She would not despair. Despite the fact that her husband had made no promises and voiced no pledges, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. He had given her this plaid. It must mean something. Perhaps it was his way of saying what he could not say with words.

It was time for the noon meal when Iliana arrived below dressed in one of the undertunics and the plaid her husband had gifted her with. Everyone seemed to be at table but for Duncan and Allistair. Iliana took her seat beside her mother and glanced curiously around.

“You slept late, my dear. Are you quite recovered from our excitement yesterday?”

Iliana nodded at her mother’s question. “Where is my husband?”

“He is meeting with the material merchant.”

Iliana’s gaze narrowed on the older woman’s secret smile. “Why?”

“He has things he wished to purchase,” was the obvious answer, and Iliana grimaced at it.

“What things?”

“Material, I suppose.”

Before she could question her further, Iliana’s attention was turned by Duncan’s entering the room. She was aware of his presence the moment he stepped through the keep doors. It seemed to her that the very air itself in the hall was suddenly different, and she could not understand why no one else noticed. She seemed the only person who had sensed his entrance.

He caught her gaze then and grinned, making Iliana realize that she had been smiling widely at him. Flushing slightly, she lowered her gaze abruptly to her trencher, feeling suddenly shy.

Her self-consciousness was short-lived, however, for the keep door slammed open behind him, and Iliana peered around to eye it curiously. Allistair was coming through the door shouldering the weight of an unconscious man. It was an injured Englishman.

Chapter Seventeen

Duncan stood and scowled at the unconscious man Allistair was half-carrying into the keep.

“Who—” Duncan began, only to be cut off by his cousin.

“He is a messenger from Lord Rolfe.”

Duncan cursed. He had hoped this was Greenweld’s man. “How was he injured?”

“Saving my life.”

Duncan stilled at that, and Allistair grimaced, his gaze sliding past him to Laird Angus, Lady Wildwood, and Iliana as they moved to join Duncan and hear the explanation. “I thought I spied someone duck behind a tree as I was riding back with the cloth merchant.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

Allistair shrugged. “By the time I got to the tree there was no one there, and I thought mayhap I hadn’t really seen anything at all.”

“But you went back to check.”

“Aye…Well, it was bothering me. I thought if there truly had been someone there, he would have left some sign somewhere in the area.”

“And did you find any signs?” Angus asked, stepping forward now to lift and peer at the head of the man his nephew held upright.