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  Unfortunately, however, that same stubbornness that helped him drag himself out of the mud during practice also made him dig in his heels where Gregor was concerned.

  She pressed her lips together in a hard line. Gregor might have made her happier than any woman ought to be, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wish she could throttle him for a thing or two—Pip being foremost among them. Gregor and Pip had gotten off to a horrible start—in large part due to Gregor’s insensitive handling of the boy’s situation—but she was determined that would change. They would come to care for one another, even if it killed her.

  Ushering Pip inside the chamber, she motioned for him to take a seat on a stool by the brazier. She sat on the bed opposite him and tried to soothe his hurt by calmly responding to his demand. “I know you are not fond of the laird—”

  “I hate him!” Pip cut her off virulently. His eyes glinted with proof of his words. “He wasn’t supposed to marry you. He was supposed to leave. Men like him always leave.”

  Cate sensed something important lurking behind his words. She’d assumed that Pip had never known his father—he had professed him to be Gregor, after all—but he spoke as if from experience.

  Her heart went out to him. She knew how horrible it was to have one parent abandon you; how much worse it must be to have two. She would know the truth eventually, but she would wait until he trusted her enough to tell it.

  “Pip,” she said patiently, “you barely know him.”

  “I know all I need to know,” he said with a belligerent thrust of his chin. “I saw the way he was looking at you last night in your chamber when you had a nightmare; I knew what he was going to do. He hurt you!”

  Cate was shocked—and embarrassed—by how much the boy had guessed. “He didn’t hurt me, Pip,” she said quietly.

  His mouth drew in a tight line. “I might be a bastard, but I know that what he did was wrong. I know all about him. I know how many women he takes to his bed. Why do you think my mother—”

  He stopped, staring at her with wide, horror-struck eyes.

  “Why do I think your mother what?” she asked gently.

  His face crumpled, and tears he was valiantly trying to hold at bay shone hotly in his eyes. “You’re going to hate me, and want to send me away just like him. He knows—or thinks he knows.”

  “Knows what, Pip?”

  The whole sordid tale burst out in a wave of tears and choking apologies. Apparently, his mother, who had been ill-used and then discarded by one of the MacGregor tacks-men a few years after Pip’s birth, had seen the money he’d sent to her every month to care for the child end on his death about six months ago. Pip had tried to do odd jobs to make money, but whatever he made was barely enough to pay for his mother’s ale, let alone keep them fed and clothed as well.

  Turned to bitterness and drink, his mother had begun concocting wild stories about his father, until it seemed even she believed them. Unable to feed them both, she’d forced Pip to go to the man who’d bedded so many women, saying, “Why couldn’t he have been your father?” Pip had gone along with it because he’d expected to be turned away at the door. He’d never imagined Cate would take pity on him.

  He’d wanted to tell her the truth, but he’d been scared that she would send him away. When his mother found out he’d been taken in—and how well he was being treated—she’d demanded he give her money or she would take him from his new home.

  About halfway through the story, Cate had taken him in her arms, holding those scrawny shoulders with all the affection she’d been wanting to show him from the first. She heard what he wasn’t saying as well. His mother’s abuse had been physical as well.

  By the time he was done, they were both shaking: Pip with sobs, and Cate with outrage. She’d known there would be a story, and it would be an ugly one, but what kind of woman could do that to her child? Cate didn’t care what she’d been through, or how mired she was in her drunkenness—it was inexcusable. Poor Pip.

  “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m sorry for lying to you and not telling you the truth. But I knew you’d send me away.”

  “I have no intention of sending you anywhere, Pip. This is your home.”

  He pulled back and looked up at her as if she were either deaf or addled. “Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

  She nodded. “I heard you perfectly.”

  “But you’re marrying him; he won’t let me stay.” He paused, a gleam in his dark eyes. “Maybe you can marry John instead?”

  Cate fought a smile, but she returned his earnestness with her own. “But I don’t love John; I love Gregor.”

  His face fell. “You do?”

  She nodded.

  He didn’t hide his distaste. “Does he love you?”

  How like a young person to get right to the heart of the matter. She didn’t blame him for asking it, when she wondered as much herself. Sometimes it was a little difficult to conceive. “I think so, but I don’t think he realizes it yet. Gregor does not form attachments easily.”

  Pip’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

  She smiled. “Nothing more than a healthy case of cynicism. He’s had so many women offering him their hearts for the wrong reasons, he’s become jaded. He does not trust easily,” she added. Thinking of Isobel and what happened with his brother, perhaps it was understandable. To say he’d erected defensive walls around himself was putting it mildly.

  Pip didn’t look convinced.

  “Give him a chance, Pip—you’ll see. He won’t let us down.”

  Sixteen

  It was just before midnight on Christmas Eve when Gregor finally climbed the stairs to his chamber. Between the long masses of the season and his duties as laird, it had been a tiresome day.

  He forced his gaze away from the door on the left, but not before noticing the tempting glow of candlelight spilling out from underneath.

  She was awake. Knowing that, and how close she was, sure as hell didn’t make it easy to do the right thing.

  He wasn’t a lad in the first throes of passion, damn it—even if she made him feel like one. He could wait until they were married to have her in his bed. God knew, she could probably use the time to recover from the other night.

  But he had a feeling it was going to be a very long twelve nights. Assuming he could secure a dispensation with the king’s help from Lamberton, the Bishop of St. Andrews, Gregor hoped to marry Cate on January fifth—Twelfth Night—the day marking the end to the winter festival on the eve of the Epiphany.

  He could have waited the three weeks for the banns to be read, but with Bruce expected to call him back in early January for the siege on Perth Castle, that would mean delaying their wedding until the next time he could return home.

  That he would not countenance. Cate was his, and he wanted it to be true in fact as well as in deed.

  He’d never imagined that he would be the one making haste to the altar. But it was as if once the last hurdle in his mind had been cleared, there was nothing stopping him from seeing what he wanted: Cate as his wife, standing beside him in the day and sleeping beside him at night. Although there probably wouldn’t be much sleeping for a while.

  Just thinking about what he’d like to be doing to her right now was enough to make him hot, hard, and frustrated. It was her fault for being so damned responsive and uninhibited. She made love just like she did everything else: no holds barred, without pretense or artifice and with unbridled passion.

  With a little experience …

  God help him! He didn’t even want to think about it. She could bring him to his knees.

  Perhaps she already had. What he felt for her was like nothing he’d ever felt for a woman before.

  Did he love her? He didn’t know if he was capable of that kind of emotion. But her belief in him made him want to be the kind of man who could stay by the hearth, and maybe for now that was enough.

  He closed the door, putting temptation firmly behind him. Bare