Cate refused to allow herself to feel pity for him. She hardened her heart. “Any guilt Robert Bruce felt is deserved. We are all just pawns to a nobleman’s ambition. What are the lives of a few villagers in the name of a throne? What is a daughter?” She paused, and quickly added, “Or a wife.”
“That isn’t Bruce at all, Cate. You don’t know him the way I do. He is a great man; there is no one I believe in more. He believed in me when no one else did. When I first came to him, I was young and more braggart and conceited than warrior. But he helped me hone my skills from sport at the Games to the battlefield. He helped make me a warrior.”
Cate felt ill. Gregor’s admiration for the king went far deeper than she’d realized. God, he almost made him sound like afather. And she better than anyone knew the danger in that. She didn’t want him to know the same disappointment that she had.
“Scotland needs him. It’s staggering to think of what he’s already accomplished, and how close we are to victory. Robert the Bruce belongs on the throne, and I will do all in my power to see him there permanently.” He took her chin and lifted her face to his. “It’s important to me that you give him a fair chance, Cate. Believe me, he never imagined—none of us did—what would happen to your village for helping us.”
“‘Us’? You weren’t there.”
“Two of my closest friends—men I consider brothers—were among the men your village provided shelter to. If you hadn’t, they would be dead. They were two of the men who were with me when I found you in the well.”
She gazed at him wordlessly. She hadn’t realized…
“Bruce mourns each loss of life in this war and carries the weight of it with him every day. No one knows more than he does what has been lost in the pursuit of a throne. But it isn’t just the three brothers and close friends who he mourns, it’s also people like your mother and the other villagers. He was even worried about you, Cate.”
Her heart stopped, and then started thudding wildly. Fearing he would notice, she moved off him just enough to break contact. Instantly, she was cold. “Me?”
“Aye, he was very interested in you.” Gregor frowned, as if something about the memory bothered him.
“You didn’t tell him anything?”
With how anxiously she’d spoken, it was no wonder that he gave her an odd look.
“I told him what I knew at the time: your name and age.” He reconsidered. “At least what we thought your age to be, eleven or twelve.”
Cate hoped her relief wasn’t visible. She’d never expected the king to take a personal interest in her, but it was a good thing that she’d lied about her name—both her names. Bruce wouldn’t have known of her mother’s second husband. When Bruce left them, her mother had been about to marry her first husband.
Though she wanted to ask more, she feared she’d already said too much. Gregor was too perceptive. She didn’t want him to guess that the man he so revered was the same man who’d abandoned her when she was five.
“I was small for my age,” she said.
He smiled. “You are still small for your age.”
“Big enough to put you on your ar—” She stopped when he gave her a warning glance. “Back,” she finished sweetly.
“Aye, well, just don’t think the king didn’t care. He did. Bruce took the loss of your village very hard. He said it had been some time since he’d visited, but he knew many of the villagers personally.” Something seemed to occur to him. “Did you know him, Cate?”
She thought she had. At one time, she’d thought there was no man greater than Robert Bruce, the dashing young Earl of Carrick. But it turned out she hadn’t known him at all. The man she’d boasted of as the greatest knight in Christendom had cut her out of his life as thoroughly as if she’d never existed. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t made her love him first. Her heart pinched at the memory of just how much she’d loved the man who’d sired her.
“He came to our village when I was a child,” she answered carefully, in what she hoped was a neutral voice.
“And you were not dazzled? I’m surprised. Not many women are immune to the charm of Robert Bruce.”
Not many at all. Her mother certainly hadn’t been. Cate hadn’t been either—at least for a while. And from what she heard, there were at least a few other women with natural children of Bruce who had been quite charmed as well. “Aye, well, maybe it takes a bit more than superficial charms to impress me.”
He lifted a brow. “Is that directed at me by any chance?”
She grinned. “Nay, but you might want to keep it in mind. The ‘dazzle’ of that face is bound to wear off…in a dozen years or so.”
“Good to know,” he said dryly. “And what happens when I need to impress you then?”
She rolled on top of him, savoring the feel of his hard masculine body against hers. “I suspect you will be able to think of a thing or two.”
She couldn’t believe that husky sound was her voice.
His hand slid down to grip her bottom and fit her snugly against him. Instantly, her body turned hot and liquid. He groaned as he gripped her by the back of her head and kissed her—hard. She reveled in the knowledge that the contact affected him the same way it did her.
She could feel the heat of him growing between her legs, when he suddenly pulled back. “God, you are going to kill me. But you need some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
