A Stranger at Castonbury (6 page)

At first Jamie thought the housekeeper had brought him to the wrong room and a stranger sat before him. An elderly stranger, thin and spare compared to his robust, hearty father, the man who had ridden hell for leather with the local hunt and whose voice could thunder down the vast corridors of Castonbury. The man who sat before the fire had grey hair and a thick shawl wrapped around his shoulders. The air was 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 flickers amid the ash, reminding him of the smouldering ruins of the camp in Spain. The sapphire ring on the chain around his neck weighed heavily against his chest, and he thought again of the fleeting joys of life, the unknowability of other people.

He would never trust like that again.

‘I learned a great deal in Spain, Father,’ he said. ‘And one thing I learned is that it’s always better to find out all one can about one’s enemies and then eliminate them quietly, with no fuss or mess. Leave as little as possible to clean up after.’

He felt his father watching him, and Jamie glanced up to find something he had never seen before flicker over the duke’s face—uncertainty.

‘What
did
you do in Spain, James?’ he asked quietly.

Jamie shook his head. ‘Spain is in the past, Father.’ And it had to stay there, buried with Catalina. ‘You have borne the burden of my absence for much too long. Let me take care of things now. I will deal with Alicia and any allies she might have, and I will also go to London as soon as possible and see about the money. You needn’t worry any longer.’

His father nodded wearily, and in that one gesture Jamie could see how much things had truly changed at Castonbury. In years past, his father would never have relinquished the reins of the estate and the family to anyone, especially not one of his children.

‘It is good to have you back, James,’ the duke said.

Jamie rose to his feet and set aside his empty glass. After a moment’s hesitation, he laid his hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘It is good to be back. It’s a new day here at Castonbury, Father, I promise. Giles is marrying now, and we should all be happy.’ If only he could believe those words himself. If he could only be happy, as he had been for that one moment in the Spanish chapel.

But that was gone. Castonbury was all there was now.

His father nodded. ‘He is not the only one who needs to be married, you know.’

‘Father...’

‘You know I am right, James,’ the duke said with a trace of his old obstinacy. ‘You have come back to take charge, and that is all well and good. But the first duty of a duke is to provide an heir. Since it is not little Crispin...’

The duke’s voice faltered, and Jamie remembered how Harry had said their father had become so fond of Alicia’s child. It almost made him wish the boy
was
his, so that duty would have been done.

He squeezed his father’s shoulder and stepped back. ‘There is time for all that later, Father. Let me see to more pressing matters first.’

‘More pressing?’ the duke sputtered. ‘What could be more pressing than seeing to the future of Castonbury?’

‘With Giles and Harry here and married, I hardly think the future is in doubt.’

‘You have seen what happens when the heir is gone, James! No,
you
must marry and have children now.’ The duke nodded firmly. ‘I didn’t want to see this wedding become so elaborate, but now I’m glad so many guests are coming. It will serve a most useful purpose.’

Jamie didn’t like the sound of that. He gave his father a suspicious frown. ‘What purpose is that?’

‘To get you a wife! A
real
wife this time, a suitable one. A proper duchess.’ His father nodded again. ‘Your mother’s cousin Lydia—you wouldn’t remember her, she died ages ago, but she was a pretty thing who married a viscount. Her daughter is coming to the wedding. I hear she’s a pretty girl herself, and just made her come-out last Season. She should do well enough.’

Jamie had to laugh. He had only been home a matter of hours and he was already being married off to some cousin he had never met. ‘Father...’

‘You will do your duty now, James!’ his father shouted in an echo of his old self.

‘Settle down, Father,’ James said in his quiet voice. ‘The girl isn’t even here yet, so we have time before I must propose. We will see what happens.’

The duke nodded, as if he was at least slightly mollified. ‘Very well. Just remember what I said. Duty!’

‘Of course. Duty.’

‘Now it grows late. You should go and dress for dinner, if you have any decent clothes after gallivanting around goodness knows where.’ The duke reached for a bell on the little table beside his chair and rang it vigorously. After a moment, Mrs Stratton reappeared.

‘Send Smithins to me,’ the duke demanded. ‘I want to dress for dinner.’

‘Your Grace?’ Mrs Stratton said. She gave Jamie a startled glance, and he shrugged. ‘You haven’t been downstairs to dinner in an age.’

‘Then it’s time that changed,’ the duke said. ‘My son is home now. Things here are going to be different. Starting with dinner.’

‘I should go and change myself,’ Jamie said, not wanting to be there for what appeared to be shaping into an argument. ‘If you will excuse me, Father.’

‘Just remember what I said,’ the duke shouted after Jamie as he left the room. ‘Duty!’

Jamie shook his head.
Duty
—it had followed him all his life, like a ghostly spectre. He had fled from it to Spain, but still it was always with him. And now it was all he had. A consolation as well as a burden.

He knew his father was right. He
would
have to marry. But not yet. He had an imposter wife to dispatch and money matters to organise before he could start to restore Castonbury.

And he had another wife to forget.

Jamie made his way to the head of the grand staircase and peered down over the carved banisters to the entrance hall. It was as grand and forbidding as he remembered, with its carved columns soaring up to the Marble Hall above and the vast empty fireplaces. The classical statues in their niches stared out blindly.

It was quiet for the moment, all the servants off preparing for dinner and his family in their rooms dressing for dinner.

Jamie braced his palm on the banister and remembered how, long ago, the dignified silence of the house had been broken by him and his siblings as they dashed across the floor, shouting at one another, driving Mrs Stratton and the starchy, proper butler, Lumsden, to distraction. If his father had his way, soon enough Jamie’s own children would be breaking free of the nursery to run through the house. But Jamie could not picture it. Not without Catalina.

Suddenly the solemn hush was broken when the front door burst open, letting in the light and wind of the dying day. A tall woman appeared there, the train of her dark green riding habit looped over her arm and a crop in her hand. Her boots rang out on the floor as she hurried towards the staircase, the sunset bright on her honey-coloured hair.

‘Late again,’ she muttered, dashing up the steps. ‘Bother it all!’

Jamie laughed. Some things at Castonbury had clearly not changed, especially not his sister Phaedra. When she was with her horses everything else vanished for her.

She glanced up at the sound and a smile broke across her face. She ran up the stairs and threw her arms around him, and for the first time he felt like he had truly come home.

‘Jamie!’ Phaedra cried. ‘Oh, Jamie, is it really you? Are you truly back here with us at last?’

‘I am,’ he answered, holding her in his arms. His little sister, all grown up.

Suddenly she pulled back and smacked him hard on the arm. ‘How could you have been gone from us all this time? I can’t tell you how much we missed you, how much Castonbury has suffered.’

‘I know,’ Jamie said solemnly. ‘And I am here to fix all that, I promise. You have worked alone here too long.’

‘I have not been entirely alone. You know I have married.’

‘Yes. A bloke named Basingstoke.’

‘Bram,’ Phaedra said, a soft smile replacing her frown. ‘You will meet him at dinner. And tomorrow I am going to take you to look at the stables so we can talk about what is needed. I intend to make Castonbury the finest horse stud ever seen in England!’ She linked arms with him and walked with him up the stairs, chattering away as she always had when they were children. ‘You will be so proud of what we are doing here, Jamie! I can’t tell you how glad I am you are home at last....’

Chapter Six

T
hat had to be the place.

Jamie drew up his new curricle at the gate of the tiny, ramshackle cottage set at the edge of a wood several miles from Castonbury and far from any other houses or villages. The shutters were all drawn and no smoke curled from the chimney. With the overgrown gardens tangled around its peeling walls, it looked deserted. But his contact had assured him she was there.

When Jamie had gone looking for Alicia Walters, he had found it no easy task. She had fled from the Dower House at Castonbury as soon as Harry had returned from Spain. Her ruse had been discovered, and no one on the estate was sure where she had gone. His father, despite his blustering threats of hangings, hadn’t chased after her, and his siblings were too relieved at learning that their brother was still alive to care. Only one person had seemed concerned about her, and that was the Castonbury estate manager, William Everett.

‘I know what she did was terrible, my lord,’ he had said to Jamie as they walked over the fields. ‘But she must have been coerced in some way, I’m sure. She was too gentle to come up with such a scheme herself. I fear something amiss might have happened to her.’

Jamie had learned a great deal about reading people in Spain, about gauging the true thoughts and emotions they hid behind their words. Everett had worked for the Montagues for a long time and had a reputation for scrupulous honesty and openness. Jamie saw that his words were true—he did believe Alicia to be a good woman pressed in some way to do a bad thing. The man was concerned about her safety now.

And what was more, he cared about her. In his eyes Jamie could see the raw fear, the tenderness, when he said Alicia’s name. The tentative spark of hope. He was afraid he himself had looked just like that when he first saw Catalina. Lovestruck. Foolish.

So Everett saw good in Alicia. But he didn’t know where she had gone. Neither did anyone else on the estate or in Buxton, and most seemed to wish she would stay gone. But finding people who didn’t wish to be found was something else Jamie had learned in Spain. When he went to London to settle the financial accounts, he had looked up some of his more disreputable contacts and got to work.

That work had led him here, to this deserted-looking cottage. It didn’t look like a place where anyone could live, especially not a gentle lady with a small child, but perhaps that was its attraction. No one would think to look here, especially since it was actually close to Castonbury, plus the owner of the land had been abroad for a long time and would charge no rent. He wondered at the cunning mind that had discovered this clever hiding place, that had thought up this dastardly scheme in the first place

Jamie braced his leg against the seat and grimaced as he studied the silent house. He didn’t need to use the stick to get about as much any more—the long walks over the estate to survey what needed to be done had helped with that. But the day in the curricle had made the scars stiffen.

‘You just need to get on a horse again, get out in the hunting field,’ Phaedra had said, sure that a good gallop could cure any ill. But he had laughed and told her that was still a long way in the future, and he had bought this curricle instead. Just one more thing he couldn’t yet do that was expected of him as the heir.

Or maybe it was the knowledge of what he had to do now that made his leg ache. He had hoped that in coming back to Castonbury he would at least have been able to find some peace, to cease to fight the battles of the world. But there could be no peace until this strange matter was dealt with once and for all.

And he was the only one who could do it. It was
his
name that had been used to dishonour his family. He had to end it.

Jamie lowered himself from the high seat and tied the horse up to the garden fence. He watched the house surreptitiously the whole time, pretending to be absorbed in his task, and he was rewarded by the flicker of a curtain at an upstairs window. He glimpsed a flash of pale hair before the fabric fell back in place.

Someone was there, after all. Was she alone?

Jamie pushed open the broken gate and made his way carefully up the overgrown path. The silence seemed to roar around him, the wind through the trees, the rustle of the old, dried leaves and dead flowers under his boots, the creak of the house.

At the door, Jamie rested one hand on his hip where he could feel the weight of his pistol tucked inside his coat and raised the other to knock. The sound echoed hollowly, and for a moment he could hear nothing. Then it came to him, the faintest brush as of slippers on a dusty floor. If his senses hadn’t been trained to high alert in Spain, he would have missed it.

Then it went quiet again.

‘Miss Walters?’ he called gently. ‘I know you are there. It’s Jamie Montague. I just want to speak with you.’

There was a small rustle again, and then nothing.

‘Please, Miss Walters,’ he said. ‘I mean you no harm. I don’t want to have to return with my brothers, who might not be so peaceable.’

After a long, tense moment, there was the scrape of a lock being drawn back and the door opened a couple of inches. Through the crack Jamie saw a blue muslin skirt and a flash of a pale cheek. She gasped when she saw him, and he thrust his booted foot into the gap in case she decided to slam it shut again.

‘It
is
you,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ he answered. ‘Not quite as dead as you thought, I fear.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘I have my ways. Now, please let me in so we can talk in private.’ Not that there was anyone to hear but the wind and the trees, but Jamie still didn’t want his family’s business conducted out of doors.

Alicia glanced back over her shoulder and hesitated. But finally she nodded and pulled the door open all the way.

Jamie stepped into a tiny hall just as she spun around and hurried away. He followed her into a small sitting room, filled with furniture draped in holland covers and an empty fireplace surmounted by a dusty mantel. One settee was uncovered and piled with blankets. Alicia rushed over to it and picked up the child who sat there playing with some wooden blocks, a cherubic toddler with blue eyes and golden curls.

She held him tightly to her shoulder as she turned to face Jamie. Her eyes, the same china-blue as the baby’s, were bright with unshed tears but she held her head high.

Jamie remembered her from Spain, how she had scurried so quietly behind Colonel Chambers’s noisy wife, how her pale hair and plain clothes had blended into the background. Now she was just as quiet, trembling but calm, and he could scarcely credit she was the same woman who had pulled such a bold, dangerous scheme.

Perhaps Everett was right. Perhaps someone had driven her to it. Perhaps someone had forced her, blackmailed her.

But that didn’t change the fact that she
had
done it. And he needed answers.

‘Have you come to arrest me?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ Jamie answered. As he watched, the child popped his fingers into his little mouth and grinned at Jamie. Jamie could see why his father had loved the child. But it was not his son. Not the son he had once dared to dream of having with Catalina.

‘I need to know what happened,’ he said.

‘We thought you were dead!’ Alicia burst out, her calm cracking. ‘I didn’t think it would hurt anyone, and your father seemed so happy. I only wanted to take care of my little Crispin.’

‘Crispin?’ Jamie laughed. ‘You named him after my father? You
are
bold.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Alicia said again.

‘So you came up with this whole elaborate scheme all on your own?’ Jamie said. ‘You found my lost signet ring after it was stolen, forged a marriage licence and found my family. Put the whole plan together and thought you could fool everyone. Very clever.’

‘Yes. I—I did it all myself,’ she said. But Jamie saw her eyes flicker, her shoulders tense. The baby frowned and fidgeted.

‘I don’t believe you. Tell me what happened, the truth, and I can help you and your son. But if you don’t there is nothing I can do for you and no place where you can hide from me.’

Alicia turned away to put the child back down on the settee and handed him one of his blocks. Jamie gave her the moment to think, and when she faced him again she nodded.

‘There—there was someone who helped me,’ she said slowly. ‘A friend.’

‘He was not much of a friend if he led you into such a crime,’ Jamie said. ‘And now he appears to have abandoned you here. Unless he is hidden in that cupboard over there.’

‘No. He is gone. I don’t know where he went, and I...’ Alicia broke off on a choked sob. ‘He said he knew what to do, how to make all this come out right.’

‘Who is it?’

Alicia bit her lip as the tears spilled from her eyes. ‘Captain Hugh Webster. You remember him from Spain? He gave me your ring, he told me what to do.’

Webster.
Jamie shook his head. He should have known. He remembered playing cards with Webster in Spain. Everyone suspected the man of cheating but no one could prove it. He had always made Jamie feel uneasy in his presence, and now he knew why.

The way the man had stared at Catalina, which had made Jamie want to call the man out, should have been the only clue he needed to tell him the man was untrustworthy.

‘Of course. Webster,’ Jamie said. ‘And now he has fled to leave you to take his punishment.’

Alicia sat down beside her son, sobbing. ‘What will happen to my Crispin now? I know I should not have listened to Webster, I should never have...’

‘I will help you, Alicia, if you will help me,’ Jamie said. Despite himself he was moved by her tears, by the child clinging to her.

‘I would do anything I could to help you, Lord Hatherton, I swear it,’ Alicia answered hoarsely. ‘But what can I do?’

‘You are going to help me find Webster,’ Jamie said. He thought of everything his family had been through, he thought of what the strain had done to his father. He could scarcely believe the difference between the strong and formidable man he had said goodbye to and the frail shadow he had come home to. He thought of Giles, taking on a responsibility he had never wanted, having to contend with this false claim under the burden of the failing family finances. He thought of his sisters and what they must have gone through with all the uncertainty. And he thought of his brother Harry, who had come all the way to Seville to find out the truth, of all the hardships he had encountered on his journey. He knew that he bore some responsibility for that, but this man Webster, he must be made to pay. And Jamie knew just how to do it. He would find Webster, and then he would kill him....