The Arrow: A Highland Guard Novel (The Highland Guard) (7 page)

The gown Lady Marion had bought for her.

The gown she’d wanted to impress Gregor with.

The gown that had made her feel … pretty.

She heard Pip shout in outrage, spewing a litany of inventive threats that almost made her smile.

Making a show of slowly dragging herself to her knees, she waited, her pulse racing.
Just like practice …

Dougal’s feet appeared by her side. “You stupid bitch. I’ll show you who is a real man.”

His words unleashed a twisted flurry of anger and pain, his threat a brutal reminder of what had happened to her mother. She wanted to lash out. She wanted to cry. She wanted to punish any man who would ever think to rape a woman.

But John had warned her that her weakness wasn’t in
her limbs but in her quick temper. So instead she waited patiently for what she hoped was coming.

He didn’t disappoint. Dougal moved his leg to kick her in the ribs, and she caught it, using the momentum to catapult him onto his back with a ground-smacking thud. A moment later she had her knee on his chest and her blade pressed against his thick neck. “You are a bully
and
a coward, Dougal MacNab.”

He looked at her wide-eyed. “What kind of lass are you?”

“The kind who has a blade to your throat, so unless you want to continue this, I suggest you take your friends and go on home.”

This time when Cate let him up, she made sure to keep an eye on him as he rejoined his friends. They whispered back and forth, and every now and then Dougal would cast a scathing glare in her direction.

She still had her dagger drawn and ready, but when they didn’t leave right away, she felt the first prickle of sweat on her brow. It was the worried look Willy sent in her direction, however, that made her pulse flutter. They were planning something, and there were so many of them. Six, not including Willy. If they chose to fight as a group …

Cate swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Her advantages were surprise and quickness. She’d lost the first, which would seriously impact the second, even with one opponent. With six …

Deciding that she’d made her point, and perhaps she should be the one to back off, she motioned for Pip to come to her side.

Before he’d reached her, however, the sound of an approaching horse did what her threat had not, sending Dougal and the other boys scurrying off toward the village.

Cate let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
She turned to face their unwitting rescuer just as the rider drew his horse to a halt on the edge of the riverbank.

She froze, the blood slowly draining from her face in horror.

No … Please, no. Not like this
. He couldn’t see her like this. She’d wanted to impress him.

Her throat tightened, and a misty sheen of hot tears blurred her mud-streaked vision, as she took in the familiar white charger and the muscular, leather-clad warrior who sat atop the magnificent beast, staring down at her like some golden hero in a bard’s tale.

She blinked, feeling the urge to put her hand up as if she were staring straight into the sun. He didn’t need to wear chain mail to shine; he caught the light in a blinding array all on his own. But for once she did not feel like sighing.

It wasn’t fair! Did he always have to look so perfect? So shiny and polished? Always impeccable, as if dirt wouldn’t dare stick to him.

While she … she was a muddy mess. She wanted nothing more than to sink into the boggy ground and disappear.

He pulled off his helm and shook out his hair. It fell in spectacularly tousled waves around his face. Her heart squeezed at the unfairness. Her hair after being in a helm looked like it was plastered to her head.

“What in Hades have you done this time, Caitrina?” His mouth twitched. “Or do I want to know?”

Caitrina. He was the only one who’d ever called her that, and it wasn’t even her real name.
Catherine
. She shouldn’t have lied about her identity—or, by omission, her age (she realized he thought her younger)—but she’d been fifteen, traumatized, and desperate for him to take her with him. She’d known that if she’d told him the truth, he would never have done so. By using her dead second stepfather’s
name of Kirkpatrick, there was no chance
anyone
would connect her to the bastard daughter of Helen of Lochmaben. And that was the way she wanted it. No more pitying looks. No more teasing. No more secret prayers that her father would come for her. She’d been given a chance to put that life behind her, and she’d taken it.

Any twinge of guilt she might have felt, however, was quickly forgotten when she saw that mouth twitch. How could he be so ungallant as to laugh at her?
Because he thinks you are a child
. A child who needed rescuing from a well. Not a woman full grown.

His amusement seemed the final slap of injustice on her mud-strewn indignity. She adored him, but the man could be a thoughtless horse’s backside at times. The tears that had threatened were forgotten; instead she fought the urge to put her dirty hands on him and knock him off that pristine white horse into the mud. Usually she admired his cool unflappability, but just once she’d like to see him ruffled.

Pip had obviously taken umbrage at the newcomer’s attitude as well. He angled his thin body in front of her. “She saved me, that’s what she did. One of those boys took my coin, and when I tried to get it back, he and his friends came after me. But Cate nearly broke his arm. And when he pushed her down, she pulled a knife on him.”

“She
what
?” Gregor exploded incredulously.

Cate tried to stop Pip, but apparently mistaking Gregor’s anger for admiration, he was eager to continue the story. “Aye, she flipped him on his back like a dead chicken and had her dirk right up to his neck.” The boy whose nose had swollen to the size of a turnip looked at her with unabashed adoration, and then back over to Gregor. “You should have seen her.”

Gregor looked at her as if he didn’t know whether he wanted to take her over his knee or be ill.

She winced; he definitely wasn’t impressed with her
skills. She suspected there was going to be hell to pay for this—and not just from Dougal’s father.

Gregor gave her a hard look before turning to Pip. “And who perchance are you?”

Pip flushed. Seeing the boy’s discomfort, Cate thrust her chin up and met Gregor’s gaze. “He’s your son.”

Three
 

In retrospect, perhaps it had been a bad idea to laugh, but, damn it, Cate looked so adorable and fierce with the mud streaked all over her face and clothes—an unusually pretty dress for her, actually. Seeing her look so refreshing
girlish
had been something of a relief, after the uncomfortable and far from guardian-like thoughts Gregor had been having about her since his last time home.

But he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings and would have apologized had he not been struck by what could only be described as sickly panic when he heard what she’d done (she could have been hurt, damn it!), and then momentarily struck dumb by her announcement.

“My w-what?” he sputtered.

“Your son,” she replied calmly.

The words didn’t lose any impact on repeating. If Gregor had been more shocked in his life, he couldn’t recall. She might as well have proclaimed herself the Queen of bloody England. She had about as much chance of claiming that position as he had of having sired this whelp.

Aside from the fact that the boy looked nothing—
nothing
—like him, he was at least fifteen or sixteen years old. Gregor was thirty-one, and the only woman he’d had relations with before he was twenty hadn’t given birth to this boy. He should know, since she married his older brother a few months after their relationship had served her purpose.

He gritted his teeth, casting a sharp glance at the bloodied, mud-splattered youth. “I don’t know what hard-luck story he’s told you, but that boy is most assuredly
not
my son.”

The whelp shot him a black scowl, looking as if he’d like nothing more than to stick a blade between Gregor’s ribs. Cate, however, acted like the wee blackguard had just been grievously injured and hastened to protect him by wrapping her arm around his shoulder.

“Of course he is. Just like Eddie and Maddy.”

“Who in the hell are they?” Gregor exploded. He’d given up trying not to swear and blaspheme around her years ago. Not even God would have enough patience and restraint for Cate.

“Did John not tell you? Congratulations—you have two sons and a daughter!”

This was the “emergency”? The lass wasn’t only trouble, she was mad—especially if she thought he’d ever have a son named after the English king.

He told her so, and what skin on her face wasn’t covered with mud turned red. She turned to the boy. “Pip, you go on ahead.
Your father
and I have something to discuss.”

This Pip could give Viper a contest in venomous glares. The lad looked like he wanted to argue, but when Caitrina added, “Please,” he nodded and left—though not without a few more black scowls cast in Gregor’s direction.

Christ, did the lad think he would hurt her? Gregor hadn’t strangled her in the five years he’d known her; he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. With any luck, in a few weeks she’d be out of his hair for good. Although in light of today’s events, his plan to marry her off was going to be even more of a challenge than he’d thought. He shook his head. Brawling in the dirt like a … he didn’t know what, but it certainly wasn’t befitting a marriageable young lass.

She turned on him, hands on her hips, as soon as the boy
moved out of earshot. “How could you say that in front of him? You hurt his feelings!”

Gregor jumped off his horse, preparing to square off for the battle he knew was coming. If he didn’t know better, from the way the blood was racing through his veins, he might think he was actually looking forward to it.

“Hurt
his
feelings? My good name is the one being
dragged through the mud
.” Her eyes flared at that. “The little charlatan has lied to you and taken advantage of your kindness. How old is he?”

“Fifteen.”

Gregor smiled; it was as he suspected. “It’s impossible for him to be my son.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know how to subtract.”

Clearly, she didn’t understand, and he was in no mind to explain. His age when he’d first been intimate with a woman was not a proper topic for a young lady’s ears. But that wasn’t the only reason. She’d closed the gap between them to a few feet—which, as it turned out, was too damned close.

He was feeling it again. The heat. That strange tingling of his skin. The blasted awareness. The blasted
inappropriate
awareness.

The top of her head only came to his mid-chest, but he could still remember how it had felt tucked under his chin. How warm and silky her hair had been. How she’d smelled like wildflowers. How firm but undeniably feminine she’d felt in his arms.

What the hell was the matter with him? This was
Caitrina
. The lass he was responsible for, no matter how unwittingly—the lass he was supposed to protect from men like him. Bloody hell, he needed to find a little self-control.

Drawing his hand through his hair, he made a sound of
frustration. Returning to the subject at hand, he said, “How did he come to be here?”

“His mother left him at the gate. She told him he was to find you and inform you that he was your son, and that it was time for you to take care of the lad, as she could no longer do so on her own.”

He might have felt a pang of sympathy for the boy at his cruel abandonment by the woman who’d given birth to him had Gregor not been so certain every word of it was a falsehood. The boy and his mother were probably in league together. God knew what they hoped to gain by their trickery. “What was this woman’s name?”

She shrugged, as if the question wasn’t important to her. “You’ll have to ask your son.”

He tried to control his temper, he did. But Caitrina—Cate—had a way of bringing out the worst in him. She was so blasted stubborn and too damned free with her opinions. He was her guardian, for Christ’s sake! She should defer to his opinions. Respect her elders.

“He is not my son,” he reiterated, emphasizing each word.

“So you’ve said.”

His jaw clenched at her smile. “And the other two children? Let me guess—they were abandoned as well, not long after word of Pip’s arrival spread, I would wager.”

She flushed, tossing her muddy hair as regally as any queen. “There is no cause to be sarcastic.”

“No cause? Christ, did you not think the timing just a little suspicious? Suddenly I go from having no progeny to three in the space of a couple of months? You are lucky there haven’t been more showing up on my doorstep.”

Her eyes widened and blinked. “You mean you have more natural children out there?”

Gregor squeezed his fists, praying for patience. Though she said it innocently enough, sometimes he could swear she was purposefully being obtuse just to get a rise out of
him—irritation, not the other kind of rise, although regretfully she had managed to do that as well. Being around Cate was beginning to make him feel like an old lecher.