Elena had obviously suffered a great deal in the wars in their homeland. Like Catalina she had lost her home and family and was trying to make a new start here. But she was very kind, with an engaging, easy manner that made Catalina feel at ease, not like a servant at the grand house. And it was very pleasant to speak Spanish again, to be with someone who understood so many things without the need of explaining a word.
It also distracted her at least a bit from thoughts of Jamie, from wondering what he had been doing since they parted and what he had been driven to in his work.
Catalina glanced from under her wide-brimmed hat at the house behind them. The windows gleamed back blankly, as if Castonbury itself watched her. He had not appeared for the picnic; Lady Phaedra merely said he had a great deal of work lately and had ‘become no fun at all.’ Catalina had felt a sharp pang of relief—or perhaps disappointment.
She wondered if he watched them now from behind one of those windows. Had he thought about her last night? She hadn’t been able to sleep at all for thinking about him. The past and the present had become so tangled up, and she didn’t know where to go next or what to do. What was the correct thing to do when one’s husband—one’s secret, dead husband—came up alive again?
Did he even remember what they had been to each other?
She had been able to read nothing in his eyes last night. He looked like her Jamie, though older and harder. His hands on her skin felt like Jamie’s hands. Yet she could not find a spark of him in those blank eyes.
It frightened her, and made her wonder again what he had done in Spain.
‘Mrs Moreno?’ Elena said. ‘Are you quite well?’
Startled, Catalina turned back to her. Elena looked concerned, and Catalina laughed reassuringly. ‘Oh, yes. I must have just been dazzled by the sun for a moment.’
Elena laughed too, and they continued on their stroll around the lake. ‘Enjoy it while you can. It seems as if it rains all the time here.’
‘Have you been at Castonbury long?’ Catalina asked.
‘Not long, and we shall soon be off to Harry’s next posting. I think he will miss his family, but we are ready for a new adventure.’
‘You met your husband in Spain, yes?’
A soft smile touched Elena’s face at the mention of her husband. She waved at him where he sat under a tree with his brother Giles, and he blew her a kiss. ‘Yes. That was certainly quite an adventure, and not one I should care to repeat. Though I did find my Harry through it.’
‘Why was Lord Harry in Spain? Was he in the army too?’ Catalina asked.
‘Yes, he was, but he was in Spain to find Jamie. Have you not heard the tale?’
So that was how Jamie had come to return home. His brother had searched him out. ‘No indeed. I have only been at Castonbury a day. It sounds most intriguing.’
Elena laughed. ‘It is a long tale.’
Catalina looked to see that Lydia was still on the lake with the curate and seemed to be having a very good time. None of the others appeared in any hurry to leave their sunny idyll. ‘I have time. I would love to hear your story.’
Elena nodded and led them to a bench set in the shade of a nearby tree. From there they could see the softly rolling green vista of the gardens and a gleaming white stone folly tucked amid a grove of trees, and Elena told Catalina the tale of how she had been caught in the siege at Badajoz and cast off by her family and betrothed. Like Catalina, she had been cut off from her old life and searching for a new purpose when she met Harry Montague, who was on a quest to find out the truth about his brother’s supposed death. Elena told her of the dangerous journey they had endured to find him, and what a shock it had been to find him alive at the end. She also relayed what she knew of Alicia Walters’s own little intrigue, the lies she told and how it had affected the family. It was a sad story of terrible pain, but also of great love.
Catalina was so shocked when it was finished that she couldn’t speak at all. It was a tale worthy of those novels Lydia loved so much—lost heirs, crumbling estates, spies, murders.
And a false wife exposed. Jamie’s imposter wife.
‘I can hardly believe it,’ Catalina murmured. She slowly shook her head. She did remember Alicia Walters from Spain, but she could hardly credit the woman would do such a thing. She had been so quiet, so proper. So...English. Exactly the kind of lady Jamie might actually be expected to marry.
‘I know,’ Elena said. ‘If I had not seen it all unfold myself I never would have believed it.’
‘And you are quite sure her tale was false?’ Catalina asked.
‘I was there when Harry told Jamie what had been happening here in his absence. No one could have been more shocked—more angry. But he has allowed no one to pursue her since she fled. He says he will fix it all himself.’
Catalina could well credit that. Jamie had always gone quietly and steadily about his tasks, and was all the more deadly for it. She knew that better than anyone. She could almost have felt sorry for Alicia, if she was not so angry with her.
She curled her hands into fists and buried them in the folds of her skirt to keep from shouting out. The woman had used Jamie’s name, used the tragedy of his death, to further her own ambitions. She had come here to his house, claiming a place that should have been Catalina’s, if so many things had been different.
Catalina closed her eyes and bit back a sob. She had never wanted this place; it would have been as nothing without Jamie. She could never have belonged here, especially not without him. Yet it sounded as if for a time Alicia had belonged here.
‘It was very hard for the duke to learn the truth,’ Elena said. ‘I understood he had become quite fond of the child. But now that Jamie is home again and the money troubles solved, I am sure all will be well. Everyone is eager for him to find a real wife soon. Especially Giles, I think. He never wanted to be the heir.’
Catalina laughed. If only they knew! And if only she knew what to do now. How to make it right. ‘A real wife?’
‘I think that may be why your Miss Westman was invited.’
‘Miss Westman?’ Catalina looked at Elena in astonishment. She had wondered herself if Lydia might make a match with another Montague cousin—but Jamie, the heir to the dukedom? ‘Is she truly thought of as a bride for Lord Hatherton?’
‘Did you not suspect? Harry is quite sure of it. No one has seen her in so long, and yet the duke insisted at the last minute that she must come,’ Elena said. ‘It does make a sort of sense. After all that has happened, the duke will want his heir’s wife to be someone he can be sure of.’
‘Lydia has a generous dowry, but not a large one,’ Catalina murmured.
‘That will not matter so much now that the inheritance troubles are in the past. Miss Westman is family, pretty and well-bred, well-behaved thanks to you. All of Jamie’s siblings have made slightly shocking marriages, some rather more scandalous than others. But Jamie is the heir. Miss Westman will be an extremely proper match.’
Catalina looked at Lydia where she sat perched in the boat. She held her lacy parasol on her shoulder and was smiling shyly at the curate, her red-gold curls and pink cheeks so pretty in the sunlight. Lydia was a sweet girl, and always eager to please. As open and kind as a warm summer’s day. She would never give the Montagues trouble or cause to fear more scandal. Unlike Catalina.
Yet Catalina also knew that being a duchess was no easy task, and the boisterous Montagues were no easy family. Like Jamie, they were complicated. Had she been sent here to help Lydia learn a new role? To help her be a suitable Marchioness of Hatherton?
It was so very strange she had to laugh. Could she let Jamie go to find a truly proper wife? She knew she could, that she had to. What they had in Spain had been nothing more than a dream, a wild folly. It could never have survived here with the pressures of everyday life. Lydia was truly more suited to this life in many ways. She was English.
Yet Catalina couldn’t stop the shiver that went through her when sh
e remembered how it felt when he touched her last night. How she couldn’t quit staring at him, fearing that he would vanish again. And then she would never know the truth.
She rose from the bench and shook out her skirt. ‘I should make sure Lydia comes inside soon. I understand we are to go to the Assembly Rooms in Buxton tonight, and she should rest before then.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Elena said brightly. ‘I should see if I can persuade Harry to...take a rest as well. I have so enjoyed our talk, Mrs Moreno. I hope we can converse more soon.’
‘I have enjoyed meeting you as well,’ Catalina answered. It had been very educational—and given her a great deal more to think about. She turned and hurried down to the small boat dock to wait for Lydia to return to shore while Elena went to meet her husband.
Catalina saw what she had to do now. Let Jamie go to find his true wife. But how was she to do that?
And how was she to persuade her heart that it had to cease to care?
Chapter Ten
The lane leading to the Buxton Assembly Rooms was crowded with carriages, moving so slowly, inching forward, so that surely everyone for miles around was just waiting there on the road. And Catalina was sure that at least half the equipages belonged to Castonbury.
She drew her shawl closer around her shoulders and peered out of the window at the buildings creeping past. Ahead of her was the great landau bearing Lily and Giles, along with the duke and Mrs Landes-Fraser. And behind was Jamie in a dashing little new curricle. Not that she had paid any attention—except to be all too acutely aware of where he was at every minute.
A soft giggle made her turn away from the window. Lydia sat with two of the other young lady guests, whispering and laughing with them. She looked as if she was having a wonderful time, and Catalina smiled to see it. That was surely what weddings were for—to bring people together and make them happy.
Not upend their lives, as knowledge of a certain secret wedding years ago would surely do in this little world.
At last their carriage shuddered to a halt, and a footman rushed around to open the door. As Catalina stepped down to follow the girls up the front steps, she heard a soft tapping sound on the pavement behind her. She turned to see Jamie just as the light from one of the high windows fell over him.
He wore fashionable, if stark, black and white evening clothes, the only spark of colour a ruby pin at his cravat. His hair was brushed smoothly back from his face, revealing the arc of the scar on his cheek. And he was using the walking stick again.
As he moved beside her, Catalina couldn’t help but wonder again what had happened to him. She ached to think he had been in pain, and she wanted more than she had ever wanted anything to reach out to him. To hold him close and take away anything he had suffered. To somehow make it right again.
Yet she seemed to be a cause of some of that pain to him, and it made her wonder again what had happened to him after they had parted in Spain. He gave her a grim smile as they moved up the shallow stone steps together, and he didn’t quite meet her eyes. They were so near to each other, so close she could just reach out and brush his sleeve with her hand, but he was as far from her as he had ever been.
Still silent, they moved into the building behind the others. They left their wraps with the servants in the corridor and climbed the steps to the grand second-floor ballroom. It was a lovely space, a long room surmounted by crystal chandeliers and lined with marble columns.
But the ballroom was so crowded there didn’t seem even an inch to move about, and Catalina wondered how anyone could possibly dance. Conversation rose in a roar all around her, words indistinct as friends greeted one another and jests were made and enjoyed. The musicians on a dais at one end of the room were tuning up. The smells of various perfumes, baked meats and sweet punch hung in the air, and the room was warm with all the people packed inside it. Catalina could see Lydia’s white gown a few feet ahead of her, but several people had slipped in between them and they were all caught in the crush. She was against the wall on one side, and Jamie was on the other.
She could feel his heat brush against her bare arm.
‘It is not much like the dances in Spain, is it?’ he said quietly near her ear.
Catalina laughed and shook her head. ‘No, indeed. There is no canvas tent, and from what I can hear the music is a bit more...accomplished.’
Jamie smiled down at her, and for an instant he looked like the old Jamie, her Jamie. The man who had danced with her at those impromptu parties in Colonel Chambers’s spacious tent. He had been such a grand dancer; he had always made her feel as if she was floating over the dance floor. As if for one moment things were not so dark and complicated.
‘The fashions are perhaps a bit more à la mode as well,’ he said. ‘Yet I must say I think I prefer that tent in Spain.’
Catalina glanced past his shoulder to see that most of the crowd around them had turned to stare at him, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the long-lost Castonbury heir, found alive and returned amongst them. Most of the ladies were smoothing their hair or straightening their gowns as they watched him.
‘Too much attention here?’ she said. Jamie had never been one to seek to draw attention to himself. He had always quietly observed the world around him. He did not have to seek attention; it naturally came to him, as if all the light in every room collected only on him. And it had nothing to do with his rank, or even his handsome looks, but from that quiet strength at the core of him.
So much had changed since Spain, but that quality about him had not.
Jamie shrugged. He didn’t even turn to look at the room, he just watched her. ‘They are merely staring at my father. My siblings tell me he has seldom left the house these past few years. Everyone has forgot what he looks like.’
Catalina shook her head. ‘You know that’s not true. It’s you they want to see again.’
‘I am nothing to see. Just this blasted stick. They will tire of gossiping about me soon enough.’
She was sure that was not true, not when he had given them so much to gossip about. Coming back from the dead, an imposter wife and son, financial twists and turns, a passel of shocking marriages amongst his siblings—the scandal broth seemed bottomless. She didn’t want to add to it.
But there was still so much she longed to know. What had he done in Spain? ‘Jamie...’ she whispered. Someone jostled her from behind and she remembered that this vast crowd was no place for confidences. She spun away from him and slipped past the knots of people to Lydia’s side. Phaedra and her aunt Wilhemina were walking ahead of them, and Catalina could hear snatches of their conversation.
‘It is too bad Jamie can’t dance now,’ Phaedra was saying. ‘He used to enjoy it so much. And all the local ladies sought him out for their partners all the time.’
‘Hmph,’ Mrs Landes-Fraser said. ‘They should count themselves lucky he does not dance with them now. He has become far too dour and silent. Not to mention not as handsome as he once was.’
Catalina’s gloved hand curled into a fist as anger swept through her at those words. She had to bite her lip to keep from shouting in Jamie’s defence. But could she really defend him? She didn’t even know any longer.
Phaedra did it for her. ‘You can hardly blame him for being silent! He nearly died in Spain, and I am sure he saw some horrible things we cannot even imagine. He is not the person he was when he left. None of us are.’
Phaedra glanced over her shoulder, past Catalina to where Jamie still stood near the wall. Catalina looked back to see that a portly, red-faced gentleman and two young ladies had him cornered, talking at him as he stared at them with a frozen expression.
‘I only wish he could find someone to confide in,’ Phaedra added softly. ‘If I did not have my Bram, I would have gone insane sometimes.’
‘Hmph,’ Mrs Landes-Fraser said again. ‘You would have done much better to marry higher in the world, girl. I do not understand any of you children...’
Lydia dre
w Catalina’s attention then, pointing out a gown she liked across the room. They became separated from the others in the crowd, pressed in on all sides until Catalina managed to find them a spot near the windows where there were not quite so many people. There was a small breeze flowing from outside as well, and Catalina could watch the passing of the crowd as they flowed by.
‘Oh, Mrs Moreno,’ Lydia cried, her eyes shining with excitement as she looked out at the room. Catalina hadn’t seen her so happy in any London ballroom. ‘Isn’t it pretty? And everyone so welcoming. I could stay at Castonbury for ever.’
‘Miss Westman! Mrs Moreno,’ a voice called out. Catalina turned to see Mr Hale pushing his way past a laughing group to find them. His smile was just as enthusiastic as Lydia’s—especially when he looked at Lydia herself. ‘How wonderful to see you here. Are you enjoying our local entertainments?’
‘Oh, very much indeed, Mr Hale,’ Lydia answered. She didn’t look away from him.
‘It must seem very pale in comparison to London Assembly Rooms,’ he said.
‘Not at all. I much prefer smaller gatherings, where one can really talk to people,’ Lydia said as someone almost trod on her hem in the crowd.
‘Then perhaps you would honour me with the first dance?’ Mr Hale asked eagerly. ‘With Mrs Moreno’s permission, of course.’
‘Oh, yes, please, Mrs Moreno?’ Lydia begged. ‘I do so long for a dance.’
‘Then of course you may,’ Catalina said with a smile. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves.’
She watched as Lydia took Mr Hale’s arm and he led her to a place in the set now forming on the dance floor. She leaned back against the windowsill to let the cool breeze brush over her shoulders and examined the rest of the room.
As the dancers found their places on the floors, some of the crowd went on to the refreshment room and the crush was not quite so great. The duke sat in a large armchair at one end of the long room, watching the gathering as if he was its king. Some of the cousins were clustered around him with shawls and plates of delicacies, but he waved them away impatiently. Phaedra was dancing with her husband, and the portly man who had cornered Jamie was strutting about the room. But she could not see Jamie.
A Stranger at Castonbury Page 10