He wasn’t entirely certain what was driving Caelen’s rage. But he’d find out.

The hour was late and most of the keep was solidly abed by now, and yet Keeley lay in her bed wide awake as the events of the day caught up to her. It had been an exhausting time and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold up under the strain without cracking.

She’d heard of no controversy involving Laird McDonald, so she could only surmise that Caelen had kept his word and told no one of the laird’s attack on her.

Her fingers curled into a fist and she had to make herself relax and filter the rage from her blood. She would have liked to have killed the bastard. Her only satisfaction was that he hadn’t got the best of her and she hadn’t been so paralyzed with fear that she hadn’t been able to defend herself.

She would have leaped from the window before allowing Laird McDonald to violate her.

What she really wanted was to march down the hall to where the bastard had stayed sequestered in his chamber all day and hit him again.

A soft knock at Keeley’s door had her sitting straight up in bed. She reached for a wrap and hastened to answer, worried that something had gone wrong with Mairin or the babe.

When she opened the door, she was stunned to see Rionna standing in the doorway, her expression indecipherable.

“Rionna?”

“Keeley,” Rionna greeted softly. “Can I come in?”

Keeley gripped the door until her knuckles were white. She didn’t want to have this conversation with Rionna. She didn’t want to talk to the woman at all. ’Twas enough that she knew she would wed with Alaric in a little more than a day’s time.

But she couldn’t avoid the inevitable forever. ’Twas better to have the conversation in privacy where they wouldn’t chance being overheard.

She relaxed her grasp on the door and opened it wider. “Aye, come in.”

Rionna walked in and Keeley shut the door behind her. Keeley walked across the floor to sit on the edge of her bed. She wouldn’t give Rionna the advantage and allow her to know how unsettled she was by her visit.

Rionna rubbed her hands down the men’s trews she wore and flexed her fingers in a nervous gesture. “There is much I would say to you, Keeley. Beginning with the fact that I am overjoyed that you are alive and well. I feared so much that something terrible had happened to you.”

Bitterness welled up and before Keeley could call back the words, she blurted out, “ ’Tis an odd thing to say given how I was turned from my home and left to survive on my own.”

Rionna shook her head, pain glittering in her golden eyes. “Nay. Not on your own.”