Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  The officer had been sent to arrest a “red-haired Amazon” of such manly proportions as to have been mistaken on the battlefield for a Highlander. The lovely young woman who greeted him at the door of Moy Hall was perhaps taller than the average female, but there the description faltered.

  “Lady MacKintosh? Lady Anne MacKintosh?”

  “One and the same, sir,” she replied, smiling. “Whom do I have the favor of addressing?”

  “Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Cockayne, Pulteney's Royal Foot, at your service.” He started to salute, but saw her bemused expression and bowed instead. When he straightened and saw that she was still frowning with polite bewilderment, he added, “Is your husband at home, by any chance?”

  “Forgive me, no. I believe he is in Inverness with his regiment. Perhaps I might be of some help? But first, please, where are my manners; will you not step inside and take some tea or a cool drink? I am expecting some ladies from the Inverness Orphan Society at any moment, but I am certain your company, as well as your input as to what aid we might hope to expect from the king's representatives, would be most welcome.”

  Thomas Cockayne wavered. He frowned and chewed his lip, and if not for the second officer who stepped up beside him at the head of a party of armed troops, he might have considered getting back on his horse and riding away.

  “The search party is ready, sir,” the captain said. He was an older man, uglier, with one eye covered in a milky white film. The scarred eye triggered a memory, and although it had been several months since Anne had seen Captain Fergus Blite at the Forbes birthday party, she knew he would not be so easily distracted from his duty as Lieutenant Cockayne. Already his one good eye was flicking past her shoulder, anticipating rooms full of valuable booty, all of which had been proclaimed legal plunder—as much as a man could carry on his back—for soldiers engaged in the dangerous task of searching the homes belonging to known rebels.

  Angus Moy's affiliation with the Scots regiments notwithstanding, there were two hundred men who had volunteered to make the march to Moy Hall knowing they would be returning with their haversacks several pounds heavier. A pink dress and a winsome reference to orphans were no deterrent.

  “I have a copy of the arrest warrant here,” Blite said, producing the document with a flourish. “And if the lady will just step aside, we can be about our business.”

  Cockayne was a gentleman and had the grace to flush. “If it please your ladyship, we do have our orders. Hopefully it will all be set aside as a dreadful misunderstanding, but in the meantime—”

  “In the meantime you intend to invade my home, violate my privacy, and steal my possessions?”

  “Aye,” Blite said. “That and take you back to Inverness, where they've a nice cozy gaol cell waiting on you.”

  Anne's blue eyes sparked with fury despite her vow not to lose her temper.

  “Shall I have my horse saddled?” she asked tautly. “Or am I to be dragged along the road in chains?”

  “Nothing quite so drastic, my lady,” Cockayne said hastily. “I am certain it is a formality, nothing more.” He signaled one of his men. “Have Lady Anne's horse brought around. Captain Blite, you have one hour to conduct your search.”

  The captain grinned and waved his eager men forward. They were not fully inside the gloom of the doorway when Anne heard the first cupboard shatter under the butt of a musket stock. They would likely damage a good deal more in the hour they were given, for they would be frustrated to find little of any value inside. Heirlooms, sentimental or otherwise, had already been loaded into boats and rowed out to the tiny island in the middle of the loch. They had been buried and the sod carefully replaced so that no sign of a disturbance could be seen from any point on the shore.

  “Do you have a wife, Lieutenant? A family?”

  “Why yes, I do. A lovely wife and three daughters. They are at home in London.”

  “They would be very proud of you this day,” she said, speaking softly over the crash of glass and porcelain. “Even prouder had they seen you on the moor three days ago, I'm sure.”

  Cockayne's grin faded. They spent the next long minutes in an uncomfortable silence, and when Robert the Bruce was led around from the stables, the lieutenant suffered another pang of indecision, for the gelding was well groomed, unmarked, and would have won praise walking a promenade in London's Hyde Park.

  It was not until Anne was bundled into a warm cloak and mounted on the sidesaddle that he had cause to question his own doubts, for when he gave the signal to the drummer to start the escort moving back toward the road, the magnificent beast raised his head and took up the march as if he were back at the head of an army.

  Anne was taken directly to the Tolbooth, an old stone building with one large main room in which the town magistrates normally held their meetings. The walls were rough, without plaster or paint; the furnishings consisted of a long trestle table and a dozen plain straight-backed chairs. A door at the rear led down a narrow corridor to a cramped labyrinth of cells, few bigger than three paces by two, even fewer boasting a window slit wide enough to let in a meager breath of fresh air.

  Situated directly across the street from the Tolbooth was the largest inn in Inverness. It had been turned into the officers' mess, with the rooms on the second floor being assigned to senior officers and their staff. Since there were only four main streets in Inverness, all of them converging in the vicinity of the courthouse, the immediate area in front of both buildings was crowded with soldiers, all of whom stopped what they were doing to stare at the elegantly caped and hooded woman who was helped down off her horse and led into the Tolbooth.

  Before she went inside, Anne turned and glared back at the curious redcoats. She made it easier for them by lowering her hood; when she turned her face briefly up to the warm sunlight, she heard the low rush of whispers identifying her as “la belle rebelle,” and the equally vehement hissings that said it could not possibly be so.

  “If you please, my lady.” Lieutenant Cockayne stretched a hand toward the open door. He removed his lace-trimmed cocked hat and waited for her to pass through before instructing that no one else should be admitted.

  It took a moment for Anne's eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside the courthouse. There were only two windows, and they were shuttered from the inside to discourage noses from being pressed against the glass. There were tall, multi-tined candelabra set at intervals along the walls instead, lending the room the gloomy atmosphere of an inquisition chamber. A single chair had been placed about five feet in front of the trestle table, behind which sat ten bewigged, uniformed officers, all of whom had been conversing, sitting in various stages of lazy repose until Anne came into the room.

  Their conversations ceased at once. One false bark of laughter lingered the longest and drew Anne's attention to the cruel, hawklike features of General Henry Hawley, seated at the far right end.

  There was no mistaking Hawley from the descriptions she had overheard, but the rest, save one, were unfamiliar. The Earl of Loudoun's rounded, split-veined jowls quivered as he straightened and busied himself arranging a few documents that were before him, and although she stared at him for several long moments, he did not look up again.

  The one face she had hoped—and dreaded—to see was that of her husband, but Angus was not there. She had not heard any word from him but she had managed to convince herself that no news was good news. He was an officer, a laird, a chief; his death would have been reported. Moreover, she suspected her arrest would have been much less civil had there been no fear of repercussions from the local government officials, the most important of whom was the Lord President, Duncan Forbes—the man who supposedly had given her his personal warrant of immunity.

  “And so she comes before us,” said a quiet voice from the back of the room. “The red-haired rebel hellion.”

  Anne kept her eyes forward. Solid, decisively placed bootsteps brought the speaker slowly forward out of the shadows where he had been conceale
d, the sound echoing in the empty room, shivering off the walls as it was likely orchestrated to do.

  “Your reputation precedes you, Lady Anne,” the voice said. “Or would you prefer to be addressed by this tribunal as ‘Colonel Anne’?”

  Now Anne turned, but she did so keeping her gaze deliberately level. The fact that the Duke of Cumberland was a full head shorter than she required an immediate—and obvious— adjustment, one that was supplemented with a slight arching of her brows.

  “Since I wear neither the uniform nor the rank for which you credit me, sir, you may address me as Lady MacKintosh.”

  “And you may bend your knee and address me as Your Grace,” he replied evenly.

  “Ahh. Please do forgive my ignorance, Your Grace,” she countered, dipping down in a perfectly elegant, graceful curtsy. “The light is so poor, and with no formal introduction, I was not aware to whom I was speaking.”

  He continued to walk around her, cutting a wide, deliberate circle that took him in and out of shadow, seemingly content to observe and prolong the tension—something Hawley apparently could not abide.

  “You have been brought before us today, madam, to answer charges of sedition and treason,” he said, “and to account for your actions of the past five months.”

  “Would that accounting be by the day, sir, or by the week?”

  “By the deed, madam. Do you deny, for instance, that you took up a sword and raised your clan in support of the Pretender's treasonous efforts to usurp the throne of England from King George? Do you deny you led those men to join ranks with the Jacobite rebel Lord Lewis Gordon at Aberdeen, and from there proceeded to engage in an act of war against the king's army on the field at Falkirk? And do you deny you were present on the moor at Drummossie not three days hence?”

  “Do you intend to credit me with starting the entire rebellion, sir? For if you do, I think it only fair to warn you I have not that much influence.”

  “You had influence enough to lure”—he looked down, consulting a sheet of paper—“at least five hundred clansmen to your cause.”

  “It was not my cause, sir. It was Scotland's. And in actual fact, the number was closer to eight hundred.”

  Hawley's face was sharp as a blade in the candlelight. “So you do not deny your affiliation with the Pretender?”

  “My loyalties to Scotland's rightful king and heir have never been a well-kept secret, as I am certain Lord Loudoun may attest. Yet while I may have applauded the prince's victories and supported the decision of some of my husband's clansmen to follow the course their honor dictated, I would not say I had any more or less influence over their actions than scores of other wives, mothers, and sisters.”

  “Most of whom did not take up a sword and join their men in battle.” Hawley half rose out of his chair. “You were seen on the field at Falkirk!”

  “Was I, indeed?” she remarked wryly. “And would this have been by the same brave men who swore they saw three thousand Camerons and MacDonalds lurking in the trees the night Lord Loudoun dispatched soldiers to Moy Hall to capture the prince?”

  Loudoun looked up at that, reddening as each of his fellow officers leaned forward to glance his way. The beginnings of a spluttered defense were silenced when Cumberland raised his hand.

  “So,” the duke said. “You deny being at Falkirk?”

  “No. I do not deny it at all, Your Grace. I was there, just as dozens of other wives were there, for it was, above all else, a grand and glorious adventure the likes of which cannot be found hereabout in the pastures and moors of Inverness.”

  “You are claiming it was a diversion, nothing more?”

  “An exciting diversion, Your Grace.”

  “And you ask us to believe you took no part in the recruiting of men? Or that the reports we were given that place you on the battlefield at Falkirk were mistaken?”

  She sighed. “I would put the question to this panel of august military men instead, asking if they would sanction the presence of women on a battlefield, much less allow them a position of command? Would you, Lord Loudoun, encourage your wife to take to the field? And if you did, would you expect your officers and men to follow her blindly over hill and dale?”

  A few of the officers lowered their heads to conceal their smirks, for Lord Loudoun's wife was as big as a bullock, and the thought of her hiking her petticoats to heave over a mud wall did nothing to maintain their sense of decorum.

  The duke resumed his slow pacing again, but only as far as the table. His gaze strayed downward from her smile to the deep V of her cleavage. Her cloak had become loose and sat precariously balanced on the rounds of her shoulders. Somewhere along the way she had lost the gauze tucking piece as well; her skin took on an almost luminous quality in the candlelight, emphasizing the low scallop in the bodice and the deep shadow between her breasts. Strands of her hair had flown loose, the wisps catching the light and glowing like a fiery halo around her head.

  “I confess you are not in the least what I expected, Lady MacKintosh,” Cumberland murmured. “Reports have invariably put you a foot taller, several stone heavier, with a full moustache that would do a brigadier proud. I will also confess I find it difficult to envision you running out onto a battlefield in full armor.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace. It was a charge against which I did not know quite how to defend.”

  “Oh, I think you have done admirably well. The gown, the hair—” He waved a fat hand to include the entire presentation. “Not one man on this tribunal failed to give pause when you came through that door. And these are hard-hearted brutes, my dear. Hard-hearted brutes. Would there were indeed a few score women like yourself who did take to the field of honor, we might have been harder pressed to win a victory. But win we did. And since you have rather cleverly avoided answering any of our questions directly, nor have you denied your politics or your involvement in this uprising, you leave us no choice but to find there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant arresting you on charges of sedition and rebellion. I expect we could hold a trial right now and find you guilty, but, as I have said, this is a delicate situation and we must preserve the appearance of civility and fairness, must we not?”

  From the moment Anne had walked into the courthouse she had known what the outcome would be. She had also bitten her tongue enough times to taste blood, but this was too much and she could not prevent the two blooms of color that rose to stain her cheeks.

  “Civility and fairness? Is that what I saw on the road coming into Inverness today? I counted fourteen bodies stripped naked and mutilated, left lying on the grass to be kicked and spat upon by every soldier who walked past. I am told there are still men alive on the field at Culloden who have been left out in the bitter cold, their wounds unattended, guards placed around the moor to prevent their families from taking them so much as a sip of water so that they might die easy. Yet you offer me civility and fairness? Why, because I am a woman and you would be called far worse names than ‘Butcher Billy’ if you were to hang me”—she glared directly at Henry Hawley—“whether you used silken cords or not?”

  The duke's eyes bulged a little wider. “Your mockery does you no credit, madam.”

  “Nor does your gullibility, sir,” she countered. “If you are willing to give credence to a report that there were women on the field at Falkirk, what must that do to further enhance the fine reputation of the brave men under your general's command who turned and ran that day?”

  Hawley made a choking sound in his throat and might have leaped across the table if not for another officer, who introduced himself as Colonel Cholmondeley, taking up the challenge.

  “If, as you say, you were only keeping company with the wives of the other officers, we would remind you your husband wore the regimental colors of the Royal Scots brigades!”

  “He had his preferences for company, sir; I had mine.”

  “You are the niece of Fearchar Farquharson, are you not?”

  “I am his granddaughter.�
��

  Cholmondeley took up a quill, dipped it in ink, and scratched a notation down on paper. “Was it he who persuaded you to disobey your husband and call out your clan for the Pretender?”

  “Since I was a child, sir, I have not been persuaded to do anything I did not want to do.”

  “We notice you have not yet inquired as to your husband's health,” Cumberland pointed out. “Are you not curious to know how he fared in the recent dispute?”

  “If Lord MacKintosh were dead,” she said, attending upon a loose thread on her cuff, “I expect I should have heard by now.”

  “You have not had any contact with him over the past three days?”

  Anne dismissed the notion along with the pulled thread. “I have neither seen nor spoken to my husband in several weeks, nor, to my knowledge, has he made any inquiries as to the state of my comfort or health. I expect, in fact, you will hear from him long before I do, when he discovers his prize herd of cattle has been appropriated and his home left in shambles by your soldiers. These would be far more likely to draw his attention than the peccadilloes of an errant wife.”