The Arrow Read online

  He was feeling it again. The heat. That strange tingling of his skin. The blasted awareness. The blasted inappropriate awareness.

  The top of her head only came to his mid-chest, but he could still remember how it had felt tucked under his chin. How warm and silky her hair had been. How she’d smelled like wildflowers. How firm but undeniably feminine she’d felt in his arms.

  What the hell was the matter with him? This was Caitrina. The lass he was responsible for, no matter how unwittingly—the lass he was supposed to protect from men like him. Bloody hell, he needed to find a little self-control.

  Drawing his hand through his hair, he made a sound of frustration. Returning to the subject at hand, he said, “How did he come to be here?”

  “His mother left him at the gate. She told him he was to find you and inform you that he was your son, and that it was time for you to take care of the lad, as she could no longer do so on her own.”

  He might have felt a pang of sympathy for the boy at his cruel abandonment by the woman who’d given birth to him had Gregor not been so certain every word of it was a falsehood. The boy and his mother were probably in league together. God knew what they hoped to gain by their trickery. “What was this woman’s name?”

  She shrugged, as if the question wasn’t important to her. “You’ll have to ask your son.”

  He tried to control his temper, he did. But Caitrina—Cate—had a way of bringing out the worst in him. She was so blasted stubborn and too damned free with her opinions. He was her guardian, for Christ’s sake! She should defer to his opinions. Respect her elders.

  “He is not my son,” he reiterated, emphasizing each word.

  “So you’ve said.”

  His jaw clenched at her smile. “And the other two children? Let me guess—they were abandoned as well, not long after word of Pip’s arrival spread, I would wager.”

  She flushed, tossing her muddy hair as regally as any queen. “There is no cause to be sarcastic.”

  “No cause? Christ, did you not think the timing just a little suspicious? Suddenly I go from having no progeny to three in the space of a couple of months? You are lucky there haven’t been more showing up on my doorstep.”

  Her eyes widened and blinked. “You mean you have more natural children out there?”

  Gregor squeezed his fists, praying for patience. Though she said it innocently enough, sometimes he could swear she was purposefully being obtuse just to get a rise out of him—irritation, not the other kind of rise, although regretfully she had managed to do that as well. Being around Cate was beginning to make him feel like an old lecher.

  “I do not have any children. Get rid of them, Caitrina.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I won’t ‘get rid’ of them; you are responsible—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “I have no more duty to them than I do to any child off the high street of any village in Scotland.”

  She gasped, gazing up at him with a vulnerable expression on her face that he hadn’t seen in a long time. The look that made his cotun feel like it was too tight. “Like me, you mean?”

  He cursed with frustration at the inadvertent hurt his words had caused. Of course she would sympathize with these foundlings. She knew what it was like to be left all alone in the world. “Ah, hell, I didn’t mean it like that. You were different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we were responsible for what happened to you.”

  “You weren’t responsible. You weren’t even there when the men sought shelter. If anyone was responsible, it was your king. Robert Bruce was the one who told those men to seek refuge in our village. So why did you offer to take me?”

  He knew what she was trying to wrest from him, but it wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t what she thought he was. Cate wanted to see him as some kind of noble knight. A man she could rely on. That sure as hell wasn’t him. One of the reasons he’d stayed away so much over the years was because he didn’t want to disillusion her—even though he knew without a doubt that one day he would.

  “Because it made sense, and it was the easiest solution. I knew my mother would love you, and I hoped you would be happy here.”

  “I have been, and so will they—”

  He stopped her, suspecting where she was heading. “It won’t work, Caitrina. They aren’t staying here. If you don’t find a place for them, I will. God knows there are a lot of mothers struggling to care for their bairns in this war, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let Dunlyon be used as a refuge for foundlings or claim children who aren’t mine.”

  After the unwelcome tenderness he was feeling toward the lass, he was almost glad to see the irritation returning to her dirt-smudged features.

  Her eyes narrowed. “How can you be so certain they aren’t yours? From what I hear, you are not lacking in bed partners. Is your seed incapable of bearing fruit?”

  Gregor could only stand there and gape. How was it that this young girl managed to do what no one else could and so thoroughly, so maddeningly, disconcert him? He didn’t know what was worse: that she’d been listening to gossip about the number of women he took to bed (or rather, the number of women who took him to their bed) or that she’d just questioned the potency of his “seed.” Both were inappropriate topics for any young woman, let alone his … his … whatever the hell she was!

  “I am perfectly capable of siring children, damn it! When I want them.”

  She wrinkled her nose, causing the dried mud to crack. The thin whisker lines it made on her face made her look like a bedraggled kitten. But any warm, fuzzy feelings were quickly quashed when she spoke. “I don’t see how you can know that unless you’ve tried. And with all those women, one would think—”

  He took a step toward her, fighting a losing battle for patience. “Caitrina …”

  Wisely, she took a step back. “So you are telling me that it’s completely out of the realm of possibility that you could have made a mistake?”

  “I don’t make mistakes.”

  She gave him a look that was filled with more understanding than he liked. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Not me. Not that kind.” He was always careful. Very careful. Although there was always the smallest, tiniest possibility …

  Hell, she’d done it again. Turned him inside out. Upside down. Confused him. Rattled him, blast it.

  Like any born warrior, she sensed the weakness and went in for the kill. “Just meet them, Gregor. You’ll see—”

  He put up his hand, trying to tell himself it wasn’t like a white banner. So much for Bàs roimh Gèill. Death before Surrender, the motto of the Highland Guard—and his before he’d met Cate. “I’ve already met one of them, and I know for a fact he is not mine. It will be the same for the other two. I will see them, but it will not change my mind.”

  “Oh Gregor, thank you!”

  She’d apparently ignored the “won’t change my mind” part, proving she wasn’t immune to the skill possessed by so many of her sex to hear only what they wanted to hear.

  When it looked as if she might throw herself into his arms, he took a step back.

  Mistaking the cause, she made a face. “I suppose I should get cleaned up first.”

  It wasn’t the dirt; he just didn’t trust himself to touch her.

  “They aren’t staying, Caitrina.”

  The smile quickly slid from her face. He regretted it, but it was necessary. He didn’t want any misunderstandings.

  She held his gaze, and after a moment, nodded. He wasn’t foolish enough to mistake it for acquiescence; it was more temporary acceptance. But in this he would stay firm. No more foundlings. Worrying about her was distracting enough; he sure as hell wasn’t going to take on any more. His responsibility toward Cate was always hanging over him; even when fighting he thought of her. More so of late, the reasons for which he didn’t want to examine.

  He was supposed to be clearing his head, damn it. Getting rid of all distractions, not adding to them.