A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,22

heavy and stifling.

‘You gave orders that you wanted to see this visitor right away, Your Grace,’ Mrs Stratton said. She glanced at Jamie and gave him a small, encouraging smile before she left.

‘I did no such...’ The man twisted around in his chair, and a pair of blue-grey eyes—Montague eyes—looked at Jamie from the gloom. It was his father, after all, grown old while he had been gone.

‘James,’ his father whispered. He braced his age-spotted hands on the chair’s arms and tried to push himself to his feet, but he fell back to the cushions. ‘James, is it you? Is it?’

Jamie hurried forward as fast as his cursed leg would let him. He caught his father on his second attempt to rise and held him upright. ‘Yes, Father,’ he answered. ‘It is me. Past time I came home, eh?’

To his shock, the duke—a man who had seldom had time for his children when he was so busy with his duties and his sporting life—caught Jamie’s shoulders in his thin hands and dragged him closer.

‘James, James,’ he whispered. ‘Harry did say—but I didn’t dare think it was true.’

Bewildered, Jamie patted his father’s shoulder. What a sorry pair we are, he thought wryly. A duke and a marquis, an old man and a cripple with their house falling down around them.

‘Where have you been?’ the duke said.

‘Here, Father, sit down and I will tell you what I can.’ Jamie helped his father back down to the chair. He quickly poured them each a measure of brandy from the tray on the sideboard by the wall and sat down across from his father to tell of his adventures in Spain.

‘I’m sorry for everything, Father,’ he said. He gulped down half the glass, relishing the bite of the brandy down his throat. ‘It’s not at all adequate, I know, but I do mean it.’

‘You are here now—that’s all that matters, James.’ The duke took a trembling sip of his own drink. ‘Harry says you had important work in Spain.’

Jamie told him as briefly as possible what had happened in Spain, or at least the part of the tale he could tell. Catalina was his alone, and she always would be. His secret. His wife.

The duke shook his head as Jamie finished his story. ‘And while you were there you did not marry that woman. That is what Harry said. The child—the child is not yours. Ours.’

For an instant, Jamie thought his father meant Catalina. Then he remembered—Alicia Walters. He had turned over his few memories of her on his voyage home and tried to decide what to do. It was such a strange tale, and one that looked to get even stranger before it was ended. Even when the prodigal came home trouble followed.

But Harry had said their father had grown fond of the child, which meant Jamie had to go carefully. ‘No, Father,’ he answered gently. ‘I did not marry her or father any child with her.’

‘That harlot!’ his father roared with a flare of his old temper. He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. ‘I knew it could not be, that you would not marry like that. She has made bloody fools of us all. She should hang for what she did! Bringing that child here...’

‘Father,’ Jamie said, in the quiet but firm voice that had worked to calm down so many people in Spain when it had been a matter of life and death. He had learned that desperate people did desperate things—and what Alicia had done reeked of desperation. He had to learn what had driven her to this, which would be hard enough without his family shouting for blood.

‘Father,’ he went on quietly. ‘We don’t want to see a woman hanged for this when it’s better to be discreet. Think of the scandal. Have the Montagues not already given our neighbours enough to talk about?’

His father gave a loud, derisive snort, but Jamie saw that he did settle back into his chair and some of the red faded from his sunken cheeks. ‘We have been embroiled in our share of scandal lately, I admit. Your brothers and sisters have chosen such odd matches.’

‘Then let me take care of this. Surely I have the right to find out why someone would use my name this way.’

‘Of course you do, James.’

Jamie sat back in his chair and drank down the last of his brandy as he looked into the fire. The flames had died down to mere sparking