“What meant you when you said mayhap you were not surprised?” The very casualness of his tone told her that her answer was important to him.

“Just what I said. I was not surprised.”

His mouth tightened and he straightened impatiently. “Why?”

“Because it was you who tried to kill me that night in the bedchamber.”

He paled at her words, and Iliana nearly sighed her disappointment aloud. She had been hoping she was wrong, that selling out to Greenweld was his only sin. But from the moment when Elgin had awoken her that morning, she had been fretting over the fact that her attacker had worn a plaid. And when she had found herself confronted by Allistair in the clearing, she had feared that he was the answer to everything that had been happening of late. She had not wanted to believe it. He was Duncan’s cousin. He’d shown his affection for Seonaid openly. How could he betray them like this? Why?

“Ye kenned it was me that night?” The horror on his face gave way to sudden suspicion. “Nay. Had ye kenned that, ye would have tol’ Duncan and he would have killed me.”

“I did not at first recognize that it was you. It was not until this morning that I recalled that my attacker that night had worn a plaid,” she explained grimly, her anger finally coming to life. “Now, will you tell me why you would join with Greenweld to see my mother dead? She has done naught to you.”

He waved her words away. “She was never really my target at all. Duncan was.”

Iliana peered at him blankly. “But the night I was attacked—”

“I meant to kill Duncan.”

“But how did you know my mother—?”

“Was no longer sleeping there?” He smiled slightly. “I sat next to you at dinner. Don’t ye recall? I was on yer left, yer mother on yer right. I heard every word she said to ye that night. And one of the last things she said was that she was vacating yer room so that ye and yer husband could get to ken each other better. It was too perfect. No one else would ken that. They would all assume that the attack had been meant for Lady Wildwood.” When Iliana merely continued to stare at him blankly, he shook his head with mild disgust.

“Ye still don’t understand, do ye? Ye disappoint me. I had not thought ye just another stupid Sassenach female. Think. Had I merely set out to kill Duncan…well, and sure enough it wouldn’t have been hard to deduce who the culprit was. After all, why would anyone kill Duncan? The only reason to do that was to—”

“Take his place as heir,” Iliana realized suddenly as the answer clicked into place in her head.

“There ye are! Now yer thinkin’,” he applauded.

“But you are his cousin,” she protested at once. “His blood kin.”