“Need him?” Iliana asked anxiously. “Is Mother ill?”

Angus hesitated, then sighed. “The servant, Johnny-boy, said she’s a muckle mess.”

“A muckle mess? What is wrong with her?”

“From what the lad said, yer stepda took his temper to her,” he admitted reluctantly.

Gasping, Iliana lunged off the bed and hurried to the door, then whirled back to her chests. After tossing half of one’s contents on the floor, she came up with her bag of herbs. Leaving the mess as it was, she hurried out of the room, her hose still on only one leg and dragging on the ground behind her.

Staring after her departing figure, Duncan sighed. “Where does she get the energy?”

“Well, not from any carin’ or concern from ye, I can tell ye that much,” Angus turned to declare grimly. “Now get up!”

“Oh, ’tis good to see you, my lady!” Johnny-Boy’s relief was obvious on his large, weathered face as he rushed to the bottom of the stairs to greet Iliana. Despite his name, Johnny, six foot tall and burly as a barrel, was anything but a boy. He was a good ten years older than Iliana, but had been called Johnny-Boy as a child and somehow, despite the passing years, the name had stuck. “All will be well now.”

There was such uncertainty on his face as he spoke that Iliana’s anxiety increased tenfold. “How bad is she, Johnny-Boy? He did not take the whip to her?”

“Nay, my lady. Though it may have been kinder had he done so.”

When Iliana frowned over that, Johnny-Boy shook his head. “Ma says her ribs are broke, and mayhap her leg. She’s not well. Weak. Feverish. Ma was afraid to continue on without a cart or something for her to lie in. Lady Wildwood simply could not ride anymore. She collapsed soon as she knew we were on Dunbar land.”

Iliana’s legs went weak at that announcement, and she was grateful for Duncan’s steadying hand on her arm as he reached her side.

“Did ye order a cart?” Duncan asked Angus as he bent to finish putting his wife’s hose on for her.

“Aye,” Angus murmured, grabbing Iliana’s arm to steady her as Duncan raised her bare foot and stuck it in the hose, then tugged the material upward

Nodding, Duncan straightened and ushered Iliana toward the door, glancing worriedly at her pale face as he did.

Angus had ordered more than a cart. There were twenty mounted men, a cart, and three horses waiting when they started down the stairs. Ebba was already seated in the back of the wagon, her own bag of herbs on her lap.