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 bullyanda 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 chanceanyonewould 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.”
“Shewhat?” 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?”
