Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  “Lord George is half a day's march away,” she reiterated, frowning slightly.

  “A half a day by whose say-so? That bluidy Irish futtrat O'Sullivan? He wouldna ken how to judge how long it would take to walk from here to the loch.”

  He let go of her chin and turned his attention back to retying the pouch that held his balls of shot. Anne continued to stare up into his face, distracted by a cut just below his ear that had not been there earlier in the day. She noticed it now because he must have rubbed it and reopened the wound, leaving a smear of blood on his neck. And she noticed it because it was not ragged, like a scrape. It was clean and even, as if it had been delivered by the slash of a knife … or the point of a sword.

  She watched him tying the thong, his fingers still clumsy at accomplishing such a simple thing, and now she could see that the knuckles of his right hand were torn and red-raw, and that he seemed to be favoring the left arm, keeping it tight against his ribs.

  “You've been fighting again,” she said quietly.

  “I fight every day. It's called keeping the men drilled an' primed for battle.”

  She reached out and took his hand into hers, flattening it so the full extent of the scrapes and bruising was evident. “You drill with your fists?” Her gaze flicked over to his ribs. “What would I see if I asked you to open your shirt?”

  “A fine, braw stot of a man. What would I see if I asked ye to open yers?” When he saw her surprised glance, he blew his way through a Gaelic oath. “That was a ripe fine foolish thing to say an' I beg yer pardon, lass. It just fell off ma tongue.”

  “You're forgiven. As long as you don't lie to me. You were fighting again, were you not?”

  His eyes came up to hers again. “'Twas nothing. A wee disagreement.”

  “Not with one of our men, I hope?”

  He hesitated. When he shook his head Anne knew better than to probe further. In the long march from Falkirk, she had heard of at least a dozen fights MacGillivray had either participated in or broken up. Her cousins had taken their fair share of bruises as well, most in response to an overheard insult or disparaging remark against the absent chief of Clan Chattan. Cameron had thought it best—safer for everyone concerned—to keep Angus's reasons for returning to Edinburgh confined to just a few people. John and Gillies knew. Her cousins and grandfather knew. Everyone else assumed he had done what many other English officers had done the moment they mouthed their parole: arrogantly gone back to his regiment and his command.

  MacGillivray and her cousins had closed ranks, hoping to isolate her from the worst of the remarks, but that only made for raised hands and snickers of a different sort. More than once Anne had heard whispered speculation as to the exact nature of the relationship between herself and MacGillivray, and if she had had her full wits about her, she would have kept her distance. But with Angus gone, she desperately needed John's friendship, his strength, his courage. She knew, ever since that night outside the cottage in St. Ninians, that he tried his damnedest never to be alone with her, or if he was, never to allow the conversation to turn personal. But there were times it could not be avoided. There were also times, to her unparalleled shame, it even brought her comfort to know that if she ever cried out in the darkness, he would be there before the breath left her lips.

  “Oh, John,” she sighed. “I'm so sorry to be so much trouble. I'm sorry for everything—for getting you into this mess, for laying all my burdens on your shoulders. For everything. I just wish there were some way of going back and doing things differently. I wish—”

  He touched a finger briefly to her lips, silencing her. “Wheesht, lass. What would ye wish different? Would ye wish no' to love yer husband as much as ye do? Or for him no' to love you as much as he does?”

  “But if you and I—”

  His finger pressed harder and his eyes glittered like two black beads. “Never say it. Never put that thought into words, for it's the words we hear and remember, no' the thoughts behind them. A dozen years from now, when ye're plump an' happy with a muckle o' bairns clingin' to yer skirts, ye'll not even remember ye once had a thought o' what might have been had ye done this or that different. But if ye say it aloud, the words will come back to nag at ye. Ye know damned well Angus is the right man for ye. We both know it, an' for all that, it makes it easier.”

  He ended his scold with a gentle chuck on her chin before lowering his hand and fussing with his belts again. And she almost believed him.

  “What about the fighting?” she asked on a sigh.

  “I didna say it makes it easy,” he said with a grin. “Just easier. As for bashin' a few heads, well… I'd do the same if ye were ma sister. Speakin' o' which”—he paused and frowned his way through another soft oath— “ma sister Ruth thinks it's well past time I paid a visit to Clunas.”

  “To see Elizabeth?”

  “Aye. Gillies thinks I should do it while I have the chance. I think mayhap I should, too, else her father will be after shovin' a musket up ma kilt.”

  Anne smiled. “Then you'd best go. 'Twould be a terrible shame to think of you gelded.”

  MacGillivray grinned. “Aye. Aye, it would at that. Then it's settled. I'm away to Inverness to peek through the hedgerows an' count bog-bins for the prince, then I'll be off to Clunas a day or so. I'll leave Gillies in charge o' the men. Ye'll be well protected.”

  “Don't worry about me. Don't worry about anything. Think about yourself for a change. And take her some flowers. She'll like that and forgive you all your absences.”

  “Flowers? Where the devil will I find flowers in the snow?”

  Anne laughed and rose up on tiptoes to brush his cheek with a kiss. “That's why she will like it. Much more so than an anker of ale and a sheep's bladder full of blood sausage.”

  He did not look convinced, but returned her smile anyway as he crammed his bonnet on his head. “She'll like flowers more than sausage?” he grumbled. “What a strange lot o' creatures you women are.”

  Anne was still smiling when she climbed the stairs and made her weary way to bed. Candles had been left burning in the wall sconces for the benefit of the number of strangers sleeping under the gabled roof. Most of the bedrooms on the second and third floor were full, with a few spilled over onto pallets in the drawing room. As she walked quietly along the hallway, she could see by the light of her flickering candle the sleeping forms of servants hunched over in chairs outside their masters' doors.

  She went into her own room and stood a moment at the threshold, her gaze going—as it did almost every time she came into the chamber—to the armchair in the far corner. If she tried very hard she could see Angus's ghostly image sitting there, his feet stretched out in front of him, his shirt glowing white against the shadows, a lock of dark chestnut hair curling down over his forehead. Every time she looked she hoped it would not just be an image she saw there. He had surprised her once, appearing unexpectedly. He could do it again, could he not?

  If he was alive.

  A draft tickled its way across her cheek and caused the candle flame to splutter. The wind was gusting outside, hard enough to cause a backwash in the chimney and send tiny puffs of smoke and ash curling down over the grate. The fire was high enough not to suffer for it; nonetheless the air smelled of pine knots and charred memories.

  “Angus.” Her whisper sounded loud in the silence. “Where are you? I know you are alive. I would have felt it if you were not.”

  She pushed away from the door and walked into her dressing room, passing through to the adjoining chamber. Obviously Hardy had not thought it necessary to burn any lamps or stoke the fire in his master's room, and Anne's candle cast the only pinpoint of light through the darkness. It seemed even quieter here. Colder. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and as she drew a slow, deep breath into her lungs, it was there: the faint tang of sandalwood oil.

  She felt the tears coming and did nothing to try to stop them. It was all right. She was alone and it was all right for la belle
rebelle to cry. There was no one here to see her or to judge her, no one she had to impress with her wit or her calm demeanor. Here, she did not have to be strong or brave or have all the answers. She did not have to hide the fact that she trembled inside with fear and felt so helpless at times she just wanted to scream. Nor did she have to hide the fact that she hated herself for the envy she felt for Elizabeth Campbell of Clunas, which was so completely unwarranted and unfair to MacGillivray that she sagged under the added burden of shame.

  The candle started to shake, and became so heavy she had to set it aside. Blinded by tears, she crawled up onto Angus's big bed and dragged one of the huge velvet cushions to her breast, hugging it there, holding it there until she cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Prince Charles rose from his sickbed long enough to give an impassioned speech to the Camerons and MacDonalds before they departed for Lochaber. Fort Augustus was the closest, located at the southern end of Loch Ness, a dark territory of thick mists and monsters. Fort William was another thirty miles south and west, verging on the vast area controlled by the Campbells of Argyle. At last report, Fort Augustus was maintained by a skeleton garrison of fewer than a hundred men and should pose no problem to the combined forces of Lochiel and Keppoch. It was Fort William, with a garrison of over five hundred men and a strong battery of heavy guns, that had to be taken in order to control the exposed underbelly of the Highlands.

  Anne dressed brightly to wave the brave clansmen off. She rode Robert the Bruce to the far end of Loch Moy, then sat atop the highest knoll, smiling and returning the waves of the Highlanders who marched past. Once again the glen was filled with skirling pipes and tartans of red, gold, blue, and green. No more than fifty lairds and captains were mounted; the rest walked, as they had walked the countless miles from Glenfinnan to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Derby, from Falkirk to Inverness. Some of them sang as they marched. Most left the enthusiasm to the pipers who filled their chanters and squeezed out stirring piob rach'ds meant to strike terror into those who heard the distant, haunting echo.

  MacGillivray had taken his men out before dawn, so Anne did not have another opportunity to wish him Godspeed. It was just as well. Though she had scraped snow from her windowsill and held it over her eyes, she knew he would have detected the traces of her tears, and she wanted nothing to distract him from the dangerous business he was about.

  When the Cameron clan filed past, one of the officers pulled his big black stallion out of formation and trotted up the hill to where Anne sat. Alexander Cameron tugged on a forelock by way of greeting and drew up alongside her, watching the men tramp past and nod in their direction. Pride was blended equally with trepidation on his face; it did not take much to guess the cause of either one.

  “I have come to shamelessly beg another favor of you, Colonel.”

  “I will take good care of your wife, Captain. As will she, in turn, take good care of your child.”

  The dark eyes crinkled at the corners. “I've promised I'll be back within the week, but she can get a bit of a temper on her if she is disappointed.”

  “Then you would be wise not to disappoint, sir.”

  He looked away a moment, then looked back, the crinkle turning to a frown. “You've still not heard anything from The MacKintosh?”

  “No. But I was not expecting daily letters. We both agreed it would be safer all around if nothing passed between us. He might write something, or I might write something, that could put him in danger.”

  “Probably wise, aye. You might be interested, however, to know that there were some dispatches delivered into camp early this morning.”

  The change that came over Anne's face was like the sun breaking over the tops of the trees. “You have heard from Angus?”

  “He informs us that Cumberland has declared the Highlands to be little better than a hell on earth. Apparently his men have no heart for our winters. On the first attempt to follow Lord George through the mountains, two hundred deserted. The second time, he lost nearer to four hundred. On the advice of his generals, he has decided to double back to Aberdeen and wait for the roads to become passable.”

  “They have retaken Aberdeen?”

  “And Perth. But to reach us, they have to cross those.” He gave a nod to the formidable blue-and-purple peaks of the Grampians that sprawled from one side of the horizon to the other. “Even if he waits for spring, he'll find all that snow has melted to fill the bogs and flood the moors.”

  “Angus … is well?”

  Cameron looked back. “He is doing a very brave thing, Lady Anne. He has all but stretched out his neck and laid it on the execution block. This is why you should try not to be too hard on him when you hear he is on his way back to Inverness.”

  “He is coming here?”

  “Well, not here precisely,” he said, indicating the frozen beauty of Loch Moy. “Several regiments are being sent by sea to reinforce Lord Loudoun's position, his own among them. The news is five days old, but we have no reason to doubt its veracity. And, oh—” He paused and removed a letter from his breast pocket. It was written on pink paper, folded and sealed, bound with a red ribbon. “This came with the packet of dispatches he managed to smuggle out before his ship sailed. I imagine pink paper is difficult to come by in an army camp. Even an English army camp.”

  With those words and a handsome grin, he tugged his forelock again and wheeled his stallion around, descending the slope to rejoin his clansmen.

  Anne continued to hold the letter in her gloved hand for a full minute without making any move to open it, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she was afraid it might fly out.

  Angus was alive and on his way to Inverness. Cumberland's army would not be invading the Highlands anytime soon. She really did not need to know anything more than that, yet to judge by the thickness of the letter, he had a great deal to tell her.

  A group of clansmen hailed her as they marched past and Anne responded with a dazzling smile. She tucked the letter into her belt and returned their waves, then glanced up at the sky, thanking the one who needed to be thanked the most for delivering the news safely into her hands. There was not a single cloud to be seen. The sun was warm and the snow glittered under its benevolent eye like a blanket of diamonds. Anne was as superstitious as any Highlander with good sense ought to be, and had the day been overcast and gloomy, she would have recognized it as a portent of ill fortune to come. But with the sun blazing from above and a letter from her husband pressing against her heart, she felt more confident about the future than she had in many long months.

  “Are you certain your information is correct, sir?”

  The speaker was Duncan Forbes, and the news was shocking enough to make him temporarily forget that his nephew Douglas was pouring him another whisky. He turned, pulling the glass out from under the decanter, then cursed roundly when the liquid splashed his hand, his leg, and the carpet in due order. With him inside the fortified walls of Fort George were Colonel Blakeney, newly arrived from Perth with fresh dispatches from the Duke of Cumberland; Lord Loudoun, who was pacing in circles like a bear tethered to a ring; and Norman MacLeod, Chief of Clan MacLeod and the officer in command of the Highland regiments at the fort.

  “My source is above reproach, sir,” Blakeney said. “We have a spy close to the prince, and he assures us the Pretender is right under your noses, gentlemen. Charles Edward Stuart lies drunk in a bed at Moy Hall.”

  Forbes took a hefty swallow of his whisky and shivered through the aftershock. “This man of yours also claims the bulk of the Pretender's army was there but now is not?”

  “Lochiel and Keppoch removed their men this morning to Lochaber. Lord John Drummond is at Balmoral Castle, Clanranald is at Daless. At last report”—he paused to consult some notes he had scribbled on a piece of paper—“Lord George Murray is still struggling to cross the moors to Nairne. I would be surprised if he arrives any sooner than tomorrow noon. That leaves only Lady Anne's personal gua
rd standing at the gates of Moy Hall.”

  “If by ‘personal guard’ ye mean MacGillivray,” MacLeod said, “ye're talkin' about the Earl o' Hell himself, an' if he were standin' at the gates o' Heaven, Christ wouldnae get past.”

  “MacGillivray is at Dunmaglass,” Loudoun said, briefly halting mid-circle. “He and his men raided some cattle from the quartermaster's stockyard earlier this afternoon, and were last seen driving them away into the hills.”

  “That's still too close f'ae comfort,” MacLeod scowled. “Besides, are ye no' expectin' reinforcements from Edinburgh anytime now? I say we wait on them an' cut our losses by half.”

  “The troop ship, like everything else these days, appears to have met with some calamity off the coast. A storm or some such thing. They could arrive tomorrow, or the next day, or next week for all we know … assuming they have not gone down already or been smashed to bits on the rocks.”

  “Tomorrow or the next day may be too late,” Blakeney insisted. “The time to strike is now, when the prince is vulnerable. The opportunity may not—most definitely will not—come again, and I say if there is a chance to capture the royal bastard, to take him with a minimum of bloodshed, then this entire tawdry affair could be over by midnight tonight. The will to stand and fight has gone out of his chiefs and council. They retreated from Derby, they retreated from Falkirk. Take away their only reason to remain steadfast to their oath and by this time tomorrow night, there will be no Jacobite cause, no army, no war—all to the greater glory of the men who had the foresight and audacity to bring it about!”

  Loudoun swelled his chest with a speculative breath. “A bloodless victory would certainly pare Hawley's arrogance down a notch or two. I also expect the king would be generous in his rewards, were someone to save his son from the possibility of suffering the same ignominious fate as Cope and Hawley.”

  “How do you propose to do it?” Forbes asked quietly.