Page 10 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

9

J ohn MacGillivray woke to the sound of whispered voices. They were low and indistinct, clouded by the quantity of harsh spirits he had downed the night before. He had barely made it home to Dunmaglass from Culloden, and when he had stripped off his blood-soaked waistcoat and shirt and seen the torn stitches, he had known there was only one way to seal the raw edges of flesh. As luck would have it, he had found Gilles MacBean curled up on the floor in front of the hearth fire, his plaid wrapped around his shoulders, the prodigious depth of his snores indicating he had not been sleeping long. Following the skirmish with the English soldiers, it had been Gilles' duty to escort Fearchar Farquharson deeper into the hills and to settle him with a strong guard of clansmen. Jamie Farquharson had returned to Dunmaglass with Gilles and was stretched out beside him on the hearth, his plaid likewise pulled over his head.

Before the whisky had taken hold of MacGillivray's senses, he had ordered Gilles to thrust the blade of a knife into the fire and heat it red hot. When the steel was glowing and the bottle of whisky was empty, John had gripped the side of the table and ordered Jamie to hold his arms. He had snarled at MacBean to do it right the first time, for he had his hand on his sword, a fine pistol on his hip, and he would not hesitate to use them on the two fools if they blundered .

The smell of burning skin and sizzling blood had set every iron-hard muscle to trembling, every nerve screaming, but the pain had been mercifully brief before he had slumped forward into a drunken stupor.

Now he was hearing the whispers. They overlapped and seemed to echo within themselves, the words becoming a muddle of shushes and wheeshts and soft feminine sighs. He remained very still, afraid to open his eyes lest he find himself suspended on white clouds with heaven above and the fires of hell below and a flock of serious-minded seraphs debating whether he should be sent, up or down.

Something icy cool touched his forehead and he opened his eyes a slit, relieved to see no bright lights, no diaphanous wings hovering over him. The whispering had stopped as well, but he sensed he was not quite in the clear yet, for there was a lingering specter standing by the side of the bed. For half an eternity, he just stared. If it was not an angel then it was something sent by the Devil: a wee spookie his mother used to call them, a vision of something you dreamed about so long or wanted so badly that the Devil used it to torment your soul.

His own personal chimera was just standing there looking down at him. Her face was a pale oval in the lamplight, her hair spilled around her shoulders in a shimmer of flames. She was dressed in a white shirt and men's trews, and he could see where her breasts pushed softly against the cambric, unhindered by any foolish whalebone garments.

If it was a vision, it was real enough to tempt his hand upward. And when his hand encountered solid flesh, he could no more control the desire to pull her down beside him than he could the need to draw her beneath him and sink his flesh into her until the vision faded and disappeared.

Anne gasped when she felt MacGillivray's hand close around her wrist. Having been assured by Gilles MacBean that he was still sleeping his way through a heavy fog of whisky, she had remained behind a moment, intending only to straighten the covers he had thrown off and perhaps take a cloth to the beads of moisture that gleamed on his brow. She had felt no signs of fever when she touched his skin, but standing this close to the bed she had seen what the shadows and disheveled covers had shielded from the view she'd had inside the doorway.

His entire left side was exposed in a magnificent display of strength and sinewy power, from his shoulder down the extraordinary length of his body to his toes. His chest might have been chiseled out of solid granite, his arms and shoulders of oak. His legs were furred with hair as blond as that on his head, with tufts of copper sprouting at his armpits, thicker and darker at his groin. Nesting there was evidence that the rumors she had heard about his prowess had more than a little foundation in fact. And there was where her gaze stalled and her breath stopped, for even as she watched, his flesh began to stir and grow.

When his fingers curled around her wrist, she was sufficiently off balance to offer no resistance as she was pulled forward and down onto the bed beside him. The startled cry that formed in her throat was smothered when his mouth crushed over hers, and no sooner did she part her lips to attempt another cry, than his tongue launched an instant, lusty invasion. She tried to twist free, but he was already rolling on top of her, trapping her legs beneath his, and trying to push against John MacGillivray was like trying to push a mountain out of the way—one with determined hands, hot lips, and a shockingly huge protrusion of flesh that was already trying to push between her thighs.

His tongue swept her mouth and probed deep on each thrust, reducing her cries to strangled gasps. When he shifted, cursing the trews that proved a stronger deterrent than her frustrated cries, she renewed her struggles and this time, the heel of her hand caught him high on the wounded shoulder, causing him to jerk back with a roar of pain.

For the moment it took his senses to clear, he glared down at her, his lips drawn back in a primal snarl. The long golden locks of his hair had fallen forward, the ends tickling her cheek, the denser mass near the scalp throwing up more shadows to mask his face from the light, but there was enough to see his expression turn from rapine lust to blinking confusion.

“Annie? Ye're real, then?”

“Of course I am real, ye great oaf. Heave off me!”

“Christ,” he gasped, easing back. “Christ, Annie … I'm sorry. I didna ken … I mean, I thought ye were … For the love o' God, what's that stench?”

“I am afraid the stench is of your own making,” she said, glancing pointedly at the blackened flesh over his wound. Glistening under the shiny layer of unguent Gilles had applied to ward off infection, the smell was similar to that of week-old fish.

He released her at once and, seeing how further disturbed the covers had become, snatched them hastily above his waist. Anne wriggled free. With her mouth still wet with the taste of him, she scrambled clumsily off the bed and retreated to a safe distance. There she attempted to cover her embarrassment by tugging her clothes back into order.

John rolled onto his back and gazed around the room in further bewilderment. “This is ma bed, is it no'? An' ma bedchamber?”

Anne cast an acerbic eye around the piles of clothing thrown hither and yon, the half-full slop jar at the side of the bed, the globs of congealed wax on the table where oil and a good scrubbing stone had rarely ventured. “It would appear so.”

“Then what the devil are ye doin' here? What time is it?”

“It is past four in the afternoon, and I have come from Drummuir House to return a favor.”

“A favor?”

Something glimmered briefly in his eyes and Anne quashed it with a chuckle. “Not that kind of favor, blast ye. Sober yourself! I have come to return the favor of the warning ye gave me last night.”

He scratched a hand through his hair, leaving a bright plume standing straight up over his right eye. “Warning? Wait, wait. Turn yer back, lass, an' give me a chance to find ma claythes.”

She saw his kilt draped over a chair and tossed it to him before she headed for the door. “When ye're decent, come down the stairs and I will bandage your shoulder proper. In the meantime, ye might want to give your head—and something else as well—a soak in cold water.”

A muffled Gaelic curse, graphic enough to make her smile, followed Annie as she descended the stairs. Gilles was there, bending over the fire. Two other clansmen lurked in the corner with Donuil MacKintosh, the young man sent by the dowager to escort Anne to Dunmaglass. Outside, the yard bristled with more clansmen. Taking no chances this time, there were men in the forest and up on the hillside. The outer ring of sentries had been expanded far beyond the steep and rocky nipples of Garbhal Beg and Garbhal Mor to provide ample warning of anyone approaching the glen.

“Will ye take an ale, m'lady?” Gilles asked, straightening when she came into the room.

“I will. But only if ye stop calling me ‘m'lady.’ The way ye say it, I want to look over my shoulder and see who has come into the room.”

Gilles reddened and grinned. “Aye. I'll do that, m'lady.”

“Annie,” she prompted.

“Aye,” he murmured. “Annie.”

Jamie Farquharson held out his own tankard. “I'll take another dram, if ye're tippin' the crock. Ma throat's dry as a dusty fart.”

“Then ye had best have coffee, if that is what I smell boiling over the fire. And ye had best get it while ye have the chance, for I've a mind the laird of the house will be needing the entire kettle before he can make a proper count of his fingers.”

“A pox on that bitter brew,” came MacGillivray's bellicose voice from the bottom of the stairs. “I'll have an ale full-foamed.”

He strode into the room, his footsteps heavy and dragging, one eye closed, the other glowing red with burst veins.

Anne took up a tin cup and ladled steaming black coffee out of the kettle, setting it in front of him as he slouched into a chair at the table. “I need ye with a clear head, John. Ye can get sotted again later, after I have gone.”

“Ye sound like ma mam,” he grumbled, but took a grudging sip.

While he muttered his way through two cups of coffee and a dozen fried eggs, Anne found a linen sheet and tore it into strips. She carefully bathed his wound, then applied a fresh coating of lard and crushed willow ash before wrapping the bandages. By the time he had drained his third cup and finished half a plate of oatcakes, his eyes were more white than red and his skin had lost some of its greenish tinge.

“Alright, lass,” he said. “I've chased the demons out o' ma blood; will ye speak to me now?”

She wiped her hands and went to fetch her woolen short-coat from the hook. Tucked into the quilted lining was the bundled sheaf of dispatches she had taken from Duncan Forbes's desk. She had felt no qualms lying to Angus when he had asked her if she still had them, for if she had admitted they were not two feet away, strapped to her thigh, she was not altogether sure he would not have tossed her robe over her head and taken them.

When she set the leather-bound packet on the table in front of John MacGillivray, he took a final sip of coffee and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“What's all this, then?”

“Can you read French?”

He snatched the papers up with a scowl. “ Bien s?r . Latin, too, if ye have need of a few scriptures recited to cleanse ye of the sin o' pride.”

“I only ask,” she explained, wary of his belligerent mood, “because I can barely speak enough words to say good morning and good night. The dowager read these aloud, and we were neither one of us entirely sure if we understood what they mean, but if we are right, and if you interpret them to mean the same thing, then we must get these papers to the prince as fast as ever we can.”

He studied her a moment longer, his eyes probing hers with a thoroughness that left her as breathless as the kiss had earlier.

“Fetch the light closer,” he said to Jamie, and reached for the leather-bound packet. A flick of his thumb and forefinger unfastened the ribbon binding the edges of hide, and only when he drew out the folded sheets of paper did he release his visual hold on Anne and look down.

Jamie slid the lamp closer and turned up the wick without waiting to be asked. Both he and Gilles had taken chairs around the table, the latter craning his neck to see the words, though to him they were nothing more than scratches on a page.

John read through the documents once, skimming over some of the phrases that were too complex for the initial pass. But when he read it a second time, then a third, he not only sounded out every syllable, he mouthed each word in soundless disbelief.

He finished and glanced over at Anne. “Where did ye get this?”

She told him, and he stared until a blink returned his thoughts to what he held in his hands. “What did ye think it meant when ye read it?”

Anne moistened her lips, warmed by the excitement she had seen gleaming in his eyes. “I think it means a treaty has been signed between the French and the Dutch, that the Dutch have pledged not to raise arms against the French for a period of no less than two years, during which time the countries will work together to negotiate amicable terms for a permanent peace.”

John nodded. “Aye, that's how I read it.”

Jamie lifted an eyebrow. “An' so? The French an' Dutch have made a treaty. What of it?”

Anne shuffled through the sheaf of documents she had retained—the extra documents she had taken from the Lord President's desk—until she found the one she wanted, then separated it from the rest.

“These are memoranda listing the approximate number of men in each division of the government's armies. The Duke of Cumberland, for instance, boasts a complement of eight thousand men, all veterans he brought back with him from Flanders. Among them he claims Dutch regiments numbering upward of six thousand men.”

Jamie scratched his beard. “Aye, an' so?”

“So,” MacGillivray said, beginning to grin. “Cumberland's forces are the only ones who have seen actual battle. The raw recruits servin' under Wade an' Ligonier an' Hawley have spent most o' their time marchin' on parade grounds an' shootin' melons off fence posts. That was why most o' them turned tail an' ran at Prestonpans; they'd never seen a bloody battlefield, nor stood eye to eye with a man who was chargin' at them full bore, eager to gut him on the end of his sword. I'd not say they're any less of a threat for it; sheer numbers put them at five, six times the size o' the prince's army, an' sooner or later their bullets hit their marks, but in the time it takes them to find their steel, Cumberland's Dutchmen could cut us down by half.”

Jamie nodded as if he understood, then glanced surreptitiously at Gilles, who shrugged.

“It means,” Anne explained patiently, “that without the Dutch brigades, Cumberland would be gelded. And if the French and Dutch have signed a treaty, it means the Dutch can no longer engage in any act of war against any of France's allies—" she paused and spread her arms wide— “which includes us.”

“Ye mean they canna fight the prince?”

“Not unless they want to break the treaty.”

MacGillivray rubbed a hand across his jaw. “No wonder Forbes was anxious to lock the news away. It could take weeks for word o' the treaty to cross the Channel; longer still for either Holland or France to send an official representative. By then, the battles might all have been fought. Aye, Annie, ye're right. We must get this to the prince at once. Jamie, lad, with a fast horse beneath ye, how long would it take ye to make Aberdeen?”

“Aberdeen?” Anne frowned. “But the prince's army is west, not east.”

“Ye're a day behind in yer news, lass. Clunas sent word last night that Lord Lewis Gordon is in Aberdeen gatherin' another army to ride out an' join forces with the prince.”

“Aberdeen,” she whispered. “That must be why Colonel Loudoun is sending reinforcements to Edinburgh, and why he told them they must hold the city and keep it out of rebel hands.”

“How do ye know this?”

“Angus has orders to take his Royal Scots regiments to Edinburgh before week's end.”

In the bitter silence that followed, Gilles softly muttered, “Mary, Mother o' Jesus.”

“Jamie! Have yer boots grown roots into the floor?”

Farquharson's head snapped around in response to MacGillivray's voice, which came out in a far more commanding bellow.

“I'll leave soon as ma horse is saddled.”

“Go by way of Clunas an' tell Fearchar what ye're about; he may know a quicker way to get word to the prince. Take a dozen o' ma men with ye an' stop for no one. Strap this packet to yer waist an' guard it like it was yer manhood. Ye want those to go as well?” he asked Anne, pointing to the papers spread in front of her.

“Aye. Aye, they would be of more value to … to …” She stopped, moistened her lips and pushed deliberately to her feet. “I also want ye to take a personal message to Granda', Jamie. I want ye to tell him I have changed my mind. If he still has the petition, and if he still thinks the lairds will agree to follow me, then I will gather what MacKintosh men I can and lead them to Aberdeen to join the prince's army.”

All three men froze and gaped at her.

“Ye will?” Jamie asked eagerly. “Ye'll send out the crois-taraidh an' lead the clan to war?”

“Perhaps not burning crosses, but I will do what I can to plead, bribe, or threaten every man of honor left in Invernesshire to join us. There is just one thing, however,” she added, raising her voice to ward off the anticipated burst of howling. “We all know there is no petition on earth would see them agree to follow a woman onto the battlefield, and because of this—" she stopped and held MacGillivray's black gaze locked to her own— “we will only succeed if John MacGillivray rides by my side and agrees to take full command.”

Like following the play of a ball tossed back and forth, the bearded faces of Gilles and Jamie swung around to join her in staring at MacGillivray. He had thrown a shirt over his bandaged chest but had not bothered to tie the laces. His kilt had been pleated in haste, his hair was uncombed and still stuck straight out like the mane of a lion, but his jaw was set and his eyes fierce, making Anne wonder how any mere Englishman could see such a fearsome sight across a battlefield—multiplied several thousand—and not run away screaming in terror.

“Will ye do it, John?” she asked. “Will ye fight for Scotland? ”

“No.”

His answer so startled her that she was bereft of speech for the full minute it took him to refold the dispatches and tie them back into the leather pouch.

“No,” he repeated on a quiet sigh. “But I will fight for what Scotland means to all of us.”

It took a further heartbeat for the words to sink in, but when they did, both Gilles and Jamie gave off a hoot of joy. They roared and stomped their feet, they leaped in circles and clapped hands to each other's shoulders, dancing an impromptu reel to imaginary pipes. The two clansmen half dozing in the corner were drawn into the ruckus, as was Donuil MacKintosh, yet while the shouting and cheering swirled around them, Anne and MacGillivray were still staring at one another across the width of the table, the air seeming to hum between them.

“'Tis the same thing, is it not?” she asked with a small frown.

He shook his head. “Not now. But mayhap by the time we reach a battlefield, it will be.”