village. They are living in Lancashire where he has his business concerns. I hope to join them there after the wedding.’ She did not mention the fact that had recently come to light, that Amber had turned out to be their illegitimate half-sister.

  ‘You are leaving Castonbury?’ Jamie asked in surprise. ‘The house will not be the same without you.’ And it truly would not. Mrs Stratton had been a part of Castonbury as long as he could remember.

  ‘I am too old to do a worthy job here much longer, my lord,’ Mrs Stratton said with a laugh. ‘But I am training Rose, one of the upstairs maids who has been here a while, to take over as housekeeper. It will be nice to be closer to my son.’