Almost silent.
She froze when she entered, her weary senses rising to alert.
What was that?
The tiniest of sounds only. A mewling as from a very small kitten. A whisper.
She followed it across the floor of her chamber, past the shrouded bed, and to the door of Bonnie’s tiny room, alarm leaping as she determined what it must be. She flung open the door.
The scene within impressed itself upon her in one horrifying image. A single candle burned low on a small saucer. Bonnie had flung herself face down on her narrow cot but turned—in apparent terror—as Annista came in.
Blood on her face and her hair half fallen—Bonnie, who was always so neat. Her night dress torn. Blood there also, when she turned. Terror in her eyes.
“Bonnie! My dear!”
Bonnie mewled again. She’d been weeping, her face stained with tears.
“What—”
But Annista thought she knew. And a surge of pure, black rage filled her, mingling with the dawning terror.
“Where is he? Where is he?”
She hollered the words, stepping back out into her chamber as if she thought to catch the monster lingering there, a leer still on his face. Her fingers went to the knife in her pocket, murder in her heart.
The connecting door to Alan’s chamber opened and he stood there. At any other moment, Annista might have acknowledged she’d been given the answer to her earlier wish, for Alan stood clad in only his trousers, even those unfastened, his broad chest bare and displaying a dusting of black hair.
As it was, she scarcely noticed.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is it—”
“He was here.”
His hair tumbled as he looked around.
“Is he still here?”
“Nay. Gone. But no’ before he attacked my maid.”
Chapter Nineteen
Annista huddled down beside Bonnie on her bed and very, very gently took the little maid into her arms. Bonnie hid her face against Annista’s shoulder and continued to weep.
Annista feared the worst, and the black rage inside her was a formidable thing. She feared the worst—but needed to hear the truth.
Even as Alan stood apparently frozen in the doorway behind them, she whispered to Bonnie, “What happened, my darling. What happened to ye?”
“He—he—”
“Who?”
“The young master.”
“When? How long ago?” Could Annista still catch him? She wanted to get her hands on him. To do an equal harm. “But first, aye, she must know all.
Gently, she smoothed the damp hair back from Bonnie’s face. Her fingers came away slick with blood.
“Why was he here?”
