“Aye, that she is, Colonel. Brave and stubborn. Not unlike someone else seated at this table.” He lifted his mug in a salute. “And the name is Alex, not sir.”
“Then you must call me Anne. I fear the rank is only for decoration anyway.”
“Would you prefer ‘ma belle rebelle’? Or perhaps ‘that red-haired Amazon’?”
She laughed and shook her head. The latter appellation had come as a result of a small but vicious skirmish along the road to Stirling. The vanguard of the Argyle militia had crossed Blairlogie just ahead of Lord Gordon's forward guard, and because the latter had consisted mainly of MacKintosh men, Anne had been in her usual place alongside MacGillivray. There had been no time for her to fall back when the Argylemen had attacked, and she had found herself in the thick of things. The Campbells had hoped to slow or delay the Jacobite column, but instead they had encountered such fearsome opposition, they were lucky to escape with only a handful of casualties. One of the fleeing clansmen had spotted Anne, her bonnet gone, her hair streaming around her shoulders, her magnificent gray gelding rearing as she wind-milled a saber overhead.
Word of a “red-haired Amazon” in the Jacobite ranks had spread like butter on a hot pan, even making its way into a report from Hawley's camp that was intercepted on its way south to London. It only brightened the already glowing aura that had begun with her audacious theft of Duncan Forbes's papers, and it made nearly every man present in the tavern that night want to fill her tankard and offer a toast.
“… Seven … eight… nine …”
The crowd howled and she leaned forward again. Gillies was on his fourth tankard, and while the swallows were coming slower, they were still deep and steady, and the emptied vessel met the tabletop with the same resounding thud of satisfaction as MacSorley's had done moments earlier.
“By Christ's holy beard,” Archibald declared, swaying unsteadily on his perch, “he's that good, is Struan. Mayhap we'll be needin two casks soon—one tae drink out o', the ither tae piss intae.”
“I believe I can lead a full life without witnessing that landmark event,” Anne said, her head already too light by far. She pushed to her feet, bidding the men to remain seated when all would have risen with her. “It has been a very long, tiring day—” She paused as Archibald Cameron pitched forward off his chair and fell unconscious, plunging facedown into a net of waiting hands. “And I certainly would not want my presence to hinder anyone's more manly pursuits.”
MacGillivray, who had not obeyed her instruction to remain seated, settled his bonnet firmly, albeit askew, on his head.
“There is no need for you to leave, John,” she said, laying her hand on his chest.
He glanced down at her hand—as did nearly every other pair of eyes within a ten-foot radius—then smiled the kind of smile that, if seen in polite society, would have sent a bevy of chaperones into a dead faint.
“I'm no' bothered. I've every faith in Gillies. So much so in fact,” he added, leaning over to pluck the black cheroot off the table, “I might as well take this now an' enjoy it on the walk back to ma bed.”
Cameron reached for the fat Carolina. “And I've enough faith in Struan to savor this now and collect another come morning.”
MacGillivray glared down for a moment, then bared his teeth in a wide grin. “'Tis a good thing we're on the same side, you an' I. Ye might vex me enough I'd have to reshape that fine nose o' yourn.”
“And you have far too many teeth for my liking; I'd be bent to put a few of them in your pocket.”
The two men exchanged grins and clasped hands. After bidding all a good night, John led the way through the shoulder-to-shoulder bodies, parting them by sheer brute strength. Outside in the clear, cold air, he set the unlit cheroot between his lips and stretched his arms to the side and back before falling into step alongside Anne. At his insistence she had taken lodgings in a cottage that had been made available for her comfort, and since the entire length of the village was no more than a quarter mile, she preferred to walk rather than force herself up into a saddle again.
“Well?” she asked, drawing her plaid around her shoulders.
“Well what?”
“What do you make of it all so far?”
“I've no' had much chance to weigh all yet, but they seem to be a braw lot o' men back there. More than willing to follow Lord George anywhere he leads.”
Anne noted that he did not cite the prince's powers of leadership and wondered at the tension she had sensed herself between Charles Stuart and his commanding general. She was told that in the days following the retreat from Derby, when Lord George's logic had prevailed over the prince's passion, they were barely on speaking terms and communicated through brisk, formal notes.
The situation had hardly improved on the march from Glasgow to Stirling. Indeed, Lord George and two hundred of his Athollmen had left that very afternoon for Linlithgow under the auspices of intercepting any supply trains bound for Hawley's camp.
“How far is Falkirk?” Anne asked.
“A glen, a ben, an' a bog,” he replied. “About ten miles that way,” he added, pointing off into the darkness.
“Do you suppose the English know we are here?”
“They'd be a ripe daft lot if they didna. I warrant we could climb up the top o' the nearest hill an' see the glow from their fires in the distance, just as they could as like see ours.”
“Do you suppose they are making plans to attack?”
“I doubt they're makin' plans to dredge the river, lass.” They walked in silence, listening to their own footsteps crunch across the frozen ground. The echoes of a dozen pipers reverberated along the throat of the glen, for it was a fine, clear night, the sky blanketed in stars. The surrounding slopes sparkled with a hundred bonfires and tents too numerous to count. They were pitched in a wide swath from here to the meadows of Bannockburn, and even beyond to the banks of the Forth. The camp had been spread thus in the hopes of deceiving the English scouts into vastly overestimating their strength, a ploy that had worked so often in the past, it was almost ludicrous.
“'Tis no sin to be frightened, ye ken.”
Her steps slowed. “I'm not frightened. Not really. Not if I don't think about it anyway.”
“An' if ye do think about it? What then?”
“Then … I feel like the world's biggest coward, because I just want to run and hide somewhere and hope that no one will ever find me.”
“Bah!” He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and, although he had not intended them to do so, his fingers found their way beneath her hair to the nape of her neck. “We all feel that way sometimes. Ye think I've never lain awake at night wonderin' how it would feel to have the wrong end of an English bayonet in ma gut?”
“I don't believe that,” she said on a wistful sigh. “I do not believe you are afraid of anything, John MacGillivray.”
“Then ye'd be wrong,” he said after a long, quiet moment. “Because I'm dead afraid o' you, lass.”
Anne slowed further, then stopped altogether. She became acutely aware of his fingers caressing the back of her neck. She knew it had been meant as a friendly gesture, nothing more, and yet… when she looked at him, when she felt the sudden tension in his hand that had come with the hoarse admission, she knew it was not the caress of a man who wanted only to be a friend.
Perhaps it was the closeness of his body, or the lingering effects of too much ale. Perhaps it was because there were too many stars, or because the skirling of the pipes was throbbing in her blood. Or perhaps it was just because they were alone for one of the few times she'd permitted such a lapse in judgment, knowing all too well how the tongues were wagging about them already.
Perhaps it was for all those reasons and more besides that she reached up and took his hand in hers, holding it while she turned her head and pressed her lips into his callused palm.
“It's yer eyes, I think,” he said, attempting a magnificent nonchalance. “They suck a man in, they do, so deep he disna think he can ev
er find his way out again. An' it makes him wonder … about the rest. If it would feel the same.”
Anne felt the rush of heat clear down to the soles of her feet, and she bowed her head, still holding his hand cradled against her cheek. An image was in her head, so strong it sent shivers down her spine, of this hand and the other moving over her bare skin, sliding over skin slicked with oil and warmed by his body heat. Another heartbeat put her against that damned wall at the fairground again, and she knew what he had to offer, knew what he could offer her now if she but gave him a sign.
“It would be wrong,” she said softly.
“Aye. It would.”
“I love my husband,” she insisted, not knowing whether she was trying to convince him, or convince herself. “Despite everything that has happened, all the harsh words, the terrible disappointments … I do still love him.”
“Then ye've naught to worry about. Ye need only leave go of ma hand, walk straight the way into yer cottage, into yer own bed, an' we'll pretend this conversation never happened.”
“Can we do that?”
“We'll have no choice, will we?”
Was he asking her or telling her? She tilted her face up, meeting eyes that were black as the night, burning with an emotion she did not even want to acknowledge, for if she did, she would reach out to him with her body and her soul, and they would both lose the battles they were waging within themselves.
“It would be for the best,” she agreed.
“Aye. It would.”
She lowered her hand. He lowered his. And they each exhaled a steamy puff of breath.
Suddenly cold, Anne hugged her arms and drew her plaid tighter around her shoulders. They had stopped at the end of the neat little stone path that led to the front of the cottage; a lamp had been left in the window, the latter made of pressed sheets of horn so that the glow was diffused and did not reach past the overhanging thatch on the roof.
It was simple, one large room with a pallet in one corner, a table in the other. There might have been more furniture—a chair or a stool, and pots on the wall—but at the moment, Anne could only recall the bed.
“I'd best leave ye here, then,” John said, his voice tense with the conflict between loyalty and desire. “Ye'll be all right?”
“I'll be fine. John—!”
He had turned to leave, but at her call, he looked back—so quickly she almost took an instinctive step toward him.
And would that be so terrible? The English army was half a day's march away. MacGillivray would be leading the MacKintoshes into battle. He would be in the front line, the first to step onto the field, the first to break into the charge, the first to meet the awful fusillade from a thousand English muskets. It was true the English stood in disciplined lines like a row of child's skittles, but it meant they could fire, load, and fire their weapons again over and over in the time it took for the Highlanders to rage across an open field to meet them. John would be there, in the front ranks, through every deadly volley, for it was not the Highlander way to crouch behind rocks or wait in ambush. Honor and tradition sent them charging headlong to meet their fate with the battle cry of the clan screaming from their lips.
Anne would be forced to stay well back out of range of any stray shots or cannon shells. If she saw her brave golden lion go down, would it seem so important that she had remained faithful to the man who might well be the one who fired the fateful shot?
It isn't fair, Anne thought. Not to John, not to me, not to Angus.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For walking me back.”
The ache was still there. The agony of indecision, of knowing right from wrong but still wanting … even if it was just for the one night…
“I'll send one o' the lads to fetch ye in the mornin',” he said. “Try to get some sleep.”
She nodded, unable to tell him how absurd a hope that would be, unable to speak at all for the tightness in her throat. His footsteps made a sound like that of crushed glass on the frozen earth, and as she watched him stride away into the darkness, she thought it sounded a little like the brittle cracking of her heart.
With a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of her soul, she entered the cottage and looked around. Small. Nondescript. Desolate. Exactly the kind of cottage in most respects as the one she had called home throughout most of her life. She was never meant to be the chatelaine of a grand estate like Moy Hall. She was never meant to wear corsets and fine silk, or to have upward of seventy servants look to her for instruction.
She tipped her head back against the wood of the door frame. Would it have been so terrible to forget she was that grand chatelaine for just one night? The loneliness was like a palpable thing inside her, but so were the feelings and emotions of Wild Rhuad Annie. MacGillivray wanted her; the heat was in his every breath, his every unguarded glance. What woman with any manner of grip on her wits would send him away, he to his cold bed, she to hers? What warm-blooded woman in her right senses would not want to feel those arms around her, hear that voice trembling in her ear, feel that naked body pushing slowly into hers?
She groaned softly and closed her eyes.
Was it possible to love two men at the same time? Would her soul burn in hell for even daring to ponder such a thing?
The sound of a quiet knock on the door sent her jumping forward. She turned and stared at the scarred timber a moment, wondering if John had been thinking the same thoughts. If it was him, if he was standing there, his bonnet in his hand, a curse on his lips, and a careless disregard for eternal hellfire burning in his eyes … then, in fairness or not, the decision had been taken out of her hands.
Chapter Thirteen
After her initial gasp of surprise, it took a further moment to recognize the shadowed figure who stood in the entryway. The collar of his cloak was up, his hat was pulled low over his brow, and the weak lamplight barely touched on the shape of his nose or the grim, flat line of his mouth.
“Angus?”
He reached up and pulled the bonnet off his dark hair, and if not for the fact she was still clutching the door, she might have staggered with the shock. As it was, she was thankful she had something to hold on to, to support her for the ten seconds it took to blink the whirling black dots out of her vision.
“Angus?” she whispered. “Is it really you? Where … where on earth have you come from? How did you find me? Good God, you look like a block of ice! How long have you been out there?”
“I am not sure. A couple of hours, I suppose.”
“A couple of—? But… where? Why—? How—?”
She knew her questions were incoherent as well as incomplete, but her tongue did not seem able to catch up to the wild tumbling of her thoughts. Flustered, she pulled him inside, only thinking at the last moment to glance out into the darkness before she pushed the door shut.
“No one saw me,” Angus said. “I was careful.”
“But where have you come from? How did you find me?”
“I've come from Falkirk,” he said. “And, in truth, it was Hardy who found you.”
“Hardy?”
“I did not think it would be particularly prudent for anyone to see me roaming around the enemy camp. Besides, I was not entirely certain I would be welcome.”
“Not welcome? You are my husband, of course you would be welcome.” Then, as if her mind was just catching up with the previous answers, she released his gloved hand and withdrew a step. “Falkirk? You are here with the king's army.”
It was not a question and it did not require an answer. Now that he had loosened his cloak and lowered the woolen collar, she could see the blazing red of his tunic, the blue facings on his collar and cuffs.
He saw her staring and blew out a soft breath by way of a wry explanation. “Not particularly wise to be seen leaving the government camp out of uniform, either.”
Her eyes locked briefly with his before cutting away to the droplets of melting ice on his face and hair.
“Come.�
�� She backed up toward the hearth. “Sit and warm yourself by the fire. It will only take a moment to build it up hot again. Or … can you not stay?”
“I can stay. For a little while.”
Anne turned away, a tiny sliver of panic running down her spine. Her husband was here. She hadn't seen him in nearly a month, and the last time they had been together at the dowager's house …
The whole ugly scene came crashing back in a series of disjointed images and angry echoes. They had not exactly parted on happy terms; since then, she had openly thumbed her nose at his authority both as a chief and a husband, and only moments ago had been contemplating bedding another man.
She pushed that thought out of her mind as best she could and bent over the fire to add fresh, dry wood to the bed of glowing coals.
“You are well?” she asked lamely, glancing over her shoulder. “You look well.”
He had not moved from the doorway. Had not moved at all except to take off his gloves and comb his fingers nervously through the dark waves of his hair.
“I am well enough. And you? You look … fit.”
She followed his gaze to her trews and tall knee boots, the thick bulk of her doublet and shortcoat, the casually plaited coil of her hair where it hung over her shoulder.
“Please,” she said, pointing to a stool beside the hearth. “Come closer to the fire. Warm yourself.”
He seemed to hesitate, as if by admitting he was indeed chilled to the bone he would be admitting some other inadequacy.
Anne unwrapped her own plaid and rubbed her hands together to warm them. “I've just come in myself. We were at the tavern. We actually just arrived in camp this morning. Around noon, really.”
Now she was talking just to make noise. Beside her, the dry tinder caught and a flame flared along the lengths of the fresh logs, crackling loudly enough to make her jump. To cover her nervousness, she fetched a bottle of wine from the table; after filling two mugs halfway, she added some steaming water from the kettle that hung over the grate.
Angus moved stiffly, grudgingly, but he took the offered mug, wrapping his fingers around the heated metal and cradling it to warm his hands. After another awkward moment, he accepted her invitation to sit, lowering himself gingerly onto a stool while Anne sat back on her heels beside him.
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