A Stranger at Castonbury - By Amanda McCabe Page 0,4

you like it?’

‘Of course I like it! But...why? When did you have time?’

‘Because I can’t give you what you truly deserve, Catalina,’ he answered. ‘A fine wedding at the Castonbury church with all my family to see. A satin gown, a cake, a carriage covered with flowers. But I wanted to make this place beautiful for you. A place we can always remember.’

Holding on to his hand, Catalina glanced around the transformed church again. She knew she would never, ever forget the way it looked, in this one still, perfect moment. She would never forget the man beside her and how he felt holding her hand.

‘I can’t imagine any place more beautiful,’ she said softly.

‘Then shall we get married?’ Jamie said with a teasing lilt to his voice. Catalina was glad to hear it—he was so very serious too often.

She smiled up at him and nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Let’s do that. We can’t let this beautiful church go to waste.’

And they walked together to the altar and held hands as they said the vows that would bind them together for ever. Or for as long as they lived in such dangerous days.

Chapter Two

Catalina felt it before she saw it, the slight tremble of the earth under their feet as they walked back from the church. Then a fork of sizzling, blue-white lightning split the dark sky above their heads. A rolling rumble of thunder followed, ending in a deafening drumbeat.

‘I think the days of drought might be over,’ she said. She tipped her head back to peer up at the sky from beneath the lace pattern of her mantilla. The stars and moon that had just begun to peek out as they walked to the church were now hidden beneath drifts of charcoal-grey clouds.

‘Just in time for us to move out,’ Jamie’s friend said wryly. ‘Nothing like moving camp in the middle of a rainstorm.’

‘Moving camp?’ Catalina glanced over at Jamie. She had heard nothing of any plans to move out. Where were they going now? Could she even follow him there, her new husband, or were they to be parted already?

Jamie gave her a reassuring smile and squeezed her hand. ‘We have no orders yet. We have to make the push to Toulouse soon, but there is nothing definite.’

Catalina nodded, but inside she felt that cold touch of disquiet. Her life in the past few months had been nothing but moving, going wherever her nursing skills were needed, wherever she had to be in this strange new life. But she didn’t want to be away from Jamie yet.

Not yet.

When they made their way into camp amid the rumble of thunder, it looked to be the usual sort of evening. Men sitting around the fires and outside their tents, talking, laughing, playing cards, passing the long hours. Sometimes Colonel Chambers would host a dinner party or there would be dancing, but tonight everyone seemed to be in a quieter mood. Catalina could hear the strains of some sad ballad in the distance, and it added to the melancholy mood of the approaching storm.

As they passed by the largest tent, the one used for dining and officers’ meetings, Chambers stepped outside and called to Jamie.

‘Hatherton,’ he said. ‘May I speak with you for a moment?’

The man was usually all blustery good humour, not as vivacious as his wife but friendly and cheerful, handsome in his pale English way. But tonight he seemed unusually sombre, and that touch of disquiet inside Catalina grew like an icicle, freezing her heart.

‘Certainly, Colonel Chambers,’ Jamie answered. He kissed Catalina’s hand and said quietly, ‘I will meet you at my tent as soon as I can—Lady Hatherton.’

Lady Hatherton—how strange it sounded. How foreign. Could it ever truly belong to her? Would it ever feel like it was hers? Yet Jamie’s grey eyes warmed her, reassured her, and she smiled at him. No matter how strange his English title sounded, he was just Jamie, and that was the important thing. The only thing.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You must attend to your business. I will wait for you there.’

As Catalina left Jamie, she caught a glimpse of a flutter of pale fabric beside the tent. She looked up and saw that it was Alicia Walters. The woman hovered beside the canvas wall, and Catalina was shocked to see the streak of tears on her cheeks before she spun around and hurried away.

Catalina glanced back at the closed flap of the tent. It opened a crack, just