Page 28 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

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S oldiers came to Moy Hall three days later. There were upward of two hundred, half of whom had split away to circle the loch to the north, the other half to the south. Their scouts must have waited to hear Lord George had moved the clans out the previous afternoon, for although their approach was cautious—especially along the tree-lined route Colonel Blakeney's brave men had taken six weeks earlier—they strutted into the glen as if they owned it.

Word had preceded them from Inverness that Lady Drummuir's blatant condescension toward her houseguests had earned her a gaol cell at the Tolbooth. Because of Angus's service in the king's regiments, there had been some debate over what must be done about his Jacobite wife, and it was Hawley who suggested that if they were balking at the thought of hanging a woman, he would instruct his executioners to use silk cords.

Cumberland was only slightly more pragmatic. He issued an order for the arrest of “Colonel Anne” and dispatched a company to fetch her to Inverness. Since Anne had been forewarned of this, she dressed with extra special care. Her hair was plied with hot tongs and swept back in a crown of glossy curls. The gown she wore to greet her visitors was rose-colored watered silk, cut low enough to display more flesh than the flimsy gauze tucking piece could modestly shield from view. The small army of servants had cleared every trace of her recent guests out of the house, and Lord George had ordered that every cart, blanket, and scrap of refuse be taken away when the clansmen departed. Thus, at a casual glance, the parks looked relatively unused, and the officer in charge of the detail wondered if perhaps the reports had been exaggerated or wrong altogether. It would not be the first time they had been misinformed of a rebel's whereabouts, or indeed of a rebel's very participation. He was particularly reminded of an incident less than a month ago when the laird of a manor was hanged from his own gates for being a spy, only to be cleared later of all charges.

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. “Who 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 ye not step inside and take some wine or a cool drink? I am expecting some ladies from the Inverness Orphan Society at any moment, but your company, as well as your advice 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 easily distracted from his duty. 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 glass of wine 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 ye intend to invade my home, violate my privacy, and steal my possessions?”

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

Anne's blue eyes sparked with contempt 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 ye 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 ye 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 side-saddle 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 cloaked 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 surmising she must be '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 full minute 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, 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, ferret-like features of General Henry Hawley, seated at the far 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 refused to meet her eyes.

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 remained looking forward. Solid, decisively placed boot steps brought the speaker emerging slowly out of the shadows where he had been concealed, 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 deliberate— adjustment, one that was supplemented with a slight arching of her brows.

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

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

“You had influence enough to seduce—" 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 cause. 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 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.

“Do you deny being at Falkirk?” asked the duke.

“I do not. 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? Are you asking 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 Culloden were mistaken?”

She smiled sweetly. “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 put them in a position of command? Would you, Lord Loudoun, encourage your wife to take to the field? And if ye did, would ye 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 little 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 and 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 must 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 ye, 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 mortally wounded men 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 ye offer me civility and fairness? Why? Because I am a woman and ye would be called far worse names than ‘Butcher Billy’ if ye were to hang me--" she glared directly at Henry Hawley— “whether ye 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 ye're 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 like headless chickens 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 great-great-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 my lord husband was 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?”

“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, ye 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. That would be far more likely to draw his lordship's attention than the peccadilloes of an errant wife.”

Cumberland smiled. It was an evil, sly kind of smile that began with a thoughtful pursing of the too-red lips and spread across his porcine face like a bloody slash.

“As it happens, my dear, your husband is quite close by. Within a hundred paces, I should think.” He turned to consult one of the officers. “The hospital is a hundred paces away, would you not say?”

Anne let the thread slip out of her fingers. “Hospital?”

“Not in actual fact a hospital,” Cumberland said, swiveling on his heel to look back at her. “But we could not very well put our wounded officers in with the common rabble.”

It took every ounce of self control she possessed to keep her voice level. “Angus was wounded?”

“He was struck down on the battlefield—he took a saber in the belly, I believe. The doctors will, of course, do all they can, but…” He shrugged as if the Devil cared more than he. “Belly wounds, in my experience, are usually quick to turn morbid.”

Anne felt the floorboards shift beneath her feet. The room took a sickening turn and the faces of the officers behind the trestle table blurred and became nothing more than flesh-colored blobs over splashes of crimson.

A saber wound in the belly…?

For the last three days, each time she closed her eyes, she had relived nightmarish re-enactments of the battle. In most of them, MacGillivray was lying in her arms, dying, and a soldier came running up behind her. She would leap to her feet and engage his sword, and at some point, she felt the blade strike and punch through living flesh. In her dreams the face had been distorted, but now, even as the faces of the tribunal faded away into the shadows, the face of the soldier came clearly into focus. It was Angus.

“Dear God,” she whispered.

“Indeed, it is in God's hands,” Cumberland said. “Or so the surgeons tell me.”

“May I see him?”

“Of course you may, my dear.” The cruel smile spread into his fat jowls again. “Just as soon as you tell us what we want to know.”

She frowned, her thoughts tumbling too fast to follow his words.

“We want names, my dear. We want the names of all the chiefs and lairds who wore the white cockade. You say you went on this grand adventure to Falkirk merely to keep company with good men? We want to know who those stalwart gentlemen were. Lord Lovat, for instance. We suspect he was an active participant, but we have no proof. We need sworn, signed statements, for it is not so easy to win a guilty verdict against members of the peerage as it is against common cotters. They must be taken to London and tried before the House….” He spread his hands as if soliciting her acknowledgment that it was, indeed, a great hardship.

“And ye expect me to give ye these names? To bear witness against brave men?” Her voice had turned soft and low. It trembled around the edge of each word and anyone who knew her would have instinctively stepped back a pace or two. “In exchange ye will permit me to visit my husband, who may or may not be dying of a morbid wound?”

“You have the gist of it, my dear. Cooperate, and all charges against yourself will be set aside. We will even release your esteemed mother-in-law, the Lady Drummuir, much to the relief of the guards who have been forced to listen to her incessant pontificating day in and day out.”

Anne squeezed her fists tighter—tight enough she could feel the tips of her nails cutting into the flesh of her palms. The room, thankfully, had stopped slipping and sliding. The faces of the officers were beginning to clear as well, and she looked down the line, impaling each with her contempt, resting at the last on John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun.

“Ye claim a deep friendship with my husband, sir. Have ye nothing to say against this travesty?”

Loudoun harrumphed into his hand. “You have the conditions before you, Lady Anne. I suggest you accept them.”

Anne hardened her stare. He bore the full brunt of her loathing for nearly a full minute before his hand crept up to his collar. He thrust a finger between his skin and the linen neckcloth to ease the pressure, and when that failed, his chin began to quiver and he started to wheeze like an overweight bulldog. In the end, his choking became so severe, the officers on either side helped him to his feet and led him, stumbling, out the rear door, where he could be heard coughing, spluttering, and wailing about 'accursed devil eyes'.

“Shall we assume you require some time to think about your answer?” Cumberland asked, lazily scraping a speck of dirt out from under a fingernail.

“Ye may assume that there is not enough time left for either you or me on this earth wherein I would bow to such disgraceful demands.”

“Bravely said, my dear, and not entirely unexpected. Perhaps a few days in a gaol cell with rats as big as sheepdogs will temper your imprudence somewhat.”

"There are rats bigger than that in this room now," she said evenly, "and my mind will never change."

Cumberland absorbed the insult, then nodded to Colonel Cockayne, who came forward with the greatest reluctance. “Escort Colonel Anne to her new quarters, if you please. I would caution you to search her well before you turn the key. If the dowager could smuggle in a knife large enough to put out the eye of one of the guards, I'm sure this one could do the same. One last chance to reconsider, madam?”

Anne gave him her answer, having collected just enough spittle under her tongue for it to reach the duke's highly polished boot.