Page 22 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

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M oy Hall quickly took on the aspect of an armed fortress with lights blazing in every window, torches sputtering every ten feet outside. Patrols of MacGillivray's men crisscrossed the glen, the roads, the tree-lined slopes. Fires were lit to give the appearance of a fully occupied camp, and every man not dispatched elsewhere was placed in a position to give an alarm should a mouse stray within a mile of Loch Moy.

It was not mice but men who arrived with the dawn light: Lord George Murray rode in with the vanguard of his army. Hearing of the astonishing rout of fifteen hundred government troops by a handful of clansmen and servants, he brooked no arguments from the prince--who for once did not offer any--but whisked his royal arse away to the abandoned and more easily defendable Culloden House, there to be surrounded by three thousand Atholl men.

When they took their leave of Moy Hall, there was no rider sitting tall in the saddle of her gray gelding to wave and cheer them on. There was only the hollow echo of the wind and the bleakness of a gray sky to mark the passing of the long day into night.

Anne heard whispers in the background. One of the voices belonged to her maid, Drena, and she was weeping. The other was not instantly recognizable, but a vaguely familiar Irish lilt brought a small frown to her brow.

“I think she is waking.”

That voice she knew, and it inspired her to struggle against the pressure of the iron weights that were holding her eyelids shut.

“Aye, she's back with us,” MacGillivray said, leaning forward in his chair. “Stop that caterwaulin', Drena, lass, an' fetch the doctor.”

Doctor? Who needed a doctor?

“J-John?”

“Aye, lass. Aye, it's me. I'm right here.”

He looked dreadful. His hair was stuck straight up in yellow spikes, there was several days' worth of reddish blond stubble on his cheeks, and his eyes had more veins than a wall of ivy.

She tried to moisten her lips, but there was not enough spit to do it. A moment later there was a cool, wet cloth pressed over her mouth and she gratefully let the liquid trickle down her tongue and throat.

“Dinna try to speak yet, lass. Drena has gone to fetch the doctor.”

Anne glared as best she could with her head spinning and her temples pounding.

“Why did ye hit me?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“Hit ye? I didna hit ye, lass. Ye let out a cry like someone cleaved ye in two, then the next I knew ye were bent over double an' not a wit left to tell us what was wrong. Then when we saw all the blood …” He offered up the kind of helpless shrug with which most men excused themselves when delicate subjects were broached. “I carried ye inside an' ye've been here ever since, no' movin' so much as an eyelash.”

“Ever since?”

“Four days.” He frowned and thought about it a moment. “Aye. Four days.”

“During which time Mr. MacGillivray has not moved from the side of your bed,” said Deirdre MacKail. She was standing behind John, all but blocked out by his massive shoulders, and Anne realized it had been the Irish girl's voice she had heard trying to comfort her own weeping maid .

“A-am I dying?”

“Not so long as I have aught to say about it, ye're not,” MacGillivray growled. “So put that thought right out o' yer mind.”

“Wh-what happened?”

He hesitated, and Anne saw him exchange a glance with Deirdre. “Mayhap ye should wait for the doctor. He is just along the way in Lady Catherine's room—”

“Please, John. Tell me what happened. Was I shot?”

He took one of her hands into his and rubbed his thumb gently across the palm. “Ye lost yer babe, lass,” he said quietly. “Ye miscarried.”

“Miscarried? But I was not even …” her voice trailed away and the breath burned in her chest, trapped there by the horrible, impossible thought.

“Aye, ye were. About two months gone, near as the doctor could figure it.”

Anne felt the blood rush out of her head. Two months pregnant? She had been two months pregnant?

She turned her head to the side and stared unseeing into the shadows beside the bed. She was in Angus's bed, in Angus's room, and the smell of sandalwood was suddenly, inescapably cloying. She gasped and tried to choke back the tears, the shame, the guilt, for a combination of all three was rising in her throat, swelling her chest, causing her to clench her fists so tightly John clamped his teeth together as her nails cut into his flesh.

“I will see what is keeping the doctor,” Deirdre murmured, touching his shoulder. “When he comes, you should leave for a little while and let him tend to her.”

“No,” Anne cried. “No, please stay with me, John. Please stay.”

Stricken, tear-filled eyes sought his, and she tried, weakly, to reach out her arms. MacGillivray took the burden willingly upon himself, bending over and gathering her gently against his chest. He whispered her name and buried his lips in her throat, in her hair, in the sweet drenching scent of her. He held on so tightly his heart was pounding in his ears. “I'll not go anywhere lass, I swear it. I'll stay right here by yer side as long as ye need me.”

“Angus,” she cried, her voice broken by sobs. “Oh, Angus, I'm so sorry.”

MacGillivray opened his eyes … then slowly closed them again, squeezing hard enough to stop all but the smallest hint of a watery shine from escaping between his lashes. He held her and stroked his hand down the red tangle of her hair, gently rocking and soothing her until her sobs trembled away to heartbreaking whimpers. By then the doctor was standing by the bed, and John relinquished her grudgingly into his care.

“The doctor is here now, lass," he whispered, pressing his lips over her ear. “Let him help ye with the pain. He'll give ye something to help ye sleep again, an' when ye waken, it will be that much better. I swear it will, on ma name an' on ma honor.”

“Ye'll not leave me?”

“I'll never be more than a heartbeat away, lass. Never more, never less.”

Angus rubbed his eyes, feeling the grit beneath the lids. He was not sure of the time, but he guessed it was well past three in the morning. He was working by the light of a single candle, copying out numbers, names of regiments, commanders, supplies, equipment. It was more of an exercise to keep himself from going mad, since he had no idea to whom he should pass the information now that there were several hundred miles between himself and Adrienne de Boule. She had been his contact in Edinburgh, smuggling out packets of documents he had either copied or stolen from Cumberland's headquarters.

His billet had been in the same house he had occupied before the ill-fated foray to Falkirk. Roger Worsham was still down the hall, and Adrienne de Boule had once again been a regular visitor. She had been taking larger and larger risks, carrying the documents under her stomacher, passing them on to whoever her contact was in Edinburgh. Twice in the week before he had shipped out, she'd had to find new conduits after the old ones were arrested. The city had turned into one huge garrison, with more soldiers on the streets than citizens, all of them impatient with the weather, the inactivity, the humiliating repercussions of the army's loss at Falkirk.

There were hangings every day, lashings nearly every hour. The city was placed under a military curfew that began at dusk; anyone found out on the street, citizen or soldier, was subject to arrest and punishment.

Angus's return had gone relatively unchallenged; he had simply reported to headquarters with the rest of the released prisoners. He had endured perhaps an hour of intense questioning about his stay in the enemy camp at Falkirk, most of it conducted by the brooding, ill-tempered Duke of Cumberland and a select number of his senior officers. Garner had been among them, as had Worsham and the morose Blakeney before he was sent north to Inverness. Hawley had been present, but for the most part had sat silent and ignored in a corner.

Round and swelling with fat, Cumberland was a month away from his twenty-fifth birthday. He had spent the last five years fighting wars in Europe, earning himself a well-deserved reputation for success. He had a precise military mind and appreciated order, discipline, and logic—the three things that seemed, to his analytical mind at any rate, to be most lacking in the Jacobite camp.

“I confess I am at a loss, gentlemen,” he had said, fixing his cold stare on each of his officers in turn, “to explain the contradictions I encounter from one day to the next. I am assured by my advisors at every turn that this rabble is unseasoned and untrained, and comes to a battlefield armed with pikes and pitchforks. How then have they managed to humiliate two of my most brilliant—" his voice dripped sarcasm as he crucified Hawley with his eyes—“generals? How do they manage to escape us time and time again? I am told by people who should know these hills the best that there are no passable routes through the mountains at this time of year, yet my royal cousin has vanished into the high snowy reaches, apparently unaffected by the same weather that leaves our men gasping and floundering in the drifts. I am told there are no possible encampments between Atholl and Inverness where more than five hundred men could subsist in a body. Yet Lord George has disappeared into the wilds somewhere with upward of three thousand men and horses, both of whom must have fodder to survive.”

“Lord George knows the lay of the land, Sire; his family seat is Atholl.”

“And my family seat is all of England, Scotland, and Wales, gentlemen. I will prevail over these skirted rebels. If it takes another ten years, I will prevail.”

Angus had felt the bulging toad-like eyes fasten on him down the length of the table. “You, sir. You are related to Lord George Murray, are you not?”

“He is a cousin, by marriage.”

“Your lovely wife and he must have had a fond reunion at Bannockburn.”

Angus had trod carefully there. A bundle of beribboned letters may have worked once to cast doubt on the reports of Anne's whereabouts in Inverness and Aberdeen, but too many captured soldiers had seen her at Falkirk.

“I doubt they met but once or twice before, Sire, and then only at official clan functions.”

“And you, sir? You appear to have been given free rein of the Jacobite camp.”

Angus had smiled as slyly as he dared. “The prince himself took my parole, and once given, I was permitted to keep company with my wife. I was able to move about with relative freedom, and was often invited to dine with the other lairds, some of whom, either through carelessness or misguided assumption, discussed matters with an unguarded tongue.”

“Unguarded enough,” Major Garner had said at that point, “to have let slip some vital information I intend to act upon within the hour. If it is true the Jacobites have stockpiled a vast quantity of weapons and ammunition at Corgarff Castle, its capture could seriously impair the Pretender's ability to re-supply his army. I plan to lead the assault myself, Your Grace, and you can be sure I will not return without a solid victory to report.”

Garner had then raised his glass in a toast to credit Angus's cleverness. As Cameron had predicted, after Angus mentioned he had been in the company of the Camshroinaich Dubh , Major Hamilton Garner had turned from skeptic to guarantor almost in the blink of an eye.

“Indeed, a victory is much needed,” Cumberland agreed. “Another humiliation would make us more of a laughingstock than we already are. All the same, if I were a suspicious man, MacKintosh, I might question such blind faith in your information, not to mention your motives for leaving your beautiful wife and returning here to us.”

Twenty-two generations of noble blood in Angus's veins did not go to waste. He had returned the duke's stare with an icy detachment and an eyebrow arched with just enough arrogance to mock the very notion of collaborating with such obviously inferior outcasts.

“I came back because I am a realist, Your Grace. I know it is only a matter of time before you catch up with the Pretender, and for the final denouement, I would prefer to be on the winning side.”

“And your wife? What does she prefer?”

Angus toyed with a scrap of lace on his cuff, his words infused with boredom. “It would seem she prefers to play games and raise havoc, but in the end, she will simply return home to her tapestries and embroideries and remember this as nothing more than a grand adventure.”

“We are told she actually took part in the battle.”

“Dear me, yes, I have heard the tales about the red-haired Amazon who took to the field in full battle dress—" Angus had paused to offer a disdainful smirk— “and if your men believe them, then the Jacobite dissemblers have done their work exceedingly well, have they not? I was with her less than an hour after the first shots were fired and I can assure you, she was comfortably ensconced with the other wives of the officers, drinking chocolate and laughing over the little gold braiding on her bodice that denotes her so-called rank. Better, I think, to put one's faith in the reports that may be proven true than in those designed to defy all logic and credibility.”

Cumberland's eyes had narrowed and Angus had held his breath, for it all came down to whether or not they would believe his accounting of the events, or the vague reports of a handful of released prisoners, most of whom gave such varying descriptions of Anne he would have been hard-pressed to recognize her himself. In his favor, Alexander Cameron had given him the information about the cache of Spanish arms and ammunition the Jacobites were storing in Corgarff Castle. The fact that most of the guns were rusted and the ammunition was of so many different calibers it was more bother to haul than store would not be immediately apparent. With the news sheets in London depicting Hawley running from Falkirk with his napkin still tucked into his collar, the duke was almost desperate to put his faith in someone other than the incompetents who had failed him thus far.

And in the end, he had. Major Garner led an attack against Corgarff Castle and returned to Edinburgh with a dozen wagons full of muskets and barrels of lead shot. Within the week, the London Gazette was depicting the triumphant Duke of Cumberland poised atop a mountain of weaponry that could have supplied the continental armies for a dozen years. Assured of his loyalty, Angus had found himself onboard the Thames Rose within the week, sailing for Fort George with orders to aid Lord Loudoun in his defense of Inverness.

Angus rubbed his gritty eyes again. The ship had been struck by a hellish storm and they had arrived in port battered, bruised, and a mere hour before Lord Loudoun declared he was abandoning the city. It had been decided to ferry the entire garrison across the Moray Firth, to a glen which was under The MacLeod's control and relatively friendly to the Hanover government. Lord George took Inverness without firing a single shot, and although Loudoun watched hopefully from the opposite shore of the firth, Fort George capitulated shortly thereafter without the anticipated explosion of the powder magazines or storerooms.

Railing once again at the Jacobites' uncanny ability to root out a trap, Loudoun had moved his forces to Easter Ross, and that was where Angus found himself now, in a draft-ridden stone building that shook with every gust of wind, his fingers cramped and his back aching. He was less than twenty miles from Moy Hall but unable to do anything about it. Following Cumberland's example, Loudoun had imposed a curfew over the town, with standing orders to arrest civilians and soldiers alike if they were found out of doors after dusk. Anyone suspected of deserting was shot out of hand by armed patrols that roved the streets searching for violators.

He heard the clock chime the half hour and set his quill aside. His handwriting was verging on illegible anyway. He would have liked to write a letter to Anne, but without Adrienne's complicity, the risk was too great. He was not even sure she had received the last one he had sent.

There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he felt he could set down with greater ease on paper than he could as a stammering, spluttering neophyte in love. He caught himself quoting Shakespeare when he thought of her, for even his own words failed to touch on the depth of his emotion.

“Shakespeare,” he muttered, cursing at the irony. “‘To sleep, perchance to dream.’”

“‘For in that sleep o' death, what dreams may come.’”

Angus felt the tiny hairs across the nape of his neck come to attention again. The voice had been low and husky, as thick as the shadows that smothered everything outside the small circle of light thrown off by the candle. He had heard no sound to warn him of another presence in the room. The flame on the candle had not flickered inside its glass bell.

He turned slowly, but his sight was impeded by the light and the shadows yielded nothing at first. After a moment he saw a slight movement in the far corner, and Angus wondered if perhaps he was dreaming after all. Like the eyes of a big cat, MacGillivray's glowed with an eerie luminescence out of the darkness, the only part of him not rendered invisible in the gloom.

“How did you get in here?”

“I've gotten in an' out o' harder places.”

“So I should not ask how long you have been standing there? ”

“Long enough.”

Angus had always envied John MacGillivray his cavalier audacity, and this was no exception. The man had to be part ghost, part demon, part fool to make his way unscathed into a city locked up as tight as a keg of powder.

Or he had to have a damned good reason.

Angus felt a second chill bristle over the surface of his skin. “Is this about Anne? Where is she? Has something happened to her?”

The shadow moved, detached itself from the wall, and came forward just enough for the light to touch on a few threads of gold hair. “Yer wife's at Moy Hall, safe enough.”

Angus heard the word “safe” and was able to breathe again. “Christ Jesus, you frightened me half to death. How did you get in here? The door is still locked, is it not?”

MacGillivray's lip curled to express his opinion of locked doors. His gaze flicked to the decanter on Angus's desk. “If that is uisque , I'd not refuse a dram. 'Tis cold as a witch's teat out there an' I've been four hours or more in the damp. Long enough to realize I'm gettin' too bluidy old for climbin' walls an' slitherin' over rooftops on ma belly. Eneas wanted to come in ma stead; I should have let him.”

Angus watched the Highlander drain his glass and hold it out for a refill.

Something had brought MacGillivray here tonight. Something worth risking his life.

He fetched another cup and poured a measure of uisque for himself. “Are you planning to tell me why you are here, or am I expected to guess?”

“There's a fine, thick mist on the firth, an' Lord George has sent the Duke o' Perth to take advantage. They've a fleet o' fishin' boats ready to bring a thousand men across.”

Angus paused with the rim of the glass touching his lip. “They are going to attack Easter Ross?”

“Aye. An' I didna want ye gettin' in the way of a stray bullet from some misguided clansman who would think yer head on a stake would make for a handsome trophy.”

“I see. So I am to be taken ‘prisoner’ again?”

“I've a boat waitin' down by the shore, an' two horses saddled on the other side.”

“And if we are caught between here and there? I am not entirely free of suspicion from the last time, and if I miss roll call, or I am not there to sign the Order Book—”

“I've no qualms about shootin' ye, if that's what ye'd like to make it look more convincin'. Make no mistake. I've come to take ye back an' take ye back I will.”

With the threat soft and low in his voice, MacGillivray came fully into the candlelight, enough at least to show his face, heavily stubbled, and eyes that had not lost their eerie intensity though they were darker, wilder, than Angus remembered seeing them. A very clear image came to him of MacGillivray in the clearing in St. Ninians, his clai' mór drawn, his teeth bared. At the time Angus had been fool enough to tear open his shirt and offer up his chest for slaughter, not realizing that a man as dangerous as John would have no use for empty gestures.

“Did Anne send you?” he asked quietly. “Did she ask you to come?”

The dark eyes narrowed. “Annie disna ken I'm here. In truth, she disna ken too much at the moment. She's been abed this past week refusin' to eat. She says nae more than a few words at a time, an' then none that make much sense. She stays abed all day but she disna sleep. She just lies there starin' at the walls because she's dead afraid ye willna forgive her.”

Angus blinked quickly several times. “Forgive her? Forgive her for what?”

MacGillivray's jaw tensed; the muscles worked for a moment. “For losin' yer bairn.”

The hollow chill Angus had felt earlier was nothing compared to the plummeting sensation he experienced now. It was as if someone reached into his chest and shoved everything from his neck down to his toes, replacing it with ice.

“Anne was—? ”

“Aye, she was. An' she needs ye more than any man's army right now. She needs to hear ye say ye dinna blame her for the loss. And I need to hear ye say that ye understand if ye ever so much as breathe an accusation her way, that she lost it on account o' she led the clan into war, ye'll find me crawlin' down yer throat with ma boots on.”

Angus reached out his hand to grip the edge of the table for support, most of MacGillivray's threat lost behind the loud drumming in his ears. He and Anne had made a child together and now it was gone. She was alone, frightened, in pain, and he was worried about roll calls and Order Books.

He met MacGillivray's eyes and knew what it had cost the Highlander to come here tonight, knew why he would not have trusted anyone else with the task.

“She needs to see ye,” John said quietly. “A day, two at the outside, an' ye'll be back before Loudoun even knows ye're gone.”

“Then we're wasting time,” Angus said, snatching his cloak off the wall peg. “I trust your boat has two sets of oars?”

“It has three. I couldna spare enough men to hold Gilles down and keep him from followin'.”

Anne stirred, waking slowly. Her face was pressed into a crush of her own red hair, and when she opened her eyes, the first thing she thought of was blood—lying in a pool of blood. She closed her eyes again but the image did not go away, nor did the hollow ache in the pit of her belly. All she wanted to do was sleep and forget, but the former came in restless patches, and the latter was simply not possible. The doctor had left a small bottle of laudanum, and she had resorted to it a couple of times when she thought her brain might explode from the sheer pressure of wanting to scream, but it only left her feeling more lethargic and dispirited than before.

The house was dark and quiet. Even MacGillivray, who had remained by her side for nearly a full week, had begged off earlier to tend to some clan business. She had not realized until now how much she had come to depend on his quiet presence. It had been comforting to know that day or night she could open her eyes and he would be beside her in the chair, his chin propped on his hand, his face gentled by the candlelight.

She heard a faint rustling sound behind her and lay perfectly still. She knew the sound of Deirdre MacKail's light footstep, and she knew the quick rabbit steps of her maid. She waited an extra minute until she was sure, by the scent of mist and woodsmoke and damp plaid, that it was a man attempting to slide quietly into the chair before she smiled and half turned.

“Ye were more than one heartbeat away, John MacGillivray.”

But the eyes that met hers were soft pewter gray, not black. The face was lean and handsome, not bold and awkwardly apologetic.

“Angus?”

“If you would rather have MacGillivray for company—?”

She reached out, reached up, and before the gasp could leave her lips, he was on the bed beside her, his arms around her, his body cradling her close.

Behind them, clinging to the shadows that were his only shield against the naked emotion on his face, John MacGillivray watched the reunion between husband and wife. He watched Anne's hands twist desperately around his neck even as Angus's buried themselves in the spill of red hair and held her while he tried to silence her frantic whispers beneath his lips.

MacGillivray watched until it was senseless to watch any longer, then turned and quietly slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

That was where his legs failed him, and he stood with his hand around the doorknob, his forehead pressed against the wood.

“It's a fine thing you've done, Mr. MacGillivray, fetching the laird home. She needs him very much right now.”

John looked up, startled to see Deirdre standing there, a witness to his sin of covetousness. He did not trust himself to answer decently, but he nodded and gave the door a final brush with his hand before he turned away .

“If anyone asks after me, will ye tell them I've gone to Clunas?”

“I will, yes. How long shall I say you will be gone?”

“As long as it takes, lass,” he said quietly. “As long as it takes.”