Page 2 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

1

Inverness, December, 1745

T he track was narrow and deeply rutted, slushed with puddles of melted snow. The two riders kept their horses on the frozen deer grass wherever possible, and several times abandoned the road entirely to cut across a field, or shave the corner off a moor in order to shorten the journey from Moy Hall to Dunmaglass. Anne Farquharson Moy was dressed for the hard ride and wore plaid trews, a warm woolen shirt, and a leather doublet. A long length of tartan was wrapped around her waist and draped over her shoulders to further blunt the icy effects of the wind. Her bonnet was pulled low over her forehead, stuffed full of her long red hair. In her belt she wore a brace of Highland dags, the heavy steel pistols loaded and primed, and she was comfortable with the knowledge that she would use them without hesitation should the need arise.

Riding beside her was her cousin, Robert Farquharson of Monaltrie, also dressed for the bitter cold, swaddled in plaid. When the wind snapped at his kilt, his legs were bare beneath, the skin red, but he was accustomed to withstanding the raw weather.

Robert had been waiting in a grove of trees close by Moy Hall at the appointed time. When Anne had joined him, they had exchanged but a few frosty whispers before setting out across the frozen landscape.

Great care had to be taken when traveling from home these days. There were three battalions of government troops stationed in nearby Inverness, Highland regiments formed up under the command of John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun. Patrols were regularly sent out from Fort George to scour the countryside day and night, and anyone could be arrested or taken away to prison without benefit of either a warrant or a trial. Several local clansmen had been dragged from their homes just this past week, their only crime being the sprig of thistle worn in their bonnets to show support for Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Anne glanced up as a thick blanket of cloud crawled across the moon. She could smell more snow on the way and was grimly thankful for it. Snow—the driving icy crystals that were indigenous to the clear Highland air—would make the night safer for her, safer for everyone.

Her grandfather had sent an urgent message to her earlier in the day. Despite the terrible risks involved to both parties, he had requested a meeting at the home of John Alexander MacGillivray, a laird of considerable influence who possessed a reputation fearsome enough to keep Lord Loudoun's patrols at a wary distance. Anne strongly doubted that even the news of Fearchar Farquharson's presence at Dunmaglass would inspire the lobsterbacks to venture too close, though she had heard recently the reward had been doubled for the old gray fox's capture.

At one hundred and ten years of age, Fearchar Farquharson was a spry walking history of Scotland. He had seen six kings take the English throne since the Restoration and had endured each one's particular remedy for the “Scottish problem.” He had fought his first battle nearly a century before when James Graham, the Duke of Montrose, had raised an army of Highlanders in an attempt to save the doomed Catholic monarchy. He had fought for the Stuart cause again in 1689, when England had first dared to invite a German Hanover to wear the crown, and he had played a major role in the failed uprising of 1715.

Some reverently referred to him as the “wee devil in plaid,” but to Anne, he was simply Granda', a stubborn old warrior who had reached his venerable age on the assumption that he was destined to survive as long as it took to see the Stuarts restored to their rightful place on the throne of Scotland.

His best hope for victory had landed in the Hebrides in mid-July. Charles Edward Stuart had embarked from France equally determined to reclaim the throne of England and Scotland in his father's name. In August, he had raised the Stuart standard at Glenfinnan and proclaimed himself Regent. To the astonishment of nearly every arrogant-minded Englishman who thought their army invulnerable, he had led his Highlanders to Edinburgh and recaptured the royal city, then dealt the government troops a resounding defeat at Prestonpans. Capitalizing on his victories, the prince had secured the Scottish borders and marched his army deep into the very heart of England.

The town of Derby was one hundred and fifty miles from London. Upon hearing that the Stuart prince had ventured unchallenged to within such close striking distance of the throne, the English king had ordered his household packed and loaded into waiting boats, prepared to flee at a moment's notice.

Fearchar—indeed, all of the Highland clans loyal to the Jacobite cause—had raised such a resounding cheer at the news, that it was said to have echoed the length and breadth of the Great Glen. He had been all for setting out, on foot if need be, to join the brave and courageous army, even at the unthinkable cost of breaking the oath of fealty that bound the entire Farquharson clan to the will of their laird, Angus Moy, The MacKintosh of Clan MacKintosh, hereditary Chief of Clan Chattan.

To Fearchar and others like him, the shame was nearly untenable that Angus Moy had not called out the clan and marched to Glenfinnan in support of their valiant prince. Instead, Angus had been one of a dozen influential lairds who had taken commissions in the government army and thereby bound their clansmen to remain at home—some even to take up the Hanover colors while their prince marched bravely forth to meet his destiny. Fearchar had been one of the most outspoken dissenters and as a result, there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, as well as for the arrests of Anne's three cousins .

Raised without benefit of a mother, Anne had spent most of her youth in the brash company of Robert, Eneas, and James Farquharson of Monaltrie. Out of ten children, eighty-six grandchildren, and too many great-grandchildren to count, these four progeny were the stars in Fearchar's sky. They were his hope, and he considered them to be Scotland's promise, for they were as fearless and proud as the mountains and glens that bred the fiercest, boldest hearts of courage. They were Highlanders and Jacobites who proclaimed their loyalty as openly as they wore the white Stuart cockade in their bonnets.

At the outset of the rebellion, Anne's cousins had joined Fearchar in the mountains, tirelessly tramping the miles between Inverness and Aberdeen, between Aberdeen and Arisaig, to keep the clans informed of events happening south of the border. They had been the first to report the stunning victory of the Highland army over General Sir John Cope's troops at Prestonpans, first to report the prince's march south into England and the subsequent fall of Carlisle, then Manchester, and finally Derby.

But for the small inconvenience of being a woman and married to the clan chief, Anne likely would have joined them. She was closer to them than to her own siblings—three silly sisters who were content with their stitchery and nursery chores. She had relied on her cousins to teach her the important skills—how to ride like the wind, how to hunt, to shoot a musket and bow—and to that end, she could toss a dirk into a plover's eye at twenty paces or, if the mood came upon her, down a pint of fiery uisque baugh without batting a long auburn eyelash. She had been as distraught as they when Angus had forbidden any of the clan to ride to Glenfinnan, just as disillusioned, angered, and frustrated when he had subsequently donned the uniform of the Black Watch and raised a battalion of four hundred clansmen to join the Hanover regiments under the command of Lord Loudoun.

Anne shivered and hunched lower in her saddle, not wanting to think about how enraged her husband would be if he knew she was riding to Dunmaglass to meet her grandfather. He had expressly forbidden her to have any further contact with her outlawed kinsmen lest word of her affiliation with rebels reach the ears of Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Session. But forbidding Anne to see her family was like forbidding fruit to ripen on the vine. Outwardly she may have striven to look and act the part of a gentleman's wife, shunning her trews and doublets for the silk underpinnings and stiff whalebone panniers of a proper married lady. Inwardly, however, she was still “Wild Ruadh Annie,” and if her family needed her, she would go to them.

Blood was thicker than any bonds made by marriage vows.

Ruadh Annie, truth be told, had never given much weight to the state of holy matrimony. Growing up, she had known it would eventually be a necessary evil, as would the vow of obedience she would be required to pledge to her husband. There had not been any shortage of suitors eager to tame the red-haired wildcat, but had someone predicted that she would one day become the mistress of Moy Hall, the Lady Anne MacKintosh, she would have laughed until tears ran down her face.

She imagined Angus's reaction would have been much the same. Born in the Highlands, but educated in England and widely traveled, he had not had the faintest inkling he would one day inherit the mantle of chief, let alone be obligated to honor an agreement forged when he was still riding ponies and wearing knee breeks.

Anne had been a waddling sprite of two when Fearchar had secured her future by betrothing her to a MacKintosh. It did not matter that Angus was twelve years older than she and a fourth son, not destined to inherit more than a comfortable livelihood. It was a union that would bring together two of the largest clans amongst the dozen that had amalgamated to form the powerful Clan of the Cats. It was also probable that Angus's father, Lachlan, had agreed to the arrangement only because he assumed—or hoped—the pug-faced, barefooted toddler would succumb, long before she came of an age to marry, to one of the many childhood diseases that ravaged the Highlands.

No one could have anticipated Lachlan MacKintosh's own death a few brief years later, or that those same indiscriminate childhood diseases would remove, one after another, his three eldest heirs in line of succession. With the swift irony only fate can deliver, the title and estates were conferred upon Angus, who, having had no thought of inheritances or weighty mantles of responsibility, had been away living on the Continent. He had been absent for so long, in fact, and was so far out of touch, it took nearly four months for word to reach him that he was the new Chief of Clan Chattan.

The tall, elegant gentleman who arrived at Moy Hall was not like any of the rawboned, braw lads who had been flirting shamelessly with Anne and stealing kisses behind the haystack. He was reserved and articulate, a scholar and a brilliant mathematician who was so thorough and businesslike, he startled the dust out of countless ledgers and tally books throughout Invernesshire. The MacKintosh estates, which had been run haphazardly for a decade or more, came under a stern and caustic pair of pewter gray eyes—the same shrewd eyes that uncovered the articles of betrothal negotiated by Fearchar Farquharson and Lachlan MacKintosh nearly two decades before.

He was neither shy nor hesitant in his attempts to have the agreement voided, since it was hardly a suitable alliance for a powerful clan chief. In an effort to arrive at an agreeable compromise, he arranged for a meeting with Fearchar and they had remained closeted in the library at Moy Hall for eight long hours. Fearchar proved to be a worthy opponent. Not even the demand to honor the original dowry of twelve thousand merks—an astronomical sum to a man whose greatest asset was his word—bowed the gnarled old warrior and within the prescribed time he returned to Moy Hall bearing a pouch of coins, providing the dowry in the full amount.

For Annie's part she had known this day would come. She had known it the moment she had been banished to the home of a harridan aunt in Edinburgh who had been determined to school her in the finer arts of ladylike behavior. She had hired an English tutor to slap Anne's wrist with a birch switch each time she lapsed into a Highland brogue. She had been taught how to sit, how to speak and walk, how to eat and how not to belch at the dinner table.

Anne had entered the kirk in Aberdeen with a sinking heart and leaden feet, aware that the vows she was about to take would not only bind her to a man who did not love her and did not want her, but also condemn her to a life of unrelenting boredom smothered in petticoats and delicate china cups.

She had been fully halfway to the altar before she saw her husband for the first time. The sunlight, streaming through a stained-glass window, had lit the chestnut waves of his hair like a gleaming crown. Wearing a blue grogram coat over a satin waistcoat richly ornamented with embroidery and gold lace, he had been dressed in the formal breacan an fheile . A tartan of green-on-black plaid had been draped over his shoulder, pinned with the silver-and-cairngorm brooch bearing the clan crest and motto. The light had flared blue along the shaft of the dress sword he wore at his side, and the air had sparkled with a million floating dust motes, all of which seemed to pour around his shoulders like a silver stream.

Angus Moy was, quite simply, the most beautiful human being she had ever set eyes upon. His face was so perfectly sculpted that no one feature overawed another. His mouth, his nose, the metallic gray of his eyes had surely been fashioned by the faeries to stop a woman's heart, and Anne's was no exception. How long she had stared through the crystalline silence, tongue-tied and wooden-limbed, she had no way of knowing.

The groom had not moved either, but it was to be suspected it was more because of horrified dread, for Anne was no petite, fine-boned flower trembling at the thought of being plucked. She was tall and proportioned like a woman, not a girl, with a tautness in her legs and arms that had been honed by years of riding and swaggering about with her cousins. Her face was freckled from the sun, and although her hair had been tempered by pins and combs into a semblance of respectability, the wind had played havoc with a few fiery strands that dangled down her back and over her shoulders.

Eneas Farquharson actually had to prod Angus Moy into moving forward to take her hand, and when they had faced the minister, they both seemed paler for the experience.

“I am thinking about him,” she whispered aloud, startled out of her reverie by a cold slap of night wind. “And if I think about him I will turn around and ride home. Or I will never be able to go home again.”

“Did ye say somethin', Annie?”

She looked up sharply. “No. No, I was just cursing the wind.”

“Aye, well, it'll ease off once we get through the pass.”

Instead of answering she tucked her chin back into her plaid and prayed her huge gray gelding would keep a steady foot as they crossed the saddle of land between the two hills known as Garbhal Beg and Garbhal Mor. Here, the icy gusts were strong enough to tear the breath from her lungs, the howling as loud as a dozen banshees screaming into the night.

Not until they were through the pass and beginning their descent did the dreadful wailing cease and the wind die off enough to allow Anne to wipe her eyes and look out across the sprawling expanse of the valley below.

The clouds had thickened, reducing the moon to a clotted glow high above. Snow lay in a thin crust on the slopes and gave shape to the tumble of rocks that littered either side of the track. It was there, from one of the deep, black crags, that she caught a hint of movement.

Taking her cue from Robbie, she released one gloved hand from the reins and slid it beneath the folds of her tartan. Her fingers closed around the scrolled butt of her pistol and she withdrew the gun from her belt, her thumb cocking the hammer in the same smooth motion.

“Easy on, the pair o' ye.” The muffled voice came out of the shadows, low as a heartbeat. “Ye were that late, we almost sent riders out tae search.”

“I had to be sure the household had gone to bed,” Anne said with a sigh.

The dark shape of Eneas Farquharson, oldest of the Monaltrie brothers, detached itself from the jumble of rocks and, without waiting for assent, swung himself up pillion-style behind Robbie.

“Yer husband is still in Inverness, is he no'?”

Her pride stung a bit at the knowledge that her kinsmen thought Angus dangerous enough to watch his every move. “Aye. He's away visiting his mam until tomorrow.”

“She serves up a rare joint o' beef, does the Lady Drummuir. We supped wi' her just last night an' the taste is still on ma tongue.”

Unlike her son, the Dowager Lady MacKintosh was a staunch and extremely vocal Jacobite who proclaimed herself too old to worry about repercussions.

“Ye took a terrible risk riding into Inverness.”

Eneas shrugged. “Ye ken Granda' when he has a thought in his heid. Or the scent o' real meat up his nose.”

Anne shook her head and sheathed her pistol. “How is Mairi? And the children?”

“She sends her love. So do the bairns.”

Anne felt another tug on her heartstrings. She had not seen Eneas's wife or children since the families had been forced into hiding. “I brought some things for ye to take to them—warm clothes, shoes, food.” She patted the bulging sacks draped behind her. “And some books so Mairi can keep them up with their schoolwork.”

She could not see it through the wiry froth of beard that covered the lower half of his face, but she could sense his big grin. “Aye, they'll be thankin' ye for that.”

“I'll not be thanking ye—" she scowled half-heartedly— “if I waken in the morning coughing my lungs into my hands.”

“Bah. Ye're made o' sterner stuff than that, an' ye know it. Granda' was out just a wee while ago takin' his bath in the stream. Had tae crack through the ice first tae do it.”

Anne shuddered and hunched deeper into her tartan. “How is he?”

“Och, healthy as ever. Skittish with seein' ye again, as ye ken he must be if he took a proper wash.”

Eneas chatted happily about his family all the way down the slope. There were thick stands of pine trees skirting the glen, serving to buffer the wind and allow a stillness of sorts to settle over the bowl of the valley. At the far end, a large two-story stone house sat tucked against the edge of the forest; behind that she knew there was a hundred-foot sheer drop to the loch below. There was only one approach to Dunmaglass, and someone must have been watching between the slats of a shuttered window, for no sooner had the horses drawn up in front of the house than the door swung open, throwing a garish slash of yellow light across the snow.

Anne blinked into a lantern as it was swung up into her face. It was held by James, the third Farquharson of Monaltrie and twin to Robbie, younger by six minutes. All three of Anne's cousins were of middling height with short, stocky legs and barrel-shaped torsos hewn out of solid muscle. They shared the familial blue eyes and red hair, though in the twins the latter was thick and straight and stuck out like spikes above their ears in a way that made them always look slightly demoniacal.

Anne dismounted and Jamie swore a streak in Gaelic, hugging her with enough force to spin her around off her feet. He barely waited until she had caught her breath again before he snatched the bonnet off her head the way he used to do when they were children.

Her hair tumbled down in a wealth of unruly curls and she would have boxed his ears for the impertinence if she was not so happy to be reunited with all three of her cousins. She was even more eager to see her grandfather again, and, linking arms with the twins, she urged them toward the open door.

Dunmaglass, albeit larger and better appointed than most stone houses scattered through the glens, was typical of one belonging to a Highland laird who gave more weight to what was practical than to what was pretty. The ground floor consisted of two main rooms, one the kitchen and pantry, the other a parlor for taking meals and entertaining guests before the comfort of an enormous open hearth. Solid wood planks covered the floor where once, to judge by the faintly redolent scent that no amount of beeswax could quite disguise, sheep and goats had been penned inside as a pragmatic measure to save them from the worst of the winter freezes. In the absence of livestock, there were chairs and a long pine table, an overstuffed sofa of indeterminate color and age, and a large braided rug made of many twists of old rags. A staircase against a side wall gave access to the sleeping quarters on the second floor.

Fearchar Farquharson sat at the end of the table closest to the heat of the fire, with his bony knees spread wide apart, his ancient walking stick planted between them to support his hands. His skin was the texture of wrinkled parchment, draped in folds from the sparse white wisps of his hair to the ragged collar of his coat. His fingers were dried brown twigs. The bared shins that poked out from beneath the hem of his kilt were not much more than bone and grizzle with a transparent layer of leathery skin overtop.

Only the eyes were still sharp and vibrant, the blue as piercing as the steel edge of a dirk.

“Och!” He thumped the floor loudly with his stick and cackled. “Wee Ruadh Annie! So ye've come, have ye? Gilles here didna think ye would, but I ken'd ye would. Weel! Why are ye just standin' there like a lump? Come here an' gi' an auld mon a kiss.”

Anne dropped to her knees before him, laughing as he welcomed her into his arms with a hug of amazing strength.

“It is so good to see ye, Granda',” she cried. “And good to see ye looking so well.”

“Och, weel, it takes a mout longer f'ae these auld bones tae stir of a morn, but they do. Miles get longer, clachans farther apart, but aye, I'm hale 'n braw, thank the Laird above. Here, let me look at ye, lass. God strike me deid, but ye're a fine sight f'ae these tired eyes. An' what's this?” He reached boldly forward and laid a hand on her belly. “Wed four years an' still nae bairn on ye? Christ in a crib, had I ken'd yer husban' wouldna be up tae the task, I'd ha' wed ye tae wee Gilles here. He'd've known how tae fill ye wi' babbies. He'd've had three sprouted an' anither well planted by now, an' ye'd've both had a mout o' pleasure puttin' them there.”

Anne sighed, accustomed to her grandfather's coarseness, but she could tell by the look on “wee” Gilles's face that he still suffered for it.

MacBean was a stout, rawboned Highlander who stood barely above five feet, but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in the width of his massive shoulders. His face was as craggy as the mountain range he called home, yet he could blush as swift as a lass at the wrong turn of a phrase—especially any phrase involving those mysterious creatures of the opposite sex. He was painfully tongue-tied around women of any age, a vulnerability that amused the old gray fox no end.

“Ye look like ye've a bone stuck in yer gullet,” Fearchar snorted. “Speak up, mon. Can ye nae work up enough spittle tae say hallo tae wee Annie?”

Already as red as raw meat, Gilles burned an even hotter shade as he nodded and murmured, “'Tis bonnie tae see ye again, Anne.”

“And you, Gilles. I'm glad to know ye've been taking care of Granda' for me.”

The stick rapped on the floor again. “I take care o' masel', lassie. I only keep these belties wi' me tae see they stay out o' trouble. Ye've seen The MacGillivray, have ye not?”

Once again Annie followed the authoritative end of the walking stick and noted the shadowy figure seated well back in the corner of the room. A pair of long, muscular legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Arms the thickness of small tree trunks were folded over an equally impressive expanse of chest. Dunmaglass was his home, and it was his neck that would be stretched on a gibbet if any of them were caught holding a clandestine meeting.

John Alexander MacGillivray was a rare oddity in the Highlands. Not only did he stand a full head taller than most men, but his hair was the burnished gold of ripe wheat. He was not particularly handsome in the usual sense; his mouth was a touch too bold, his eyes were frighteningly black, and his jaw was fashioned from a square, immovable ridge of solid granite. But his smile could turn a woman's thighs to jelly, and rumors of what lay beneath his kilt could send her wits flying out the nearest window.

Anne had known The MacGillivray most of her life. His smile could still raise a flush of gooseflesh on her arms, and while her wits and thighs were safe enough, it had not always been so. Indeed, there had been a time when Wild Ruadh Annie and Big John MacGillivray were veering toward becoming much more than just friends.

“Lady Anne,” he said quietly, nodding.

“MacGillivray.”

It felt awkward addressing each other with such formality. Then again, it had been many a year since she had shadowed her cousins around to all the fairgrounds in the hopes of wagering a penny or two on MacGillivray's wrestling skills. In fact, it had been after one rousingly successful day when he won all five bouts he had entered that he had taken Anne out behind one of the booths and kissed her for the first time. It had been a hot day and he had been stripped to the waist, his muscles oiled and gleaming in the sunlight….

“Come,” Fearchar said, startling Anne as he dragged an empty chair closer to the fire. “Set yersel' doon, lassie. Ye must be chilled frae the long ride. Ye'll take a dram tae warm yer bones? ”

Anne smiled. “Aye, Granda'. A bit of warmth would not go amiss.”

The old warrior chuckled and waved a hand by way of a signal to James, who produced a stoneware jug of uisque baugh . Fearchar removed the bung and tipped the crock to his lips, taking two deep swallows before he passed it to Anne.

She accepted it warily, hesitating when she saw the bright and entirely involuntary film of water sparkle in his eyes. “Your own brew, then, is it?” she asked in a wry murmur.

“Aye.” He sucked at a large mouthful of air to cool the rasp in his throat. “An' I'll thank ye tae notice I've no' lost ma touch.”

Anne braced herself and raised the jug. She matched the two hearty swallows her grandfather had taken, determined not to choke as the fiery Highland spirits slid over her tongue and scorched a path through her chest into her stomach. Once there, though, a fireball exploded, searing through her veins, boiling into her extremities, where it scalded the nerve endings and left the flesh numb with shock.

When she could, she followed Fearchar's example and took an enormous mouthful of ale from the tankard that had appeared magically at her elbow, swallowing in broken gulps that set her cousins, Gilles, and even the stone-faced MacGillivray laughing.

“Mary Mother of Christ,” she gasped. “'Tis a wonder ye've not burned a hole clear through your bellies!”

Fearchar smacked his lap and gave a gleeful cackle. “Blew up three stillmen when they thought tae take a pipe afterward.”

“I'm not surprised.” She took another cooling mouthful of ale and wiped the foam on the back of her hand. “Though I'm sure ye've not brought me all the way out here tonight just to prove you can still brew up the barley with the best. What has happened? Why are ye here in Inverness when ye know full well every soldier in Fort George would trade their firstborn sons to collect the reward the Sassenachs have put on your head?”

Fearchar's happy expression faded and he glanced quickly at the other men in the room before gathering a rattled breath to speak.

“Ye've no' heard, then. ”

It was not a question so much as a painful wrench of emotion, and Anne's first thought was that someone must have died. Someone close to her. Someone whose death her grandfather did not want her hearing from a stranger.

“Has something happened to Angus?” she asked in a whisper.

Fearchar scowled and cursed under his breath. “Yer husband is as fine an' fit as he were when he left yer bed two days ago. Fitter than he has a right tae be, ye ask me.”

“Then what—?”

“The prince has turned his army around. They're in retreat.”

“ Retreat !” Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “But… but that is not possible! They were only a few days' march out of London! Ye sent me word of it yourself.”

“Aye, an' now we're here tae tell ye the army is turned away,” Robbie said quietly. “We're tellin' ye that General Wade is closin' in on their right flank wi' five thousan' men; General Ligonier is on their left wi' another seven thousan'; an' comin' straight up their backsides is the Duke o' Christ-less Cumberland wi' a few thousan' troops he's brought with him off the battlefield in Flanders. That puts about twenty thousan' in all between the prince an' London, an' the chiefs decided it were just askin' too much f'ae our brave lads tae try tae fight their way through. Not when they've had no support frae either end. None here, none in England. Two hundred men, we were told, is all that joined up since they crossed the River Esk, where they were promised bluidy thousands.”

“They should have known better than to trust promises,” MacGillivray said from the shadows. “The king of France promised thousands o' troops, an' how many did he send? None. He promised guns an' ammunition an' money as well to pay the men for the crops we'll not be able to plant come the spring. What did we get? More o' nothin'.”

“Crops?” Fearchar glared angrily over his shoulder. “How can a man think o' crops when his king an' country need him?”

“When his family is starvin' an' his children are dyin' from the cold, that is all he thinks about,” MacGillivray answered flatly. “He worries if they have a roof over their heads an' if they have enough meat to tide them over the winter. Why do ye suppose so many men on both sides slip away in the night? It's no' because they're afraid to fight or to die in battle. It's because they want to take a coin or a bit o' bread back to their wives. That's all a simple man cares about.”

“An' you?” Eneas asked. “What do you care about, MacGillivray?”

“Me?” Someone moved and an errant shaft of lamplight cut across the Highlander's face, revealing a disdainful curve at the corner of his mouth. “I care about what ma chief orders me to care about. Just like the rest o' ye. That's why we're here debatin' the whys an' wherefores o' battles fought an' not fought instead o' bein' out in the fields fightin' them.” His eyes glittered like two chips of black ice as he looked in Anne's direction. “Because we've all been forbidden to do much else, have we not?”

Anne endured the derision in his eyes as long as she could before faltering and turning away. She was reminded, every single hour of every single day, that men like MacGillivray and Gilles MacBean and her cousins would be in Derby now with the prince's army if Angus had not bound them to their oaths. She also knew that if not for so many other lairds like Angus who had chosen caution over passion, the Jacobite army would have been equal to anything the English could muster against them. The five thousand brave men who had followed the Stuart prince to Derby would be ten, fifteen thousand strong and would not now be enduring the humiliation of a retreat.

“They've not been defeated yet, have they?” Anne whispered. “Just because they are being prudent and returning home to Scotland, that does not mean they do so in defeat.”

Fearchar rallied somewhat. “No one has said aught about a defeat! As it happens, the prince has sent word tae all the clans that he only plans tae wait out the winter before he strikes south again, an' he's already proved he has the heart an' courage tae do it. All he needs is tae come home an' build up the strength o' his army. He needs tae hold the throne o' Scotland f'ae his father an' drive these Sassenach bastards out o' Inverness an' Perth. He needs—" Fearchar leaned forward for emphasis— “ all o' his lairds an' chiefs tae believe in him enough tae want tae make Scotland their own again.”

“Angus wants an independent Scotland as much as the next man,” she insisted calmly.

“Then why is he no' in Derby wi' his prince? Why is he wearin' a captain's uniform f'ae a company o' the king's Black Watch, an' why is he in Inverness this very night suppin' at the bluidy table of Duncan bluidy Forbes?”

“He is only trying to keep the peace—”

“Peace?” Fearchar straightened. “Aye, I've nae doubt they all want a piece o' the spoils! Him an' MacLeod an' Argyle. Och! Argyle wants a piece o' Lochaber so badly there's no need f'ae Forbes tae pay him wi' Judas gold.”

Gilles MacBean arched an eyebrow and ventured gingerly into the fray. “Argyle never needed a bribe tae fight the Camerons, especially after he heard the Camshroinaich Dubh was back in Lochaber.”

“Ewen Cameron?” Fearchar's eyes rounded out of their creases. “He's risen up out o' his grave?”

“Not the auld Dark Cameron,” Eneas said gently. “The young one. Lochiel's brither, Alexander.”

“Oh. Och, aye. I ken'd that,” Fearchar grumbled, and waved his hand to dismiss his own lapse of memory. “I ken'd wee Alasdair were who ye meant all the while.”

With almost the next breath, his shoulders slumped forward and his head bowed over the support of his walking stick. Like a bladder losing air he seemed to collapse in on himself until he was just a rounded bundle of rags and wispy gray hair.

“Granda'!” Anne started to reach out, but Robbie waylaid her hand.

“He does that now an' then. Just drops off, has a wee nap, then sits up like as nothin' has happened. He'll be right as rain in a few minutes, mark my words.”

“I dinna have to mark your words, Robbie. I can mark how thin and tired he is. He is far too old to be hiding in the hills and living out of caves!”

Jamie came to his brother's defense. “Aye, well, ye can be the one tae tell him so, then, cousin. I'm certain he'll listen tae you, where he just clouts the rest o' us wi' his stick an' ignores aught we say. He were determined tae come here tonight an' here he came, casting a pox on the snow, a pox on the wind, a pox on the thousand militia swarmin' around Inverness.”

“Two,” Annie said softly, stroking a fold of her grandfather's tartan. “It will be two thousand by week's end. The MacLeod and The MacKenzie of Seaforth have pledged to send more men to reinforce Loudoun's defenses around Fort George.”

“How do ye know this?” MacGillivray asked sharply.

“I hear things. I see things.” She shrugged and looked over. “Sometimes Forbes will send a message to Angus and … and sometimes he might be careless and leave his desk unlocked.”

“I didna think Angus Moy was a careless man.”

“He is not,” she admitted. “It sometimes requires a hairpin to make it seem so.”

Jamie and Robbie grinned. Eneas only frowned. “If he catches ye tamperin' wi' his locks, he'll no' look on it too kindly, lass.”

“He would hardly be overjoyed to know I was here, either. He is sick to death of all this, Eneas. He is sick to death at the thought of more bloodshed, of Highlanders killing Highlanders.”

“Aye. That's why he's raised a regiment of MacKintoshes to fight f'ae Hanover. That's why he spends a treat o' time at Culloden House drinking claret wi' Duncan bluidy Forbes.”

“Moy Hall is less than ten miles from Culloden House. How could he possibly avoid contact with Duncan Forbes?”

“I do,” MacGillivray said easily. “An' Dunmaglass is closer.”

“Own up to it, Annie,” Eneas said. “He's been away in France too long an' he's simply no' willin' tae risk his lands an' fortune on anither war. It's in his bluid anyway tae lay back an' see which way the wind blows. His grandfather was one o' the first lairds tae disarm the clans after The Fifteen. His father was one o' the first tae swear the oath of allegiance tae the Hanover king so his lands an' titles would no' be forfeit. There were many a clansman who cursed him f'ae that; many who have long memories an' will never fight under the Hanover flag regardless if yer husband drives them barefoot out intae the snow an' burns the roof down o'er their heads.”

“He would not do that,” Anne countered angrily.

“Nor would a true Scot question his rightful king,” Robbie said heatedly. “When The Stuart called f'ae his sword, he would give it. Simple as that.”

“Are ye saying Angus is not a true Scot?”

“ Wheesht , Annie. Calm yerself.” Eneas glared ominously at Robbie before continuing. “No one is sayin' any such thing about The MacKintosh. He's a good man, a fair man. He must be, or ye would have run a dirk across his throat long ago.”

The demand to hear the unspoken reservation came through clenched teeth. “But?”

“But… he's no' proved he's the leader this clan needs him tae be. Oh, aye, he can tally sheep an' count rents, an' he can hold a pretty audience when two crofters are fightin' over the boundaries o' their land. But he disna listen tae the hearts o' the men. They want tae fight, Annie. They would fight the Devil himself if they had a leader willin' tae take them intae battle. And if he's no' the one tae do it, they'll look elsewhere f'ae a sword tae follow.”

She looked slowly from one cousin to the next, then from Gilles MacBean—who studiously avoided making eye contact—to The MacGillivray. By then, all the fine hairs across her nape had prickled to attention and the skin along her spine felt as if spiders were skittering up and down it.

“Is that why ye've called this meeting? Ye're planning to break from the clan,” she whispered. “Ye're planning to break your oath to Angus and ye're going to join the prince.”

“I'll no' lie by sayin' we havna been thinkin' about it,” Eneas admitted. “Trouble is, three or four men willna make a lick o' difference. On the other hand, if we had three or four thousand—”

“Ye'll not get three hundred clansmen to follow you, Eneas Farquharson! Ye may be able to frighten and bully them into holding secret meetings and sticking a sprig of thistle in their bonnets, but asking them to break clan law is another matter altogether. They would lose their homes. They would be men without a badge, without honor.”

“They would be fightin' f'ae their king, f'ae their faith, f'ae their pride.”

“Their pride would be fleeting. The glory would pass and they would be looked on as men who could not be trusted to uphold their word. Not right away perhaps, for in victory there is always benevolence. But there would come a time when it would be remembered that they broke their oaths when so many stayed firm, and it would be held against them.”

“There are some willin' tae take that chance.”

“Are ye one of them? Are ye willing to forfeit your home? To lose everything your family has fought so hard to build? Are ye willing to have your names struck from the kirk registry, and your children denied their birthrights?”

“Better ye should ask me could I bear tae look in ma wife's eyes if I kept ma sword buried under the thatch instead o' raisin' it by the prince's side,” Eneas said quietly. “Some things are worth fightin' an' dyin' f'ae, Annie. Mayhap ye would understand that better if ye were a man.”

She shot to her feet with enough vehemence to nearly tip the chair into the fire. “My not being a man has nothing to do with what I feel in my heart. I would walk onto the battlefield beside the lot of ye if that was what my laird commanded. I would fight as hard and kill as many Sassenachs as the rest of ye, and I would spill their blood just as proudly, never dare say that I would not!”

“We dinna doubt yer loyalty f'ae a moment, Annie,” Fearchar said, having been startled awake by the crash of the chair against the iron grate. “In fact, 'tis the fire in yer eyes an' the courage in yer heart that we want.”

“Ye've always had my heart, Granda'. Ye've never needed to ask for it.”

“This time we do. Too many o' the lairds willna break their oath f'ae the very reasons ye said, but they might if they had a leader. Nay, nay—" he scrubbed his hand in the air as if erasing words from a slate— “that's no' right either. They blessed all want tae be leaders, an' tae that end, they'll fight themselves bluidy before they're ever out o' the glen. What they need is someone as cunning as Forbes, as shameless as Loudoun when he offers rewards o' land an' gold to any man who signs the roster. They need someone they can trust who has the power tae bring them back intae the clan again regardless who wins an' who loses.”

Anne could think of no one who could fill such an overwhelming charter, but then she frowned and looked at MacGillivray, the tall golden lion of the Highlands, and once again her breath left her lungs on a gust. “You, John? They've asked you to do this?”

Before he answered he drew his legs in and sat straight in the chair. He rose slowly, the top of his head seeming to stretch forever into the shadows near the ceiling before he walked into the brighter circle of firelight. The creamy wool of his shirt took on a luminous glow, the radiance spreading upward to touch the strands of his hair. The blackness of his eyes reflected a sudden wily glint that could very well have come from Lucifer himself.

“Ye give me too much credit, lass. It's not me they're after askin',” he said quietly. “It's you.”