Duncan screamed as the dagger sawed its way back out of his shoulder, and then he slumped over, unconscious. It would have been the perfect time to escape, except that he’d fallen on Maggie, effectively pinning her to the floor between the carriage seats. Wriggle and fight though she did, she wasn’t able to get out from under Duncan’s weight, and she was freed only when the carriage came to a halt at the rear of the Kirk house, in the alleyway. The driver hauled Duncan out, supporting him by drawing one of his lifeless arms around his own shoulders.

Maggie’s first instinct was to run, but she realized she couldn’t do that as Bridget O’Malley, red hair flying free, came bounding down the path from the rear door of the house to help bring Duncan inside. Where could Maggie flee in a torn and rumpled dress splattered with blood? Besides, her things were still in her room. She might have left most of them behind, but she couldn’t go without the little photograph of her parents; it was all she had left of them.

Bridget, wearing only a nightgown and wrapper, shot Maggie a killing look as she fell into step beside her and the carriage driver, who were supporting a moaning, delirious Duncan between them.

“What in the name of God happened?”

No one answered Bridget’s question; instead, Maggie offered one of her own. “Where are the boys?” she demanded calmly. It would never do for them to see such a bloody spectacle as this, she thought grimly.

“Still sleeping,” Bridget said tersely as they entered the kitchen. “Let’s put him in my room,” she told the driver.

Maggie bounded up the stairs while they were about the task of getting Duncan into bed. Moving more quickly than she ever had in her life, Maggie pulled the beggar’s badge from its hiding place in her bodice and stripped off the once-beautiful dress that she’d worn to Government House. She poured water into a basin from the china pitcher on her dressing table. Frantically, she washed every trace of Duncan’s blood from her body, and when that was done, she put on her own ugly gray woolen dress and snatched her reticule from the floor of the armoire. Into the valise went the medallion Jamie had worn.

The tentative rap at Maggie’s bedroom door made her stiffen and bite her lower lip. If she didn’t call out, perhaps whoever was there would go away.

Instead, the door squeaked open. Jeremy was standing there in his nightshirt, his green eyes wide. “I saw them bringing Papa in, miss,” he said without preamble, “and you, with your dress all bloody—”