A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,51

on with my life. Whatever that may be.’

Jamie knew all too well how that felt. Life felt as if it was at a standstill until he could catch Webster and restore his family’s home and honour. Only then could he somehow move forward.

He and Alicia made more plans for trying to track down Webster and he left as the day moved into late afternoon. A few raindrops were falling from the sky as he drove out of town and turned back towards Castonbury. In the distance he glimpsed a figure hurrying along the side of the road, a slender woman in a blue dress and jacket. Her back was to him, her head bent, but Jamie could tell even from that distance that it was Catalina.

He urged the horse faster as the rain began to fall thicker and heavier. He came alongside her just as she stumbled in the mud. He leapt down from the carriage and ignored the twinge in his own leg to catch her as she fell.

‘Catalina?’ he shouted over the rain. ‘Where are you going? What are you doing here?’

She looked up at him, raindrops glistening on her lashes, and he was shocked to see the raw hurt in her eyes. It flashed there for only a second before she looked away, but he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything to take it away.

But first he had to get her out of this cursed rain.

Chapter Thirteen

Jamie was with Alicia Walters.

Catalina hurried as fast as she could down the lane, not even seeing where she was going as she tried to get away from Buxton and from that house. She hadn’t felt the first drops of rain at all.

The day had started in such an ordinary fashion. Lydia was working on some amateur theatricals with the other young guests, watched over by Lily, but they had needed some new fabric for costumes and Catalina had volunteered to go and fetch it. Phaedra was going a few farms over to look at some horses for sale, and had offered to drop Catalina in Buxton if she wanted to buy the fabric there and do some extra shopping. It had seemed like a fine idea, a chance to be alone and think in quiet. She had planned to walk back to Castonbury when she was done and get some exercise as well.

But then she had turned down that quiet street of small houses. When she had glimpsed Jamie there, so surprising and sudden, at first she had felt a rush of gladness. She had just raised her hand to wave to him when the door had opened and Alicia Walters had appeared there. Alicia, who everyone thought had run away after her crime was discovered. Yet she seemed to have been expecting Jamie.

And Catalina had been able to do nothing but rush off, forgetting even the errand that had brought her to town in the first place. She found herself now on the country road and couldn’t even really remember getting there.

The sky had burst open and dropped the heavy burden of rain onto the earth, as it had been threatening to do all day. Catalina hadn’t even noticed the first chilly drops, she had been so lost in the memory of Jamie holding Alicia’s hand, walking with her into that house. She had been lost in that terrible sense of feeling so foolish.

But she hadn’t been able to escape the rain for long. The drops had quickly become a deluge, cold and needle-sharp, pounding against her head and soaking through her spencer and dress. She had stumbled in a muddy hole and her half-boot had almost been sucked from her foot.

‘Maldición,’ she had cursed, and wrenched herself free. She had dragged her ruined straw bonnet from her head and turned her face up to the angry heavens. The storm seemed to reflect all her anger and confusion back at her.

‘Catalina! What are you doing, you foolish woman?’ she heard someone shout over the roar of the rain.

Jamie. It was Jamie who had followed her from the town. Catalina laughed and covered her face with her dripping hands. She felt his strong arms around her waist as he lifted her free of the mud hole.

‘Catalina, where are you going?’ he asked roughly, setting her back on her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

Catalina shook her head. What was he doing here? What was he doing visiting a woman who had deceived his entire family? A