A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,63
time, everyone applauded and cheered enthusiastically.
Catalina couldn’t help but smile at Lydia’s glowing face as the girl took her bow. The Chinese lanterns strung around the stage added an otherworldly glow to the late evening. The grey skies had miraculously lifted before the play began and now the sunset was bright pink with gold streaks along the edge of the horizon. More lights were strung in the trees, and the guests were seated in rows of white and gold chairs on the grass. Everyone from the family and local gentry to the estate tenants and villagers were dressed in their finest and everyone was laughing and having a fine time.
It made Catalina’s heart feel lighter to see it. Castonbury was its own small world, and a happier one now that Jamie was home and there was a wedding to look forward to. It was a perfect warm summer evening, a moment of brightness after the gloom of years.
Catalina glanced over her shoulder to where Jamie sat with his father on the back row of chairs. The duke’s armchair had been brought out for him, and after much complaining and threatening to leave early, he had been wrapped in shawls and persuaded to stay. Even he looked happy as he clapped for the play, and leaned over to say something to Jamie.
Jamie shook his head and gave that crooked half-smile of his. As he said something in reply to his father, he caught her looking at him and actually gave her a wink.
Catalina spun back around to face the stage and tried not to laugh. It was a strange night indeed.
The actors took their last bows and yielded the stage to the musicians who were to play for the evening’s dancing. As they tuned up, footmen hurried out to take up the chairs and everyone lined up along the refreshment tables. Lily and Giles themselves were handing out glasses of punch and accepting best wishes.
Catalina had been told such a gathering was a tradition at Castonbury, a time for everyone around the estate to gather and celebrate a marriage. But it had not been held in many years, not since the duke had married his late duchess.
‘It will be a joyous day indeed when Lord Hatherton and his bride have their own party,’ Mrs Stratton had said. ‘Castonbury will be truly back to itself then.’
Lord Hatherton. It had been so easy to forget who Jamie was when he held her in his arms in that rough little cottage as the rain fell around them. But here, with all the weight and tradition of Castonbury around them, with all the people who expected so much of their heir, she was reminded.
She found a quiet place to stand under a tree at the edge of the gathering where she could watch everyone. Couples were finding their way to the dance; Lydia was sipping punch with Mr Hale, giggling and blushing at something he said to her. Catalina hated to take her away from him just yet, not on such a night. The girl couldn’t get into much trouble with the crowds around her.
Catalina drifted around the party, letting the lively music wash over her. The dancers were spinning and twirling, laughing with the sheer joy of the exercise, of dancing under the rising moon of a fine summer’s night.
The garden folly, so silent and solitary as it watched over the gathering, glowed a pure white in the night. Catalina leaned her head against the trunk of a tree and looked at it, letting the memory of her kiss there with Jamie wash over her. That was what she was doing here—building up a store of memories to carry forward with her. She could take them out like beautiful tiny jewels on cold nights to come and they would sustain her.
Suddenly the serene scene was broken by a figure running across the meadow. It was a tall man clad in dark clothes, and surely could be anyone at the party. But something about the way he moved, so quick and furtive, made her frown as she watched him. Who would flee from the festivities like that?
Just before he reached the folly, his hat tumbled from his head. He paused for a moment to retrieve it, and as he bent down the moonlight caught on his bright-coloured hair. Then he was gone.
Catalina started to run after him, but one step reminded her she only wore thin evening slippers. She could never catch him, and even