Both Cate and John startled. That obviously neither had been aware of his arrival only made him angrier.
John must have caught something in Gregor’s glare, because he frowned.
Cate was frowning, too, as she stood and reached a hand down to help John to his feet.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” he snapped.
“Then why are you glowering?”
“I’m not glowering.”
She acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “Didn’t I do it right?”
She sounded so anxious for praise, he felt like an arse. She’d done fantastically.
Of course, his bloody brother came to the rescue first. “You did it perfectly,” John said, glaring at him.
Gregor glared back. “My brother has taught you well, but there are some things he doesn’t know. If you’d like, I can show you.”
John looked like he was about to argue, but then Gregor shot him a look that said he would be happy to prove it.
Cate’s eyes sparked, her eagerness to improve her training apparently outweighing her recent aversion to him. “Really? When?”
“Tomorrow. Right now I need to talk to you.”
“But I promised Pip…” Her gaze slid over to the boy who was sitting quietly on a rock, hidden in the shadow of the barracks, and who until now Gregor hadn’t noticed. Christ, dark and sinister, the lad was like MacRuairi slinking in and out of the shadows.
Pip stood. Though he didn’t look in Gregor’s direction, Gregor could feel the animosity pouring off him. Apparently his “son” didn’t harbor any lost love for him either.
“I need to find Eddie anyway. I promised I’d let him kick the pig’s bladder around today if he made it to the garderobe every time he had to go yesterday.”
“It was a brilliant idea,” Cate said. “I never would have thought of it.”
The boy shrugged as if the compliment hadn’t meant anything to him, but Gregor could see that it had. It had meant a great deal, suggesting that the boy had received very little praise in his life. Gregor almost felt sorry for him, until he reminded himself that the lad was here under false pretenses.
John gave Gregor a look that said they would talk later, and put his hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Come, Pip. I’ll show you a field just beyond the wall where my brothers and I used to kick the ball around.”
“Make sure to stay away from the water,” Gregor said sternly, having no idea where the compulsion to say that had come from.
John raised his brow, and Cate glanced up at him as if he’d just slain a dragon.
Perhaps some of the stars were still there after all.
For the past couple of days, Cate had thrown herself into her practice and her duties around the tower house to avoid thinking about what had happened in the barn. Though she would rather not have had an audience the first time she told Gregor her feelings, she knew the words had needed to be said. Besides, as she’d told Seonaid, it was hardly a secret how she felt, and she wasn’t ashamed of her feelings.
Nay, it wasn’t Seonaid’s cruel attempt to humiliate her that made her want to avoid thinking about it; it was her own confused emotions. What she’d witnessed between Gregor and Seonaid had shaken her faith and made her wonder whether she was wrong about him. Was she deluding herself that a man who’d had women throwing themselves at his feet for his whole life would ever be content with one woman, let alone her? Was he just as attracted by superficial charms as the women he discounted for the same thing?
And the question that haunted her more than anything: was he a man she could rely on, or was he like her father?
She saw similarities between the two where she’d never seen them before—or maybe hadn’t wanted to see them. Handsome, charming, noble, bigger-than-life, intense and driven—the kind of men who never did things halfmeasure—they changed a room just by entering it. Was Gregor no more than a re-creation of the great noble knight to fill the gaping hole left in her heart by the one who’d abandoned her? Would he love her and then leave her when someone better came along? Or would the “heartbreaker” be able to give her the kind of commitment she needed?
The questions pecked away at her confidence, leaving her feeling vulnerable and unsure of herself. The man who she thought would never disappoint her had done just that. Gregor had been the anchor in her mind for so long that without him, she was foundering.
Although she might feel like she was drowning, Cate wasn’t ready to give up. The hard part about faith was believing even when there wasn’t a basis for it, and she believed in him—in them—even if he didn’t.
And that faith had just been rewarded. Cautioning Pip not to take Eddie too close to the water might seem like nothing, but to Cate it was a sign. She hadn’t been wrong about him. He cared even when he didn’t want to care. He was a natural protector and nothing at all like her father. Gregor had taken her in and never turned his back on her—even when she’d given him plenty of reason to do so. He would bluster and complain, but he wouldn’t turn his back on the children, either.
