Midnight Honor (6 page)

Anne did not know what to say. Twenty-seven lairds were ready to break their oath of fealty to their chief, and they were willing to do it on her say-so. Part of her was appalled, certainly. Respect and unquestioning loyalty to the authority of the clan chief was ingrained from birth; what they were suggesting was tantamount to treason within the clan. Another part of her—the part that had reveled in riding the moors with her cousins—was admittedly excited, too, for it meant there were at least twenty-seven lairds who had not laughed her grandfather out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Ye dinna have tae give us yer answer tonight, lass,” Fearchar said. “Sleep on it. Think on it. Watch yer husband dress in his fine scarlet tunic a time or two afore ye make up yer mind.”

“I don't have to think about it,” Anne said quietly. “The answer is no. What you are asking is … is just not possible. It's utter madness, in fact.”

“Annie,” Robbie began, “it's f'ae the honor o' the clan.”

Her gaze cut to her cousin. “Don't you dare try to justify this by telling me it's for the honor of the clan. It may have worked four years ago, but it will not work now.”

“But Annie—”

“And do not
but Annie
me.” Her anger flashed in Eneas's direction. “Four years ago you all insisted I marry a man I had never even seen before, a man who had to be threatened and badgered to honor an agreement
he
had neither sought nor wanted. But marry we did, and you justified the threats and badgering by claiming I had an obligation, that the union was for the good of the clan. Well… you may not take your vows and oaths seriously—or perhaps you only take them seriously when they suit your moods and motives—but I do. Angus is my husband. He is also my laird, and I'll not break the vows I made just because it is no longer of any benefit to the Farquharson clan that I keep them. If you want another Joan of Arc, you will have to look elsewhere for someone to ride the white charger.”

Jamie and Robbie started to retort with arguments in their own defense, but Anne turned her back to the room and no longer listened. In truth, it
had
taken the combined efforts of all three cousins and her grandfather to coax her into going through with the wedding to Angus Moy. The fact it had not turned out to be the hated, dreaded, feared ordeal she had envisioned had nothing to do with her resentment now. They had used her like a pawn once to get what they wanted; she was not about to let them use her again, especially since it was only her name they wanted, and not even her.

“Dinna let it eat at ye, lass,” MacGillivray murmured, coming up and handing her a newly refilled tankard of ale. “Ye were right to tell them to go to hell. 'Tis a foolish thing they're askin' an' ye're better off stayin' out of it.”

Anne was tall for a woman, and accustomed to meeting
most men on eye level, but to look into MacGillivray's eyes, she had to physically tilt her head upward.

She smiled and was about to thank him for the ale when she remembered Eneas had said none of the men in this room had signed the petition. That would include MacGillivray, who had sat like a big cat in the shadows throughout the discussion, undoubtedly harboring his own opinions on the foolishness of what they proposed. On the other hand, there was no lack of respect for him among his peers, and his clansmen were bonny fighters; not a one would remain behind if he gave orders to take up arms. He would have been Anne's first choice to lead anyone into battle, and she could well understand if his pride had been left a little stung that it was not his name on the petition.

The faint grin that had been pulling at his mouth widened, giving Anne the distinct impression he knew exactly what she was thinking.

The proof of it came on a soft laugh. “I aspire to be nothin' more than what I am, Annie. Had they asked me, I would have throfted them out the door on the toe o' ma boot.”

“Yet you did nothing to
stop
them from asking me.” “Mayhap I was curious to hear yer answer.” His eyes were like deep black pools and, try as she might, she could not look away. Nor could she stop herself from asking, “Had I said yes, what would you have done?”

His head tipped to one side and his gaze made a slow, leisurely study of her face, taking in the smooth curve of her cheek, the slight upturn at the end of her nose, the lush fullness of her lower lip. When he was finished, his smile had been lost somewhere in the stillness and Anne had forgotten what she had asked.

“We'll never know what might have happened, will we?”

Somehow she knew he was not talking about petitions or signatures or rebellions. He was back with her behind the booth at the fairground and his hands were deep in her hair; his hard, oiled body was hotter than the sunlight, and his mouth was introducing her to sensations she'd had no idea she was capable of feeling.

“Ye'd best be on yer way, Annie,” Eneas said from the window. “I'll have Gillies bring the horses round.”

“Yes,” she said, glancing over at him. “Thank you.”

When she looked back, MacGillivray had moved away from the hearth and returned to the shadows, taking whatever memories had been disturbed with him.

Chapter Three

A
nne hurried up the darkened staircase to the second floor of Moy Hall. She had removed her boots after squelching two or three steps inside the rear door, and her stockinged feet made no sound on the waxed wooden floors. The ride from Dunmaglass had been without incident, though Eneas, who had elected to act as her escort on the way back, had periodically called a halt to look over his shoulder and study the gusts of swirling snow.

Shivering and red-nosed, Anne arrived at her bedchamber and released an audible sigh of gratitude when she saw a fire blazing high in the grate. She had half unwound her plaid, shedding clumps of ice and melting snow onto the floor all the while, before she stiffened and turned slowly to stare at the fireplace again.

“It is a cold night. I thought you might appreciate the heat. I even had your maid draw a bath, although I expect the water has cooled by now.”

Anne's hands clutched the woolen folds as she followed the voice. Angus was seated in the armchair in the far corner of the room. His coat and waistcoat had been discarded, his fine lawn shirt was loosened in a deep V down his chest, his
booted feet were propped on a tapestry stool. Seeing her husband lounging in much the same position MacGillivray had assumed for most of the evening brought the tiny hairs along her forearms standing up on end.

“Angus?”

“You were expecting someone else?”

“No. No, of course not, but—”

He held a crystal glass in his hand and began to swirl the contents round and round. To judge by the near-empty decanter of claret on the table beside him, he had been there for quite some time.

“I… I thought you would have stayed the night on Church Street,” she said lamely.

“My dear mother would not have thanked me for imposing myself on her hospitality.”

“I am sure she does not think upon it as an imposition.”

“It is if she is stockpiling guns in the wine cellar for Prince Charles or hatching plots to storm the citadel at Fort George.” He took a slow sip of wine and let his gaze wander speculatively over her wet and bedraggled appearance. “Besides which, I thought my wife might appreciate my company on such a cold and blustery night. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I found an empty house.”

Anne's cheeks warmed as she draped the heavy tartan over the back of a nearby chair.

“Granda' is in Inverness,” she said, having no wish to play any more games of cat and mouse this night. “I went to see him.”

The pewter gray eyes narrowed sharply. “Fearchar? He's here? What the good Christ is he doing anywhere near Inverness?”

Anne forced another measured breath between her lips. It was a rare occasion when her husband used profanity in front of her, even more rare than the times he presented himself with the ends of his cravat trailing unwound down his chest and his shirtfront opened haphazardly over the dark swirls of hair beneath. His manners were normally as polished as his appearance, and in four years of marriage she had yet to witness any major disruption in either. This—the gaping shirt,
the mud showing on the soles of his boots, the disheveled lock of chestnut hair fallen over the brow, and the near-empty decanter of claret—evoked a sensation not unlike holding a lit fuse in front of a keg of gunpowder.

Nor did his eyes do anything to ease her apprehension. They were fastened on her like gun barrels, following her every move as she took off her bonnet and set it alongside her plaid.

“He came to tell me about the prince's army retreating from Derby. He was surprised I had not already heard the news from you.”

“Your grandfather's sources are better than the Lord President's. The army dispatch only reached Inverness late this afternoon.”

“And you rushed right home to tell me?”

She saw his mouth tighten at her sarcasm and she could have bitten her tongue off at the root, for it occurred to her— too late to save the slow burn in her cheeks—that he might have done exactly that.

He held her in a fixed stare for a moment longer, then resumed swirling the contents of his glass. “You are aware, are you not, of the dangers involved with being caught in your grandfather's company?”

“He was careful, I was careful. No one saw me leave the house and I met no one on the road.”

His gaze flickered downward again and settled on the twin steel-butted dags tucked into her belt. “Please do not tell me you went out on a night like this …
alone?”

“Robbie met me at the bridge. Eneas brought me home.”

That almost brought forth a groan. “Sweet Jesus. Your cousins are here, too?”

“All three of them.” She paused and some reckless inner demon could not resist adding, “Eneas sends his fondest regards.”

Angus's mouth tightened further, for he and Eneas Farquharson of Monaltrie were not exactly the best of friends. Eneas had waited for Angus outside the church the day of their wedding and pinned him against the wall by a fistful of his fine grogram jacket. He had pressed his lips to the blade of his dirk and sworn a solemn oath to personally carve out The
MacKintosh's heart should there ever be a whisper of mistreatment against their Annie. Angus had heard him out, had suffered the double threat of brute strength and glittering steel without a word, then had coolly straightened his clothes and walked away. To Anne's knowledge, they had not spoken since.

“Does Fearchar know the countryside is swarming with militia?”

“It is not the first time Granda' has been named on an English warrant,” Anne said. “He knows who his friends are … and who would sell him out for a few copper pennies.”

“A thousand pounds is hardly a few coppers.”

“Nor is it thirty pieces of Judas silver.”

The barb struck home, for Angus had been apportioned somewhat more than thirty pieces of silver to form up a regiment of MacKintosh men to serve under Lord Loudoun's command. According to Duncan Forbes, the compensation was intended to provide the men with uniforms and weaponry as well as the half shilling a day they earned in pay, but few Highlanders saw it as such. Not when wealthy lairds insisted on several thousand pounds sterling over and above any expectations of costs.

Anne did not wait for a rebuttal—not that one appeared to be forthcoming. She walked toward the dressing room instead, dragging the sodden ribbon out of her hair as she went.

“I am cold and tired. Can we not talk about this in the morning?”

“Actually, no. Since I have been sitting here for the past three hours with all manner of imagined and creative explanations for your late-night absence running through my mind, I would rather talk about it now.”

She paused at the door and cast a small frown in his direction. Although his voice was as smooth as satin, there were fine white lines of tension bracketing his mouth, and while the hand that held the wineglass was no longer swirling it, the contents continued to shiver.

Her gaze flicked involuntarily to the neatly turned sheets on the bed. The bedchamber itself was half of a four-room suite, the largest in Moy Hall, with two suitably well-appointed dressing rooms that divided Anne's bedroom from
his. In the first three and a half years of their marriage, they had slept apart only a handful of nights; most of the time they had shared—and enjoyed—the massive canopied bed in Angus's room.

In the last six months, however, the opposite had held true, and the strain between them had become so obvious, even to the household servants, that the maids had begun to turn down both beds.

“Surely you could not have been thinking I was with another man,” she said softly.

His hand curled around the stem of the glass and his mouth formed a small pucker before he met her gaze. “Frankly, no, that was not my first thought, but I admit it was one of them. And in truth, it might have been preferable over some of the alternatives. The mind … conjures all manner of things on a dark, windy night.”

“I am sorry if you were worried. But I truly thought you would stay the night in Inverness.”