Gregor stared at him in shock, not understanding. “But that’s my—”
“Do you know what you’ve done?” The king cut him off. “You’ve shot my daughter!”
It took a few minutes for the words to resonate. When they did, Gregor staggered back as if struck by a powerful blow.
Daughter? It couldn’t be.
He must have spoken his thoughts aloud. Bruce pinned him with another deadly gaze. “Do you not think I know my own child? You told me she was dead. All this time, I thought my sweet little Catherine was dead.” Bruce held her to him, stroking her dark hair.Cate’sdark hair.
Gregor’s eyes flickered back and forth between the pair, his stomach twisting as he saw the similarities that had only teased the edges of his consciousness before. The same dark eyes and hair, the same mulish pursed mouth and determined jaw.
He heard Campbell mutter a curse beside him. “Damn it, I knew there was something familiar about her.”
Suddenly, Gregor realized what that meant. He seethed with anger against the man he’d always admired. “You bastard, you left her. How could you do that to her?”
Robert the Bruce shot him a glare of warning, reminding him with that one look that he addressed a king. “Not willingly, but I do not owe the man who told me she was dead an explanation.”
Gregor didn’t have the opportunity to respond. The king was finished with him. Bruce lifted Cate’s limp body and started shouting orders to find him a bed in the castle and the best physician in the city.
Feeling as if his heart was being wrenched out of his body, Gregor watched helplessly as the man he’d thought like a father to him carried away the woman he loved and might have killed.
Nay, not helpless. There was something he could do. Gregor looked around for MacKay, finding the big Highlander in the bailey with the other members of the Highland Guard. He could tell by their concerned expressions that they’d heard at least some of the exchange with the king. But he didn’t care. Not right now. There was only one thing that mattered now. “Where’s Angel?” he asked. “I need her.”
If anyone could save Cate it was Helen MacKay. She’d given Gregor his life back once, and now he would ask her for something far more important: to give him back Cate’s.
Twenty-five
Gregor’s arrow hadn’t killed her, but the fever nearly had. Were it not for the pretty redheaded healer who’d arrived a few days after Cate was shot, she might never have woken from the delirium to which she’d succumbed.
She might never have known the truth. Aye, Cate had much for which to thank Helen MacKay. She’d given her her lifeandher father. The king had been at her side when she woke initially after being shot—before the fever had taken hold—and had told her everything.
She still couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t abandoned them. It had been at her mother’s insistence that he stayed away. She wanted to give her marriage a chance, and her betrothed—the man that would become Cate’s first stepfather—had been deeply jealous of the king. Her mother had thought her former lover’s absence would give them the best chance for a happy future.
She was supposed to tell Cate the truth when she was old enough to understand, but for some reason never had. Maybe she’d thought Cate had forgotten him? Maybe she’d thought it best not to open old wounds? Maybe it had been too hard for her to have Bruce around, she’d loved him so much? Cate would never know.
Her father had never intended to stay away forever, but the war had come and he’d been fighting—and fleeing—for his life. By the time he’d returned to Scotland to re-claim his throne, her village had been attacked, and it had been too late.
At least he thought it had been too late. Despite her insistence that she’d lied to Gregor, her father put the entire blame for their long separation squarely on his archer’s shoulders, and nothing she said would change his mind. Bruce was just as intractable as her mother had accused her of being. Cate, of course, didn’t see the similarities.Shewas reasonable.
The maidservant had just finished tying the ribbon that bound the bottom of her plait, when her pixieish doctor entered the chamber.
Used to the other woman’s intense scrutiny, Cate gave Helen time to study her from head to the toes that were peeking out from beneath the edge of the fine linen night rail and velvet robe her father had given her.
When she’d finally satisfied herself, Helen’s gaze returned to hers. “You look much improved. The bath was not overtaxing?”
Cate shook her head and smiled. “On the contrary, I feel like a new woman. I can barely feel the soreness in my shoulder.”
Helen’s eyes narrowed, as if she knew she lied. “You are not leaving this room for a few more days—soreness or not. It’s only been a week. You need more time to gain back your strength. You bullied me into letting you take a bath, but that’s as far as I will go.” She sighed, as if she was much put upon. “You are much like your father, you know. He was a horrible patient, too.”
Cate’s mouth quirked in an effort not to smile. The comparison—even an unflattering one—pleased her.
She was surprised that anyone could bully Helen MacKay. Despite her fey appearance, the skilled healer seemed to have a will of steel, and from what Cate had seen, she ordered the king about as if he were a recalcitrant squire.
“I hope I will not need to force-feed you vegetables?” Helen asked dryly.
Cate shook her head, recalling her father’s distaste for almost anything that grew on a tree or out of the ground. “I like vegetables—except for beets.” She wrinkled her nose.
Helen harrumphed. “Let me guess, they taste like dirt? I’ve heard that before. Just last night I caught the king trying to pass the carrots I had made specially for him off to the hounds. To the hounds, if you can believe it!” Shaking her head again, she moved closer to where Cate sat on the edge of a trunk to address Lisbet. “You were careful?”
