“Enough!” Angus roared. “Yer not so big I cannot still whup ye, lad. And do you not shut yer mouth, I’m like to prove it.”

There was a brief silence and they all stood uncomfortably around, no one seeming to want to leave. Then Iliana stepped forward, her gaze focusing on her mother. “Your gown is fair wrinkled. No doubt you would like to change ere the sup,” she suggested stiffly.

Lady Wildwood glanced down at herself and nodded with a sigh. Not only was her gown wrinkled, it was also filthy. In the excitement of the last two days, none of them had bathed or changed.

Smiling with feigned pleasantness at the two Dunbar men, Iliana moved again until she stood between her mother and Angus. “Perhaps you gentlemen would be good enough to arrange for a bath to be brought up? My mother and I would like to refresh ourselves.”

Angus looked about to argue, but a glance at Lady Wildwood’s expression made him sigh resignedly. Nodding, he moved to the door. “Come along, lad. Let’s leave the ladies be.”

“Are you very angry?”

Iliana turned from closing the door behind the two men to peer at her mother uncertainly. “Angry?” she queried evasively, unsure herself of how she felt. She supposed part of her felt a touch of hurt and betrayal on behalf of her father; part of her was just plain shocked, and another part…Well, she simply wasn’t sure how she felt.

“Nay, of course I am not angry,” she chided gently, moving abruptly toward the chests lining the wall. Throwing the nearest one open, she began to search through it, only to have her hands clasped by her mother’s and herself drawn around to face the woman.

“I loved your father very, very much.”

Iliana nodded silently, unable to meet her gaze.

“For a long time after Greenweld arrived with the news of his death, there was not a moment that went by that I did not think of your father. The pain of losing him was horrible.” Sighing when Iliana’s head remained bowed, she released her hands and sat back on her haunches before confessing, “Between that loss and the abuse I suffered at the hands of Greenweld, there were many days I thought of taking my own life.”

Iliana did glance up at that, but Lady Wildwood went on. “You were all that kept me alive, child. Worry for you, your future, and even your inheritance. My love for you would not see me end my life before assuring your own.”

“Oh, Mother,” Iliana cried, throwing herself into the older woman’s arms and hugging her close.

“I love you dearly, child. Just as I loved your father. But he is gone now. I did not think I would ever feel about another in the same way I did him.”