Was she in more pain from the wound than he realized? His anger fled. He sat on the foot of the bed and tried to take her hand. “God, I’m sorry, Cate. You have to know I didn’t mean to shoot you. You were supposed to move away, damn it. I never meant to cause you pain.”
She laughed. He had no idea what could have provoked the seemingly illogical reaction until she spoke. “Didn’t you? The arrow in my back might not have been intentional, but why did you go to the alehouse if you did not wish to hurt me? Did you not think proving to me how little you cared for me would cause me pain? I loved you, Gregor, loved you with all my heart. Worse, I believed in you. And how did you reward that belief? You took the first woman who you could find to your bed.”
“I didn’t take any woman to my bed.”
“Don’t!” she said. “Don’t lie to me. I saw you.”
“How could you have seen me when it didn’t happen?”
“I followed you to the alehouse. I saw you take Maggie upstairs. I saw you in the room together.”
Gregor felt all the blood in his body drain to the floor, landing with a hard thud. Horror, shame, and panic descended on him in a maddening rush. Christ, what had she seen? Too much, if the look on her face was any indication.
He’d planned on telling her what happened, but he never dreamed she could have seen it. How was he going to make her understand? “Nothing happened, Cate. I swear to you. I didn’t take her to my bed.”
“No, what you were doing didn’t seem to require a bed.” The words seemed to break her. The next came out in a sob. “I saw her take you in her mouth, Gregor. I saw everything.”
Shite. Gregor felt ill just thinking about what that must have been like for her. What must she think? What he’d done was inexcusable.
He knew just how badly he’d erred, and he fought with everything he had to hold on to her. To not let her slip away. But he felt like he was trying to grasp a cloud that was floating away from him.
“I tried to do it, Cate, but I couldn’t. It was wrong—God, I know it was wrong, but I swear to you it only lasted a few moments before I pushed her away. I became ill, and passed out. When I woke up, I realized what a horrible mistake I’d made and planned to tell you everything. I knew then that I loved you and didn’t want any other woman but you. You were right, sweetheart.”
She wiped the tears away from her eyes angrily. “And when did you have this great epiphany? Before or after you let her get on her knees before you? Am I to be relieved that you stopped? Should I give you a reward for not finishing what you started? Is it any less of a betrayal for not reaching completion? What if you’d found me in another man’s arms? What if he kissed me and touched me intimately? Would it matter to you that I did not find pleasure?”
His eyes flared. “I’d kill any man for touching you.”
“Even if I wanted him to?” she taunted. “Even if I needed to prove my feelings for you?”
“That’s ridiculous. You love me, that isn’t how—”
He stopped.
“Exactly,” she said softly. “That isn’t how you prove anything, most of all love.” She held his gaze. “I’m done fighting for something that isn’t there. Maybe your father was right. Maybe there is nothing more than a pretty facade. You’ve spent all this time becoming an amazing warrior, building muscle until you look like a rock, but inside, where it counts, you are weak.”
He flinched, the words hitting hard, striking old scars that hadn’t healed as much as he’d thought. Weak. He felt like a midge crushed under her heel. Small and utterly destroyed. Worse, he had only himself to blame. Of all the mistakes he’d made when he was younger—and he’d made a hell of a lot of them—he’d never done something so destructive. He’d never held something precious in his grasp and then tossed it away.
God, what had he done? He’d reverted to a man he didn’t want to be. She’d believed in him and he’d let her down. He’d let himself down.
He had no right, but he asked anyway. “Forgive me, Cate. What I did was wrong. I will spend the rest of our lives proving to you how wrong and how much I love you, if you will let me.”
She held his gaze. For one long heartbeat, he thought she might give him another chance.
But he’d hurt her too much. She looked away, silence her only response.
Refusing to accept the truth that was staring at him, Gregor tried the only thing he could think to do. But when he put his lips on hers, hoping to reawaken their love—to prove that what they had couldn’t be denied—all he felt was the poignant ache of loss.
As his lips touched hers, he felt the warmth, tasted the familiar sweetness and hint of mint, but the most important thing was missing: her response. She didn’t want to kiss him. She didn’t want him at all.
This wasn’t a faerie tale. A kiss didn’t heal wounds or make everything all right.
He feared nothing he could do would ever make it right. But damn it, he was going to try.
Twenty-six
As soon as Helen declared Cate well enough to travel, the two women and a small retinue of her father’s men removed to Dunstaffnage Castle in Lorn on the west coast of Scotland. A good portion of the king’s army—including her father himself—had gone south to Galloway to join in the battle against the MacDowells. What remained of the king’s men had been left behind in Perth to help in the slighting of the castle, continuing with the king’s policy of destroying Scotland’s fortresses so they could not be used against him.
In addition to Cate and Helen, there were about forty men on the birlinn that sailed from the River Tay to the Firth of Tay, out to the North Sea and around the northern coast of Sutherland, and into the Atlantic. The captain was none other than Erik MacSorley (whose war name of Hawk became clear when she saw his ship), who along with his terrifying kinsman Lachlan MacRuairi, the fierce warrior Tor MacLeod (whom she remembered from her rescue), Arthur Campbell, and—much to her constant irritation—Gregor, comprised the Phantom portion of her escort.
The royal castle of Dunstaffnage was kept by Arthur Campbell and his wife, Anna, but with most of Scotland’s major strongholds still in the possession of the English—including the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Berwick, and Roxburgh—it served as the temporary seat of the king’s court. As such, it was a beehive of constant activity, buzzing with courtiers and other important nobles.
For the first time in her life, Cate found herself feted, and openly acknowledged as the king’s daughter. Along with the endless parade of nobles through the gates, there were feasts, fine gowns “fit for a princess,” and even a jeweled circlet for her twenty-first saint’s day.
It was as if her father was trying to make up for the fifteen years they’d lost together in a few weeks. She suspected she was also serving as a substitute for the family that was still being held in captivity. She wasn’t the king’s only natural child, however, and she was looking forward to meeting a couple of her five half-siblings in the ensuing weeks.
She did have a family, as it turned out, although her heart still pinched at the thought of those whom she’d lost. She had not forgotten her vow to ensure that the children were well cared for. It was the only thing she’d asked of her father, and he’d promised to look into it. As soon as it could be arranged, she would be reunited with Pip, Eddie, and Maddy.
Although Cate enjoyed all the attention, it was a bit overwhelming and at times even a little intimidating. She was worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. Despite her recent foray into “acting like a lady” to attract Gregor, Cate wasn’t used to all the rules, expectations, and accoutrements of the nobility. For that, Lady Anna had been an enormous help.
Still, three weeks after arriving at Dunstaffnage, Cate found herself missing the freedom of her life at Roro and chafing at the bit to resume her training. Her back was still a little sore when she lifted her arm, but she feared that if she sat around pretending to sew for any longer, her fighting skills were going to be completely atrophied. But despite her f
ather’s obvious pride in what she’d done to save his life, she wasn’t sure how the king would react to his daughter taking to the practice yard. Moreover, she suspected who would insist on overseeing.
Gregor had not tried to approach her or speak with her privately since that day in her chamber at Perth, but he was an ever-present source of watchfulness hovering around her like an unwelcome, forbidding dark cloud. The other Phantoms traveled with her father to Galloway, but Gregor hadn’t gone with them. What she didn’t know was whether it was his choice or her father’s.
Either way, she didn’t like it. When she found herself enjoying the company of a dinner companion, one of the dozens of young knights and lords of the royal castle—she suspected her father’s involvement in this—a servant would appear or the music would stop unexpectedly, and she would catch him glowering at her with one of those dark, dangerous stares he was getting so good at.
She had to admit that maybe once or twice (or maybe more than once or twice), she’d egged him on a little with her flirting. Thinking of all the times she’d been forced to watch him do the same, it was rather fun to be on the other side.
For a while. But as it was clear from the number of times she’d told him to leave her alone that he wasn’t going to listen, she did the only thing she could do and ignored him.
It wasn’t working very well. Despite the firm resolve in her head, she was too blasted aware of him everywhere else. If he would just leave her alone, she could get on with her life. Forget about him and move on.
He’d broken her heart, hadn’t he?
But she couldn’t help noticing that the charming rogue wasn’t so charming anymore. She hadn’t seen him talk to any woman except Helen or Lady Anna since they’d arrived. He didn’t have time. He was too busy staring at her and trying to intimidate anyone who came near her.
Day after day, he was there. Her own personal sentinel. Dark, forbidding, and maybe a little rough around the edges with the unkempt brigand look he seemed to have adopted, but still undeniably the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
And sometimes at night (very well, many times at night), she would think of everything else. How it had felt to be in his arms. The way her heart had jumped when he surged inside her. The warmth and possessiveness of his hands covering her body. How much she’d liked to touch him, to feel the granite-hard muscles of his chest and arms under her fingertips. She remembered the heat of his mouth, the lash of his tongue, the heady taste of mint. She remembered how the bottom had fallen out of her stomach every time he’d kissed her.
She still felt ill when she thought of what she’d seen at the alehouse, but she’d been more relieved by what he’d told her than she wanted to admit. He had stopped. Maybe not soon enough, but he hadn’t been able to go through with it. Did it mean something?
Good God, just listen to her! She was a fool. She couldn’t soften. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?
She redoubled her efforts to forget about him. A distraction was what she needed. Surely she could find one in the bevy of young knights and lords her father brought before her?
That night she danced with every unattached young man she could find and whittled it down to a few possibilities. But inexplicably the next day, at what was to be her belated saint’s day celebration, two of the men were nowhere to be found, and the third—one of her father’s most vaunted knights, Sir David Lindsay—appeared to be nursing a very ugly-looking black eye, among other cuts and bruises.
Suspecting who was responsible, Cate’s gaze slid to the dark corner where her sentinel stood watch. He wasn’t alone but talking to her father, who’d just returned from Galloway. Although “talking” was putting it nicely. From the look on her father’s face, Gregor was getting an earful.
It wasn’t hard to guess why. Her eyes narrowed, even from across the room she could see that Gregor’s nose was about twice the size of normal and had a new crook at the bridge.
She might have been amused at the irony of his sabotaging her flirtations as she had done to him previously, if she weren’t so angry and exhausted from the effort to ignore him. This had gone on long enough. She and her surly, overbearing sentinel were going to have a little talk.
Squaring her shoulders, Cate marched across the room ready to do battle.
There was a reason they called it penance. It wasn’t supposed to be easy; it was supposed to hurt. And God’s blood, it did.
For Gregor, standing to the side while Cate blossomed like a rose in the sun, watching her shine and captivate everyone around her—not just because she was the king’s daughter, or because she was about the most adorable thing he’d ever seen all dressed up like a princess, but by the sheer force of her personality—was self-flagellation, a hair shirt, and whatever else monks used to torture themselves all rolled into one.
For God’s sake, did she have to smile so much? She was too damned pretty when she smiled.
Not interfering, not putting his fist through the teeth of every one of the men who’d vied for her attention or dared—dared—to even think about touching her was the hardest thing Gregor had ever done.
But she deserved the attention, and by God, if he had to chain himself in a room to see that she got it, he would.
Apparently Bruce had reached a similar conclusion. “You are fortunate I do not toss you in a pit prison for attacking Lindsay like that.”
Gregor clamped his jaw down tight. “The bastard deserved it.”
“The ‘bastard’ is one of my best knights and did nothing more than dance with her.”
Gregor gritted his teeth. Lindsay had done far more than dance—the young knight had let his gaze drop down to her chest and lingered for a full three seconds. Three! Gregor had counted every blasted one of them.
He wouldn’t apologize. Hell, no. Lindsay was lucky Gregor hadn’t blackened both his eyes and had left him with a few unbroken ribs.
Bruce studied him. “At least he seems to have given as much as he got. You aren’t looking so pretty. How are you planning to win my daughter looking like that?”
Gregor turned from his view of Cate across the room to shoot him a glare. “Cate doesn’t care about things like that.”
She loved him for who she thought him to be. He just had to prove to her that he was that man.
“You’d better hope so. Do it again and I’ll banish you to the Isles. You can be the most handsome man on the Isle of St. Kilda.” The king laughed at his own jest, but then took a look at his broken nose and grimaced. “I knew this was a bad idea. I never should have agreed to let you stay here. You were needed with us in the south.”
Gregor felt a twinge of guilt but pushed it aside. He was the only member of the Guard who hadn’t been in Galloway to watch the MacDowells fall. “I needed to be here.” With Cate.
“Your brother is skilled,” the king said in a more even voice. “But he is not you.”
Gregor wasn’t sure he was himself anymore. He hadn’t picked up a bow since the day he’d shot Cate, and he didn’t know if he would ever want to again. He wasn’t sure he had the stomach for it anymore. Any of it.
“John will improve,” he said. His brother deserved a chance to fight. For too long he’d been doing Gregor’s duty for him. Gregor was laird, and it was time he started acting like it.
The king gave him a long look. “I hope you know what you are doing. I’m not convinced she’ll have you back—or that you deserve to be forgiven after what you told me.” Gregor clamped his mouth closed. To get the king to agree, he’d been forced to confess the basics of what had happened. It had been a risk, but he’d escaped with his body parts intact—all of them. Bruce might not have been faithful to the women in his life himself, but he wouldn’t tolerate anything else for his daughter. Illogical or not, for Gregor it wasn’t an issue. Cate had his loyalty and fidelity for life, if she wanted it. “Be assured that if you hurt her again, I’ll run you through myself.”
&n
bsp; Catching a glance of the expression on the face of the woman who’d just started toward them, Gregor said wryly, “You won’t need to.”
It seemed the princess was finally deigning to speak to him.
A slow smile turned the king’s mouth as he saw his daughter. There was undeniable pride in his face when he spoke. “If she weren’t so cute as she is, I would almost wish she’d been born a lad. I’d have made her one of the best knights in Christendom.”
Gregor didn’t doubt it. But he was rather glad she was a lass. His lass. For if it was the last thing he did, he would win her heart back.
He could see the outrage on her face as she stopped before them, sent an angry glare in his direction, and turned to lift on her tiptoes to give her father a kiss on the cheek.
“Are you having fun, Caty?” Bruce asked. “I wasn’t here to celebrate your actual saint’s day with you, but I hope today will make up for it.”
“It’s perfect, Father, thank you.” She glared at Gregor again for good measure. Putting a hand on her head, she said, “And thank you for the circlet as well—it is beautiful.”
Gregor shot a warning glance to the king not to say anything.
Surprisingly, he heeded it. “I instructed the piper to play nothing but reels tonight after the feast.” With a sly look to Gregor, he added, “I have a special guest who just arrived and has requested to sit next to you for the meal. I don’t believe you’ve ever met my half-sister Isabel’s son, Sir Thomas Randolph?”
Gregor had to bite back a curse, but Bruce must have seen his balled fists—the sadistic bastard grinned. He was making Gregor pay, all right.
Cate shook her head. “I’ve heard of him, of course.”
“Aye, I’m not surprised,” Bruce added. “He’s become quite renowned for his prowess on the battlefield. And off as well—he’s a great favorite among the ladies of court, isn’t that so, MacGregor?”
Gregor smiled through teeth that were grinding together. “I believe I’ve heard something to that effect.”
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