Midnight Honor (4 page)

Anne had known The MacGillivray most of her life. His smile could still raise a flush of gooseflesh on her arms, and while her wits and thighs were safe enough, it had not always been so. Indeed, there had been a time when Wild Ruadh Annie and Big John MacGillivray were veering toward becoming much more than just friends.

“Lady Anne,” he said quietly, nodding.

“MacGillivray.”

It felt awkward addressing each other with such formality. Then again, it had been many a year since she had shadowed her cousins around to all the fairgrounds in the hopes of wagering a penny or two on MacGillivray's wrestling skills. In fact, it had been after one arousingly successful day when he won all five bouts he had entered that he had taken Anne out behind one of the booths and kissed her for the first time. It had been a hot day and he had been stripped to the waist, his muscles oiled and gleaming in the sunlight….

“Come,” Fearchar said, startling Anne as he dragged an empty chair closer to the fire. “Set yersel' doon, lassie. Ye must be chilled frae the long ride. Ye'll take a dram tae warm yer bones?”

Anne smiled. “Aye, Granda'. A bit of warmth would not go amiss.”

The old warrior chuckled and waved a hand by way of a signal to James, who produced a stoneware jug of
uisque baugh
. Fearchar removed the bung and tipped the crock to his lips, taking two deep swallows before he passed it to Anne.

She accepted it warily, hesitating when she saw the bright and entirely involuntary film of water sparkle in his eyes. “Your own, then, is it?” she asked in a wry murmur.

“Aye.” He sucked at a large mouthful of air to cool his throat. “An' I'll thank ye tae notice I've no' lost ma touch.”

Anne braced herself and raised the jug. She matched the two hearty swallows her grandfather had taken, determined not to choke as the fiery Highland spirits slid over her tongue and scorched a path through her chest into her stomach. Once there, though, a fireball exploded, searing through her veins, boiling into her extremities, where it scalded the nerve endings and left the flesh numb with shock.

When she could, she followed Fearchar's example and took an enormous mouthful of ale from the tankard that had appeared magically at her elbow, swallowing in broken gulps that set her cousins, Gillies, and even the stone-faced MacGillivray laughing.

“Mary Mother of Christ,” she gasped. “'Tis a wonder you've not burned a hole clear through your bellies!”

Fearchar smacked his lap and gave a gleeful cackle. “Blew up three stillmen, but, when they thought tae take a pipe afterward.”

“I'm not surprised.” She took another cooling mouthful of ale and wiped the foam on the back of her hand. “Though I'm sure you've not brought me all the way out here tonight just to prove you can still brew up the barley with the best. What has happened? Why are you here in Inverness when you know full well every soldier in Fort George would trade their firstborn sons to collect the reward the
Sassenachs
have put on your head?”

Fearchar's happy expression faded and he glanced quickly at the other men in the room before gathering a rattled breath to speak.

“Ye've no' heard, then.”

It was not a question so much as a painful wrench of emotion, and Anne's first thought was that someone must have died. Someone close to her. Someone whose death her grandfather did not want her hearing from a stranger.

“Has something happened to Angus?” she asked in a whisper.

Fearchar scowled and cursed under his breath. “Yer husband is as fine an' fit as he were when he left yer bed two days ago. Fitter than he has a right tae be, ye ask me.”

“Then what—?”

“The prince has turned his army around. They're in retreat.”

“Retreat!” Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “But… but that's not possible! They were only a few days' march out of London—you sent me word of it yourself.”

“Aye, an' now we're here tae tell ye the army is turned away,” Robbie said quietly. “We're tellin' ye that General Wade is closin' in on their right flank wi' five thousan' men; General Ligonier is on their left wi' another seven thousan'; an' comin' straight up their backsides is the Duke o' Christ-less Cumberland wi' a few thousan' troops he's brought wi' him off the battlefield in Flanders. That puts about twenty thousan' in all between the prince an' London, an' the chiefs decided it were just askin' too much f'ae our brave lads tae try tae fight their way through. Not when they've had no support frae either end—none frae here, none in England. Two hundred men, we were told, is all that joined up since they crossed the River Esk, where they were promised bluidy thousands.”

“They should have known better than to trust promises,” MacGillivray said from the shadows. “The king of France promised thousands o' troops, an' how many did he send? None. He promised guns an' ammunition an' money as well to pay the men for the crops we'll not be able to plant come the spring. What did we get? More o' nothin'.”

“Crops?” Fearchar glared angrily over his shoulder. “How can a man think o' crops when his king an' country need him?”

“When his family is starvin' an' his children are dyin'
from the cold, that is all he thinks about,” MacGillivray answered flatly. “He worries if they have a roof over their heads an' if they have enough meat to tide them over the winter. Why do ye suppose so many men on both sides slip away in the night? It's no' because they're afraid to fight or to die in battle. It's because they want to take a coin or a bit o' bread back to their wives. That's all a simple man cares about.”

“An' you?” Eneas asked. “What dae
you
care about, MacGillivray?”

“Me?” Someone moved and an errant shaft of lamplight cut across the Highlander's face, revealing a disdainful curve at the corner of his mouth. “I care about what ma chief orders me to care about. Just like the rest o' ye. That's why we're here debatin' the whys an' wherefores o' battles fought an' not fought instead o' bein' out in the fields fightin' them.” His eyes glittered like two chips of black ice as he looked in Anne's direction. “Because we've all been forbidden to do much else, have we not?”

Anne endured the derision in his eyes as long as she could before faltering and turning away. She was reminded, every single hour of every single day, that men like MacGillivray and Gillies and her cousins would be in Derby now with the prince's army if Angus had not bound them to their oaths. She also knew that if not for so many other lairds like Angus who had chosen caution over passion, the Jacobite army would have been equal to anything the English could muster against them. The five thousand brave men who had followed the Stuart prince to Derby would be ten, fifteen thousand strong and would not now be enduring the humiliation of a retreat.

“They've not been defeated yet, have they?” Anne whispered. “Just because they are being prudent and returning home to Scotland, that does not mean they do so in defeat.”

Fearchar rallied somewhat. “No one has said aught about a defeat! As it happens, the prince has sent word tae all the clans that he only plans tae wait out the winter before he strikes south again, an' he's already proved he has the heart an' courage tae dae it. All he needs tae dae is come home an' build up the strength o' his army. He needs tae hold the throne o' Scotland f'ae his father an' drive these
Sassenach
basthards
out o' Inverness an' Perth. He needs”—Fearchar leaned forward for emphasis—“
all
o' his lairds an' chiefs tae believe in him enough tae
want
tae make Scotland their own again.”

“Angus wants an independent Scotland as much as the next man,” she insisted calmly.

“Then why is he no' in Derby wi' his prince? Why is he wearin' a captain's uniform f'ae a company o' the king's Black Watch, an' why is he in Inverness this very night sup-pin' at the bluidy table of Duncan bluidy Forbes?”

“He is only trying to keep the peace—”

“Peace?” Fearchar straightened. “Aye, I've nae doubt they all want a piece o' the spoils! Him an' MacLeod an' Argyle. Och! Argyle wants a piece o' Lochaber so badly there's no need f'ae Forbes tae pay him wi' Judas gold.”

Gillies MacBean arched an eyebrow and ventured gingerly into the fray. “Argyle never needed a bribe tae fight the Camerons, especially after he heard the
Camshroinaich Dubh
was back in Lochaber.”

“Ewen Cameron?” Fearchar's eyes rounded out of their creases. “He's risen up out o' his grave?”

“No' the auld Dark Cameron,” Eneas said gently. “The young one. Lochiel's brither, Alexander.”

“Oh. Och, aye. I ken'd that,” Fearchar grumbled, and waved his hand to dismiss his own lapse of memory. “I ken'd wee Alasdair were who ye meant all the while.”

With almost the next breath, his shoulders slumped forward and his head bowed over the support of his walking stick. Like a bladder losing air he seemed to collapse in on himself until he was just a rounded bundle of rags and wispy gray hair.

“Granda'!” Anne started to reach out, but Robbie waylaid her hand.

“He does that now an' then. Just drops off, has a wee nap, then sits up like as nothin' has happened. He'll be right as rain in a few minutes, mark my words.”

“I dinna have to mark your words, Robbie. I can mark how thin and tired he is. He is far too old to be hiding in the hills and living out of caves!”

Jamie came to his brother's defense. “Aye, well, ye can be the one tae tell him so, then, cousin. I'm certain he'll listen
tae you, where he just clouts the rest o' us wi' his stick an' ignores aught we say. He were determined tae come here tonight an' here he came, a pox on the snow, a pox on the wind, a pox on the thousand militia swarmin' around Inverness.”

“Two,” Annie said softly, stroking a fold of her grandfather's tartan. “It will be two thousand by week's end. The MacLeod and The MacKenzie of Seaforth have pledged to send more men to reinforce Loudoun's defenses around Fort George.”

“How do ye know this?” MacGillivray asked sharply.

“I hear things. I see things.” She shrugged and looked over. “Sometimes Forbes will send a message to Angus and … and sometimes he might be careless and leave his desk unlocked.”

“I didna think Angus Moy was a careless man.”

“He is not,” she admitted. “It sometimes requires a hairpin to make it seem so.”

Jamie and Robbie grinned. Eneas only frowned. “If he catches ye tamperin' wi' his locks, he'll no' look on it too kindly, lass.”

“He would hardly be overjoyed to know I was here, either. He is sick to death of all this, Eneas. He is sick to death at the thought of more bloodshed, of Highlanders killing Highlanders.”

“Aye. That's why he's raised a regiment of MacKintoshes to fight f'ae Hanover. That's why he spends a treat o' time at Culloden House drinking claret wi' Duncan Forbes.”

“Moy Hall is less than ten miles from Culloden House! How could he possibly avoid contact with Duncan Forbes?”

“I do,” MacGillivray said easily. “An' Dunmaglass is closer.”

“Own up to it, Annie,” Eneas said. “He's been away too long an' he's simply no' willin' tae risk his lands an' fortune on anither war. It's in his bluid anyway tae lay back an' see which way the wind blows. His grandfather was one o' the first lairds tae disarm the clans after The Fifteen. His father was one o' the first tae swear the oath of allegiance tae the Hanover king so his lands an' titles wouldna be forfeit. There were many a clansman who cursed him f'ae that; many who
have long memories an' will never fight under the Hanover flag regardless if yer husband drives them barefoot out intae the snow an' burns the roof down o'er their heads.”

“He would not do that,” Anne countered angrily.

“Nor would a true Scot question his rightful king,” Robbie said heatedly. “When The Stuart called f'ae his sword, he would give it. Simple as that.”

“Are you saying Angus is not a true Scot?”

“Wheesht, Annie. Calm yerself.” Eneas glared ominously at Robbie before continuing. “No one is sayin' any such thing about The MacKintosh. He's a good man, a fair man; he must be, or ye would have run a dirk across his throat long ago.”

The demand to hear the unspoken reservation came through clenched teeth. “But?”

“But… he hasna proved he's the leader this clan needs him tae be. Oh, aye, he can tally sheep an' count rents, an' he can hold a pretty audience when two crofters are fightin' over the boundaries o' their land. But he disna listen tae the hearts o' the men. They want tae fight, Annie. They would fight the devil himself if they had a leader willin' tae take them intae battle. And if he's no' the one tae do it, they'll look elsewhere f'ae a sword tae follow.”

She looked slowly from one cousin to the next, then from Gillies MacBean—who studiously avoided making eye contact—to The MacGillivray. By then, all the fine hairs across her nape had prickled to attention and the skin along her spine felt as if spiders were skittering up and down it.

“That's why you've called this meeting, isn't it? You're planning to break from the clan,” she whispered. “You're planning to break your oath to Angus and you're going to join the prince.”

“I'll no' lie by sayin' we havna been thinkin' about it,” Eneas admitted. “Trouble is, three or four men willna make a lick o' difference. On the other hand, if we had three or four thousand—”

“You'll not get three
hundred
clansmen to follow you, Eneas Farquharson! You may be able to frighten and bully them into holding secret meetings and sticking a sprig of thistle in their bonnets, but asking them to break clan laws is
another matter altogether. They would lose their homes. They would be men without a badge, without honor.”

“They would be fightin' f'ae their king, f'ae their faith, f'ae their pride.”

“Their pride would be fleeting. The glory would pass and they would be looked on as men who could not be trusted to uphold their word. Oh, not right away perhaps, for in victory there is always benevolence. But there would come a time when it would be remembered that they broke their oaths when so many stayed firm, and it would be held against them.”

“There are some willin' tae take that chance.”