The crash of the bedroom door brought an end to her shrieks and Iliana peered warily over the bed, relief making her sag when she saw that her attacker was gone.

“Iliana!”

Recognizing her mother’s panicked voice coming down the hall, Iliana sighed wearily and began to push at the sheets tangled around her legs. Candlelight lit the room a moment later, and she glanced up to see her mother, Ebba, Gertie, and Lord Angus all rush into the chamber. They paused inside the door, peering around the seemingly empty room, until they spotted her on the floor on the other side of the bed. Then her mother handed her candle to her maid and rushed forward.

“What is it, dear?” Lady Wildwood hurried around the bed, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was dressed only in her undertunic.

Laird Angus did not miss that fact, however; his eyes were glued to the older woman as she reached her daughter’s side and bent to help her anxiously to her feet.

“Was it a nightmare? Did you fall out of bed?”

Angus drew his eyes reluctantly from the mother’s scanty attire to peer at his daughter-in-law. His gaze was immediately drawn to the splotch of red blooming on her white gown. “Yer bleedin’!” He was across the room before he had finished making that observation.

Iliana glanced at her side with a frown. The heat she had felt as she had rolled off the bed had been the knife slicing through her side, it seemed. There was a tear in her tunic and blood soaking into it where she had been cut. “’Tis not so bad,” Iliana murmured. “’Tis just a scratch, really.”

Ignoring her words, Angus bent to pull the sides of the slit in her gown apart, and examined the cut beneath it. He was frowning when he straightened. “What happened?”

“Someone came into the room. I thought it was Duncan and rolled over to speak to him, but it was not him—”

“Who was it?” Lady Wildwood asked, wide-eyed.

“I do not know. It all happened so quickly. And it was dark. I saw a man, but his face was in shadow. Then I saw the knife.” Shuddering, she pressed her hand to her side to ease the pain. “I screamed and rolled off the bed as he stabbed.”

“’Tis good ye did, else ye would not be alive to make these explanations,” Angus muttered grimly, then glanced toward the door where a small crowd was gathering. When he did not see his son among them, he turned back to Iliana. “Where is my son?”

She hesitated briefly, then reached up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.

Lady Wildwood raised her eyebrows at the action, her curiosity piqued…. Especially when thunderclouds began to gather on the man’s face.