A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,36
French had attacked the contingent who had been left behind after we departed, that almost everyone had been killed—including the surgeon you worked with and the chaplain who married us. He showed me the place where they buried everyone. He showed be your grave. And he gave me...this.’
Jamie untied his cravat and reached inside his shirt to draw out a thin gold chain. The moonlight caught on the object that dangled from it, a sapphire ring. ‘He was an honest man indeed to give it up,’ he said quietly. ‘I knew you would not have parted from it willingly.’
Catalina rubbed at her bare finger and closed her eyes as the terror of that long-ago day washed over her again. She remembered so well running, fleeing blindly to she knew not where until she found that hidey-hole in the woods. By then it was too late to go back and search for her precious ring. All that she had left of Jamie.
But Jamie was here. And he wore her ring. Surely that meant something. Anything.
She opened her eyes again, only to find that he still looked down at her with that steady stillness, that lack of expression that made him resemble one of the marble statues that dotted Castonbury’s lush gardens. Jamie was so different here, like an entirely separate person from the man she had married. What had happened to him? Where was he?
What was he capable of, this man she had once thought she knew so well and then turned out not to know at all?
Perhaps the ring was not a memento of her, then. Perhaps it was merely to remind him not to make the mistake of marrying in haste again.
Slowly, cautiously, she reached up and brushed the scar on his face with her fingertips. It felt rough under her touch, but his skin was so warm. So real. He tensed, that muscle in his jaw flexing, but he didn’t pull away.
‘Where did you go after that?’ she whispered. ‘What have you been doing?’ Had he done his task of restoring the king to the Spanish throne? What lengths had he gone to in order to do that?
‘That is not important,’ he answered, his voice low and rough. ‘I can hardly think of anything tonight. It has all been turned upside down.’
Catalina nodded. She knew how that felt—it seemed like a hundred years since she had walked downstairs with Lydia. The moment before and the moment after she saw him again marked a vast chasm of time. Right now she felt as if she floated free in the night sky, untethered to any kind of reality at all.
Jamie took her hand in his with a terrible gentleness and held her fingers on his palm as he studied them. ‘Why did you come to England? Did you journey here alone, or on some mission?’
Catalina stared at him. Just like him, she couldn’t remember why she had come to England, or anything else. Just him, just this moment. ‘I came to England because I couldn’t bear Spain any longer. With the Bourbons returned—it was not my home, you know. I wanted to make a new start here.’
‘Ah, yes. I remember how you hated the king.’ Jamie carefully laid her hand back at her side. ‘You were so passionate about it.’
And she suddenly recalled how he had been meant to help restore the monarchy, to send Spain back to the terrible torpor it had known before Napoleon, with no chance for a new start. Until he died.
‘Jamie, what did you...’ she began, only to break off when a soft knock sounded at the door. It was as if the cold knife of reality sliced into the moment with Jamie and shattered it.
‘Jamie?’ Lily called. ‘Is Mrs Moreno quite all right?’
‘Come in,’ Jamie answered. He rose from the settee and moved over to the empty fireplace. He turned his back to Catalina and braced his forearm on the mantel.
Catalina pushed herself up until she could swing her feet down to the floor just as Lily slipped into the room. She held a goblet in her hand.
‘Goodness, but it is dark in here,’ she said, but she seemed calm and not shocked at all that a man and a woman would be in a dim room together. ‘Are you feeling better, Mrs Moreno? Everyone is quite worried, especially Miss Westman.’
Lydia. How could she have forgot? Catalina quickly stood up, only to sway dizzily as her head swam. ‘I must go to her.’