She lay wide-eyed in the feather bed watching as the first rosy tint of light fell on the silk wallpaper of her room. Her body felt loggy; her mind whirled with uneasy and half-thought ideas. Her first instinct was to escape back to the safety of her grandmother's presence. Tallworth's attack had disoriented her, shaking the foundation of security she had held to be an inviolable part of herself. Up to now her life had been a sheltered one, she realized. She had never been in physical want for any of the basic needs, never had to call on her own character strengths before, never been tested. Cara had known sorrow at the death of her mother and then more recently with her father's death. She had felt frustration with the marriage that had been arranged for her. She had felt anger and the burgeoning of passion in her relationship with Julian. But she had never known fear. The attack in the schoolroom had frightened her out of all proportion to any other emotion. But with that fear came a realization of her own inner strength.
