“I didn’t know what to think,” she admitted. “You’ve made your feelings about marriage quite clear.”
A wry smile pulled one corner of his mouth up. “Aye, well, it seems I’ve been good and trapped this time.”
The color drained from her face in a sheet of white. “T-trapped? I didn’t mean…Oh God, do you think I meant…?”
He grinned. Damn, she was cute. Of course he hadn’t thought that. Cate was far too straightforward and honest to do something so underhanded. If he thought she’d had an ulterior motive when she’d touched him last night, he would have walked away. It was ironic that he’d finally found himself in the exact situation he’d always wanted to avoid—being “caught” in bed with an innocent—and he didn’t mind at all. The public discovery of what he’d done had only hastened the inevitable.
“You don’t need to look so horrified—I was just jesting. Although if I’d known how enjoyable it could be to be trapped into marriage, I might not have resisted for so long.”
His levity didn’t seem to help. Her smile seemed forced, and her color had turned from pallid white to ill-looking gray.
Suddenly he sobered, realizing why. Christ, he was an unfeeling arse! What had just happened had no doubt been traumatic for her. Of course she wouldn’t be ready to jest when his brother had just walked in on themin flagrante delicto.
The lass was an innocent maid—or at least had been a few hours ago. She was probably properly mortified. As he should be, and would be, if he weren’t so damnedhappy. Aye, he was happy. He hadn’t thought she existed, but he’d found a woman who cared abouthim, and not all the superficial shite that other women couldn’t seem to look beyond.
He leaned over, cupped the side of her face, and kissed the worry gently from her mouth. By the time he was done, she was lying back on the bed and he was on his side with her tucked against him again—exactly where she belonged.
He lifted his head. Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his.
“You haven’t given me your answer,” he pointed out. “Although I supposed I never asked you a question. I will get down on my knee, if you like, but it feels a little silly in my current state of dress.” And his current state of arousal.
Her cheeks warmed with a soft pink blush, and she consciously or unconsciously—he didn’t care which—rubbed against him. “Where you are is just fine.”
Where he was was about a hair’s breadth from rolling on top of her, spreading her thighs with his, and sinking into her for the third time. That would be a proposal to remember.
His hunger for her hadn’t diminished any; if anything, it had only grown more ravenous and insatiable. What had she done to him? Not only had she turned him into a debaucher of virgins, but also a brutish ill-user of one.
His throat was surprisingly tight when he took her chin in his hand and caressed the velvety-soft skin that bore a faint burn from the scratch of his jaw. “Cate, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Cate blinked back tears. This couldn’t be happening. Gregor MacGregor, the man she’d been in love with for five long years, was leaning over herin bed, his tawny hair slumped rakishly across the face that had launched a thousand hearts if not ships, looking at her with a gentleness in his eyes she could never have imagined, and asking her to marry him.
Someone wake me up. For surely, I must be dreaming.
But she wasn’t. This was really happening. Everything she’d ever wanted was waiting for her to reach out and take it. To say yes.
But she couldn’t—not without being sure of his motivation.
His jest earlier had sent a chill through her veins, reminding her of the conversation she’d had with Seonaid and the thoughtless boast she’d made. She’d been certain that Gregor would marry her because he loved her, not because she’d intended to force him into anything. But she recalled with vivid detail the way she’d boldly—brazenly—touched him. She’d wanted to stop him from leaving, aye, but she hadn’t been trying to trap him. Nor could she have known John would come bursting into her room so early like that.
A small furrow of concern gathered between his brows. “I’d rather hoped my question wouldn’t require that much thinking.”
She took a deep breath. She had to know. “Why do you wish to marry me, Gregor?”
The furrow deepened. “I would have thought after last night that was obvious.”
It wasn’t; that was the problem. Was it simply the fact that he’d taken her innocence or was it because he cared about her? The word she most dreaded hearing right now was “honor.”
“I’m not a lady, Gregor. You know the manner of my birth. You do not need to marry me if you do not wish to do so.” She drew a pained breath through hot lungs. “My father will not come storming your gate with his sword drawn, demanding satisfaction.”
His face darkened. “He should. He should be drawn and quartered for leaving you like that. What kind of man—”
“Please, Gregor, I don’t want to speak of him—ever.”
She glanced away, unable to meet his gaze. His outrage on her behalf raised a question she didn’t want to ask herself.It doesn’t matter, she told herself. But what if it did? For the first time, the secret that she was keeping from him felt like a secret and not an irrelevant fact to be pushed under the bed and forgotten like her gown.
He took her chin and forced her gaze back to his. His expression wasn’t just dark now, it was also angry. “Do you think the manner of your birth makes any difference to me?”
“Maybe it should. It will to your family. What will your uncle say? No doubt the chief has expectations for you. You have a duty to marry—”
