A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,46

like it.’

‘Jamie, I...’ she began, but her whispers and the harsh sound of his breath were cut off by a burst of laughter from further in the garden. Real life intruding on them yet again.

Catalina’s eyes flew open and she stumbled back from Jamie. His arms fell away from her and he stared at her with burning bright eyes. For an instant his cold, distant mask had dropped and she saw her own desire reflected in the raw agony on his handsome face.

But then he stepped back as well, and that smooth facade dropped back over him. It was as if he vanished from her all over again. Bitter disappointment flooded coldly through her veins, drowning out all the burning delight of rediscovering something that had once been so magical.

He ran his hand roughly through his hair and he stared at her as if he had never seen her before. ‘Catalina,’ he said, his voice low and harsh. ‘I am sorry—I don’t know what came over me. Old memories, perhaps.’

Old memories. Catalina nodded sadly. That was all that was left for them now, surely that was what Jamie was saying. ‘No. There is nothing to be sorry about, Jamie. Tonight was only an old dream of Spain, yes? It will vanish in the light. We will be as we are now. You don’t—you needn’t worry about me. I understand how things are for you. And I will never tell anyone what happened. As far as I am concerned, you are free.’

Jamie gave his head a fierce shake and opened his mouth as if he would say something more. As if he would argue or, even worse, apologise again. She couldn’t bear it if he regretted that perfect kiss along with everything else.

‘Just a dream,’ she repeated quickly. She gave him one more smile and whirled around to hurry from the garden as fast as her shaking legs could carry her. The laughing group that had emerged from the Assembly Rooms didn’t even notice her and she slipped past them into the corridor. She didn’t stop, and she didn’t—couldn’t—look back.

It wasn’t until later that she realised she had lost her shawl.

* * *

Jamie stood in the garden for long moments after Catalina left, letting the cool evening breeze wash over him. He was still not fit for polite society, for assemblies and dinners, polite conversation and manners. He should hide away in a quiet room, like a wounded bear, or he would only do such things as grab women and kiss them in public gardens.

No—not just any woman. Catalina.

He had only meant to speak to her, to find out what she was watching so intently out on the street, but as soon as he touched her it had had to be more. He’d had to do more.

Despite everything that had happened, all the complications of their past, the fact that she seemed to want nothing more than to forget him, he wanted her. The sparks that had ignited between them the first time they’d met were still there, binding them together. She drove him mad, as no other woman had ever done. And the taste of her kiss...

‘Blast it all,’ Jamie cursed, and turned away from the garden. As he looked back to the building, he glimpsed a length of pale fabric on the ground. Catalina’s shawl.

He bent to pick it up, and a hint of her sweet perfume rose from the soft folds. She would surely be missing it later, in the chilly rooms of Castonbury.

He had to return it to her—and to find out what she had been looking at out here that had startled her so....

Chapter Eleven

Meet me in the garden folly at midnight, Catalina, I beg you. I must talk to you. J.

Catalina stared down at the note in her hand, which had been slipped under her door soon after they returned from the Assembly Rooms. Jamie’s bold, slashing black handwriting stood out in the candlelight, luring her to follow its words.

She sighed and looked out of her chamber window. She couldn’t see the folly but she knew it was out there, waiting for her. Those brief words and that one kiss between them could not be the end. She knew that. There was too much between her and Jamie to be so easily finished.

She had to meet him. There was so much unsaid between them, so much she didn’t understand.

She picked up the shawl that had been handed to her by one of the