Page 6 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)

5

A ngus was in the library when the clock on the mantel struck six. He was dressed in an elegant long jacket of rich hunting green velvet over a skirted waistcoat made of a paler shade of green silk. The latter was embroidered with bands of clustered ivy leaves, while the front facings of the doublet were stiff with ornate scrolls of gold thread, the cuffs folded back to allow a rich display of ruffles about the wrists. The short breacan kilt was red-and-green tartan; his calves were sheathed in hose of dark red wool with green fretting. His shoes were buckled in silver, and a scabbard of soft kid leather chased in gold was draped from shoulder to hip and held his dress sword. As was his favor, he wore no wig, but his hair had been plied with hot tongs at the temples, the length gathered into a neatly bound tail at his nape.

He had not seen Anne all day, had not received any messages to indicate whether she would be accompanying him to the party or preferred him to attend on his own and remain there until hell froze over. Despite his excesses of the previous night, he'd had two large glasses of claret in the past fifteen minutes while he paced and watched the hand on the timepiece crawl inexorably toward the twelve. Normally, she strived to be punctual and was more often than not early. Angus had caught a glimpse of her personal maid, Drena, scurrying down the hallway earlier, but he had deemed it unworthy of him to stop a servant to inquire if his wife was dressed for an evening out, or an evening at home.

He adjusted his sporran for the tenth time in as many minutes and ran a finger between his neck and cravat to ease some of the tightness. His valet, Robert Hardy, had assisted him in dressing, as usual, and while the tall, thin manservant rarely expressed his opinions in words, his mood could generally be gauged by the amount of tension he applied to the neckcloth or the brusqueness in his hand as he brushed specks of lint off the velvet coat.

Tonight, he had all but battered Angus's shoulders with the vigor of his brushstrokes, and if the starched linen had been wound any tighter his master's face would have turned blue.

Hardy, a staunch and proper manservant for many years, had initially been affronted to the verge of seeking employment elsewhere when he heard of his master's impending marriage to a red-haired country hellion. He had been as disdainful as the rest of the servants until the day he had found Anne up to her elbows in blood, trying frantically to help one of the scullery maids who had cut herself on a fireplace grating. Not only had her quick thinking saved the girl's life, but Anne's knowledge of wounds and stitchery had likely saved the arm. Since most highborn ladies would have been more inclined to scream and faint rather than ruin a silk gown with blood-stains—a servant's blood, no less—Hardy began to view the erstwhile hellion with a grudging measure of respect. He began to communicate, by barely perceptible nods and shakes of the head at first, which forks or spoons were to be used with each course during a long formal meal. Eventually, he laid out an entire, elaborate setting for a formal banquet, explaining each piece and its purpose. This progressed to teaching her how to plan menus, and when he discovered that her education had stopped at a rustic, poorly spelled scrawl, he discreetly arranged for a tutor to visit each day until she was able to copy out full pages of poetry and prose in an elegant script. She balked at learning how to embroider or play the pianoforte, but she enjoyed sketching and showed a genuine flair for painting with watercolors .

Hardy, governed by ingrained and unbreakable rules of conduct, had kept Angus apprised of each new accomplishment. The laird, in turn, had discussed other interests she mentioned in passing, so that when the suggestion came from Hardy, she would not feel obligated or guided by her husband's hand in any way.

It was reward enough for Angus just to see the pride shining in her eyes after each new achievement. He had no burning desire to see her transformed into a preened and perfumed chatelaine. On the contrary, he still smiled when he remembered the looks on the faces of several starched visitors when she had come running into the room, flushed and out of breath, her hair scattered around her shoulders, her feet bare and her skirts rucked up to avoid the nipping teeth of the puppy in hot pursuit.

Anne had entered his life like a small storm. The sound of her laughter across the dinner table had left him staring on more occasions than he cared to admit, not because he disapproved of the sound, but because he wondered why it had never been there before. The thought of his mother joking with his father, whether alone or in company, was as difficult for him to fathom as the notion that they must have been intimate on at least four occasions through their marriage.

Last night he had gently chided Anne for speaking her mind, but how he envied her the freedom to do so. How he wished he were free to admit how desperately he wanted to be as open and honest with his emotions as she. But the MacKintoshes could trace their lineage back to King Malcolm IV, who reigned in 1153, and there had not been one day in his youth that he had not been reminded of it. Nor had he been allowed to forget that it was the misguided zeal of his grandfather, who had righteously declared for the Jacobites in the ill-fated Fifteen, that had cost the clan dearly in forfeited fines and estates. It had taken nearly two decades and annually sworn vows of allegiance to the English king to restore the family titles and position.

Angus had not asked for the burden of becoming clan chief. In fact, there had been some debate among the other lairds that the title should fall to Cluny MacPherson, for they were unsure of a man whose leadership had never been tested, a man who had spent ten years on the Continent attending operas and studying the ancient languages of dead poets.

Angus Moy would be the first to admit he was a scholar, not a fighter. He appreciated fine art, music, literature. He had been taught to fence by a Spanish master, but had never fought a duel, never wielded a broadsword or fired a pistol in anger. To his secret mortification, he had once vomited at the sight of a beggar's hand crushed to bloody pulp beneath the wheels of a wagon.

He had been appalled the first time the lairds of Clan Chattan had gathered to acknowledge his title and confer upon him the traditional oaths of fealty. Many of them had arrived in velvet and lace, but an equal number had stalked into the hall, their faces bearded and sullen, their clai' mórs slung across their backs. He was quick to discover that very little had changed in the decade he had been away, which was to say that nothing much had changed in the past six hundred years of feudal law. While the Lowlands had more or less come to accept the progressive realities of English rule, and were even learning how to prosper by exporting wool and coal and raw iron, the Highlanders still clung to the clan system that had always dominated the mountainous regions. Lowlanders embraced the fair practices of the courts and knew that just because they had been born on a farm did not mean they had to die on a farm. In the Highlands, the crofters could not even marry without the permission of the chief, let alone sell a bale of wheat without giving nine tenths of any profit to the overlord.

As Clan Chief, Angus had needed no one's permission to marry; he could have nullified the agreement between his father and Fearchar Farquharson with a slash of a pen. Yet he had humored the old gray warrior. He had invited him to Moy Hall and listened to his arguments, knowing all the while exactly what he was going to do.

As it happened, Angus had seen Anne Farquharson before he had even set eyes upon the elegant ivy-covered walls of his home. She had been riding across the moor, her waist-long hair whipping out in a fiery red wake behind her. He had first thought she was on a runaway, for the stallion was huge and powerful, his hooves thundering through the waves of deer grass like a rampant charger. But then he had seen two men in hot pursuit—her cousins, he would later learn—and he had seen her halt on the crest of a hill to mock, with a crudely up-thrust finger, their paltry efforts at catching her.

The image of her face, as breathtakingly beautiful as the Highlands that rose in untamed splendor around her, had stayed branded on Angus's mind for days afterward, and had kept intruding on his thoughts each time he opened his mouth to argue with Fearchar over the terms of the betrothal. It should not have intruded. It should not have affected the way he thought or acted or even breathed at times—and yet it did.

Even now, after four years of marriage, Wild Rhuad Annie could still leave him breathless. She could render his palms damp and his groin aching with memories of her body sliding hard over his. She could set him pacing in a library, adjusting collars and cuffs, posing in front of a window with an assumed nonchalance every time he heard a footstep out in the hallway.

Angus finished the last warm mouthful of claret and checked the clock again. It was ten minutes past six. The invitation had said seven, though dinner could not be fashionably served until ten. It would take at least an hour to travel the frozen miles to Culloden House by carriage, and while it was the height of bad taste for a guest to arrive on or near the actual stipulated hour, Angus could not reasonably delay his departure much past six-thirty. Seven at the very latest.

He could, of course, not go at all. He had even less desire than Anne to see the smug, pretentious faces of Duncan Forbes and his phalanx of strutting English bloodhounds. But he was trapped as surely as if there were a boot planted solidly at the back of his neck.

He was not aware he had closed his eyes until the faint whisper of silk on wool prompted him to open them. He turned, just his head at first, and then his whole body by such slow fractions of inches it took several seconds to complete the motion.

More than long enough for the flush to rise in Anne's throat and darken her cheeks.

She was definitely not dressed to remain sitting at home by the hearth. She shimmered against the darker hallway like the luminous wings of a dragonfly, the bell-shaped expanse of her skirt spreading wide enough to fill the doorway. The bodice of embroidered pale gold silk was cut square, the rigid stomacher molding her torso so it descended in a flattering, deep V below her waist. Her breasts were pressured upward, rising softly over the upper edge of silk, and although an admiring eye might linger there in appreciation of the creamy half-moons, it was eventually drawn upward to the slender column of her throat, then higher still to the carefully piled extravagance of gleaming red curls.

Angus tried to blindly set his glass on the mantel, missed, and had to take his eyes away from Anne for a moment in order to steady the crystal base on the stone. When he looked back, she had swept inside the room, the slitted panels at the front of her skirt flaring stylishly over the rich layers of petticoat beneath.

“I am late. Forgive me. Drena had a deal of trouble with my hair.”

“The delay was well worth it,” he murmured. “You look lovely.”

Compliments, as always, left Anne flustered and she gave her hands a nervous twist in the direction of the side table. “Are we in a dreadful hurry, or might I have a sip of wine before we leave?”

“Of course you may.” He glanced past her shoulder to where Hardy hovered just out of earshot. The elderly valet came forward at once, signaling another servant, who was burdened under an armload of capes, to wait off to one side.

After Angus nodded to indicate he would also partake of another, two glasses of wine were poured and set on a silver tray. The first was presented to Anne, who exchanged a furtive glance with Hardy before taking it. His eyes gave away nothing, no hint that he could detect the harsh bite of Highland spirits on her breath, but her hand was visibly unsteady and her mouth dry as tinder.

Throughout the morning and most of the afternoon, she had been determined to send down a message that she was too ill to venture out tonight. She felt hurt and betrayed, resentful and not a little confused by the conflicting actions of her husband and the emotions they had aroused. She had sent for Hardy, then waved him away again, sent for him and dismissed him without delivering any messages to anyone but the Almighty, who had heard her cursing fluently once the doors were closed.

Having hardly slept a wink in the last twenty-four hours, her nerves felt frayed, raw. It normally required enormous preparation in her mind and body before she could tolerate her husband's associates with any measure of reasonably civil demeanor. And because she interpreted “reasonable” as meaning not spitting in their faces or calling them cowards and traitors, Angus did not often press her into accompanying him to formal affairs held at Culloden House.

However, after several glasses of soothing uisque baugh, she decided she was more than up to the challenge of mirroring Lady Forbes' icy, belligerent smiles. Moreover, it was true what Angus had said about his mother. If the staunchly Jacobean Dowager Lady MacKintosh could sit through an evening without fisting either Duncan Forbes or Lord Loudoun in the nose, then Anne Farquharson Moy could do the same. Conversely, if the Dowager did let swing, as she had one memorable afternoon a month ago in the the middle of the marketplace, sending two officers sprawling in the mud, Anne did not want to miss it by being ten miles away in a blue sulk.

Somewhat bolstered by the thought, she took the wine and drank it down in one tilt. It was strong and sweet and she might have asked for another had Hardy not swept past and peremptorily relieved her of the empty glass.

“Well then,” Angus said, setting his own untouched dram aside. “If you are ready—?”

She turned and preceded him out into the hallway. A moment later Hardy was assisting her with her cloak, a voluminous wool garment with a fur lining and a hood spacious enough to accommodate the most elaborate hairstyle. While a maid fussed with clasps and gloves and muffs, Angus donned his own outer garment, which, on this formal occasion, was a long, broad length of tartan wrapped around his shoulders and draped over one arm .

The carriage was already waiting at the front entrance of Moy Hall, the door held open by a footman as Anne and Angus emerged from the house. It was a clear, dark sky, the air laden with contrasting smells of ice and woodsmoke, and as she paused to draw a crisp breath into her lungs, Angus slipped his hand under her elbow to guide her across the rug that had been thrown down to protect their shoes. Small swirls of wind-driven snow danced along the ground beside them, sliding under Anne's skirts and twirling up her legs. She did not object as Angus sat beside her and covered them both with a lap robe of sheared sheepskin, but neither did she invite any inane conversations as she settled into the corner and kept her face turned to the window.

Culloden House was situated in the midst of a beautifully landscaped park. It had a commanding view of the Moray Firth to the north and the impressive battlements of the Grampian mountain range to the south. The house itself stood three stories tall and boasted eighteen bedrooms, all with marble fireplaces, fountainous crystal chandeliers, and brocaded silk wall coverings. One of the grander country estates in the area, it had once belonged the MacKintoshes, but had been sold in the early part of the previous century to pay off bad debts.

The stone pillars that sat on either side of the gates, as well as the wide circular drive, were dotted with torches and lamps. Every window in the house was ablaze with light, so many that a glow had been visible in the sky long before the carriage carrying Anne and Angus had rolled over the last hill.

Anne's mood had not improved much through the miles of silent travel. Her expression was plainly glum and her fingers had worried a seam of her gloves into a tangle of loose threads. Once or twice she had stolen a peek at Angus, but the interior lamp was muted by a shade of pressed horn and she had not been able to see much more than his profile. She knew he was tense, however, by the way the muscle in his jaw flexed. She suspected he was holding entire conversations inside his head, anticipating ways he might ward off potentially inflammatory subjects with his Jacobite mother and wife together in a room full of the Elector's representatives.

He was well aware he was playing with fire bringing her here tonight and it puzzled her somewhat that he would even do it, much less be so adamant about her attending—especially when word of the prince's retreat would likely be a heated topic of every conversation. In spite of his insistence that her absence would be misconstrued as an insult to the Dowager Lady Forbes, there would be few who would regard her presence as anything other than an affront.

Unfortunately, it was too late to question his logic now. They were through the gates and in the drive, pulling to a halt near the grand front entryway. When Angus helped her out of the coach, he held her hand a moment longer than necessary.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

The hood of her cloak had slipped back, revealing the cloud of red curls. The blue of her eyes seemed to glow brightly in the torchlight, and her cheeks, kissed pink by the cool air, were fairly luminous against the darkness behind them.

“No,” he murmured. “Nothing is wrong. I… I just wanted to say how lovely you look tonight.”

Anne's breath stopped as she returned the favor by looking into her husband's face. He was heartbreakingly handsome in daylight, doubly so by candlelight; as regal and aristocratic as one would imagine royalty should be. His gray eyes were deep set and surrounded by long, dark lashes. His nose was fine and straight, his mouth so near sensual perfection she doubted that any woman could stop herself from staring at him. Last night, that mouth had been everywhere on her body, bringing her incredible pleasure. What would it bring tonight?

“Shall we?”

Anne's cloak was removed inside the foyer. The day rooms, parlors, and family dining hall were on the ground floor, lit by multi-tiered chandeliers, with the south-facing rooms giving access to the rear terraces and manicured gardens. The second story boasted an arched hallway with eighteen-foot ceilings supported by solid oak columns. It housed the grand ballroom, which, for the next few hours, would be converted into a banquet hall. Following the meal, the tables would be cleared away and dancing would commence, the musicians playing tirelessly through until dawn.

The upper floor with its multitude of bedrooms was reserved for important guests or those who had traveled too far to consider returning home the same night. In happier times, ten miles would have been deemed much too great a distance after a long evening, but Anne doubted the invitation to remain over had been extended once the reply acknowledging her attendance was received.

Duncan Forbes and his wife, Mary, stood at the top of the stairs, greeting their guests. Beside them was their only son, John, and his vapid bride of less than a year. Neither father nor son was striking enough to have drawn attention in a crowded room. Both had sallow complexions that were not flattered by the heavily powdered periwigs curled as tight and precise as their personalities. They had long, sharp noses and protruding brown eyes, mouths that were thin and stern, and weak chins which could have benefited from beards.

Another relative, the Reverend Robert Forbes, stood alongside a nephew, Douglas. The latter was modestly more invigorated in appearance than the rest of his family, for he possessed a youthful, almost handsome face. If the reputation he was developing with the ladies was accurate among the gossips, he was also a throwback to his grandfather, the late and greatly lamented “Bumper John” Forbes, who had begun the tradition that was still in evidence—that of opening a large anker of whisky and setting it alongside the host and hostess, the contents to be ladled generously into cups to welcome each guest.

It was Bumper John's widow who was celebrating her eightieth birthday, not a moment too soon. A tiny, wrinkled gnome with the familial brown eyes bulging from beneath a ridiculously oversized wig, Lady Regina Forbes perched on a throne-like chaise between her son and grandson. In one hand, she clutched an ear trumpet that she was barely able to lift; on the other, she wore so many rings it drooped like a deadweight over the arm of the chair.

While Anne waited with her husband to be officially welcomed to the celebrations, her gaze strayed along the crowded hallway. Splashes of red from bright scarlet uniform jackets were predominant among the male guests, their various companies denoted by facings of blue and yellow, buff, and green. Women wore every shade of silk imaginable, their throats glittering with jewels, their laughter tinkling in the air like crystal prisms. Fully three quarters of the visitors were military officers, and at least half that number wore the kilt identifying them as belonging to a Highland regiment. Anne readily recognized members of the MacLeod and Campbell clans, The MacKenzie of Seaforth, The Munro of Culcairn— a thoroughly disagreeable fellow who had lost an eye in the Fifteen and wore the hideous scarring like a badge. One by one she saw them turn and stare as she and Angus mounted the final step to the second floor, their conversations fading to an obviously tense hush.

Had it been just Angus arriving at the party, she suspected they would have met him with gregarious shouts and much shoulder-clapping. In her eyes, however, they were all traitors trying desperately to justify their treachery, and if Angus's jibe about unsheathing visual knives was to be believed, she would have liked to meet each cold stare in turn and hold it until they bled away into lifeless heaps.

Sensing as much, Angus hastened her forward, presenting her first to the Reverend Robert Forbes. He was an innocuously pompous man given to making sermons out of common sentences, and he did not disappoint now. He offered the usual droll observations on the weather, then bemoaned the fact that his parish was so far away in Leith as to make more frequent visits to Inverness an impossibility. His wife, too dull to realize she was expected to offer nothing more than a stiff nod to Anne Farquharson Moy, exhausted her repertoire of compliments. By the time she had praised Anne's gown, and said how lovely it was to see her again, the silence behind them was almost deafening.

Angus was received with the utmost cordiality by both Duncan Forbes and his son, who greeted him with the traditional cead mile failte —a hundred thousand welcomes—and a glass of ladled whisky. But when he, in turn, bent over to shout birthday wishes in the dowager's trumpet, both men deliberately tipped their chins a notch higher so they could look down along their noses at Anne. Their wives were less subtle. They allowed their gazes to travel slowly from Anne's unpowdered hair to her shoulders to her waist to the hem of her skirts, leaving her with the distinct impression she had not bathed in hot enough water. Their delicate little nostrils flared and their pinched little lips formed puckers that suggested no amount of silks or perfumes could disguise the odor of countless stable floors and sweaty sex that clung to her.

“Be that devil o' a gran'faither o' yourn still alive?”

Startled, Anne felt Lady Regina's bony hand clamp around her wrist. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recalled hearing whispers of a torrid affair years ago between Fearchar and Lady Regina, and she guessed by the sudden twinkle in the rheumy eyes that the older woman was remembering it too.

“Aye. He is still very much alive.”

“Eh? What's that ye say?”

Instead of bending to speak into the ear trumpet, Anne merely raised her voice. “I said yes, my lady. My grandfather Fearchar Farquharson of Invercauld is very much alive and healthy. I am sure he will be pleased to hear ye asked about him.”

Lady Regina cackled. “Fleas, has he? Aye, well, he were a hairy mon, but a good scrub wi' lye soap will burn the wee bastards out o' their roosts. Mind, I wouldna kick him oot ma bed just f'ae the sake o' a few hornie-gollachs. Gave a lass a right good tickle, he did. A pintle ye could ride the whole blesset night long an' still have some left f'ae the morn. Eh?” She batted the side of her wig to straighten it and glared at her son for dislodging it in his haste to whisper in her ear. “What are ye on aboot now? Flush what? Speak up, mon, I canna hear ye over all this blather.”

The fact there had been no blather whatsoever to conceal the exchange darkened the Lord President's complexion and caused him to signal a quartet of footmen standing nearby. They lifted the chaise and carried the old matriarch into an adjoining room, with the current Lady Forbes and her pallid daughter-in-law scurrying after them.

“You must excuse my mother,” said Duncan Forbes once the confusion had cleared. “Not only does her memory wander, but it seems she grows less concerned each day with what she says and to whom she says it.”

“If I live to be eighty, I would like to think I could claim the same privilege,” Angus said, smiling.

The two men exchanged formal bows and Angus led Anne away, noting as he did that her glass of welcoming whisky was already half empty. Most of the conversations resumed upon a telling look from Duncan Forbes, but like the blade of a plow cutting a new furrow, there was a clear path of silence where Lord and Lady MacKintosh walked.

“I do not suppose we could go home now,” she murmured.

“You are doing just fine, my dear,” Angus said, his voice equally low. “And no, we could not.”

“MacKintosh!” The booming voice of John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, parted the cluster of guests. He was a big man, not overly tall but wide enough around the girth and across the shoulders to test the skill of a tailor. His cheeks wore a constant blush from the cobweb of fine red veins, and he had what was most likely the largest nose in all of Scotland, thick and bulbous at the end, pitted like a sea sponge. “Pleased to see you here tonight, Captain. And your lovely wife, of course. Lady Anne. A pleasure.”

He came forward with a flock of scarlet-clad officers in his wake, most of whom looked rigid enough to crack if they bent over.

“You know my wife, of course, my lord?”

The two traded forced smiles. Of all the men present this evening, Anne harbored the least tolerance for Lord Loudoun. As commander of the government troops in Scotland, he had been the first to approach Angus with the “offer” not to arrest him, not to have his lands and titles attained, not to billet troops at Moy Hall or confiscate his possessions, rents, and livestock in exchange for forming up a regiment of MacKintosh men to wear the white horse of Hanover on their caps. Together with Duncan Forbes, he had made every laird of any importance similar offers, and those who had stubbornly refused were either locked away in the Tolbooth gaol or hiding in caves.

When the earl bowed politely over Anne's hand, his eyes went no lower than the brimming edge of her bodice. “It has been an inordinately long time since we have had the pleasure of your company, Lady Anne. Angus, I know you have already met my new adjutants, but permit me the honor of presenting them to your wife. Lady Anne MacKintosh I have the honor to present Major Roger Worsham and Captain Fergus Blite, both of whom arrived within the past fortnight from London.”

Anne was happy not to have to stare into Loudoun's face a moment longer than necessary, but neither of the two new officers was any blistering prize as an alternative. Captain Blite was spectacularly ugly, his face marred by a milky white coating over one eye. The major was a slight improvement in that his features were almost pristinely handsome, but his back was stiff, his knee bent slightly forward to show the tightness and fit of his breeches to best advantage, and the sly smile he wore clearly indicated he had already heard a great deal about the red-haired Jacobite mistress of Moy Hall.

Standing by his side, a slender white hand hooked possessively through his elbow, was yet another reason to bring Anne's jaws grinding together.

Adrienne de Boule was petite and fine-boned, her hair dark as coal under the severe dusting of rice powder. She was French, and spoke in a delicate accented whisper calculated, no doubt, to require men to always lean forward to hear what she was saying. Her skin did not need mercury washes to bleach it white; her eyes were large and dark and expressive, with a thick fringe of black lashes that could be fluttered to good effect.

They were stirring up a veritable breeze at the moment as her gaze fastened on Angus, and when he bowed over her hand, she took a deep enough breath to seriously deplete the supply of air in the room and to make her breasts—which were prominent enough without assistance—come perilously close to popping over the top of her bodice.

“Lady MacKintosh.” Worsham was still smiling, oblivious to the fact that his companion was on the verge of lifting her skirts if Angus gave the smallest indication of interest. “It is both an honor and a privilege to finally make your acquaintance. I apologize for being somewhat lax in bringing myself out to Moy Hall before now, but can assure you the oversight will be corrected forthwith.”

Anne dragged her attention away from Mademoiselle de Boule and responded to the major's pledge with a brittle smile. “There is no need to trouble yourself, Major. I am rarely at home these days.”

“You have business that takes you away at all hours?”

“I have business that keeps me from entertaining uninvited visitors.”

The major arched an eyebrow. His eyes were so pale a blue as to be almost colorless, but they darkened now as the centers flared with the rebuff.

Loudoun, meanwhile, cleared his throat with a gruff harrumph . “You heard about the trouble last night, I trust?”

Angus was slow to pull his gaze away from Worsham. “Trouble?”

“Mmm. A skirmish on the Inverness road last night between Major Worsham's patrol and some rebels.”

“Three of my men dead,” Worsham said stiffly. “Several more injured. The leader of the rebels was hit and went down, but his men carried the body away before we could ascertain an identity.”

“I had not heard about it,” Angus said with a frown.

“No? I had men follow the tracks, but they lost them in the snow. Near Loch Moy, as it happens.”

“A good choice,” Angus acknowledged. “The woods are thick and the ground rocky enough in places to conceal the tracks of an army.”

“I will have to keep that in mind.” Worsham's pale eyes flicked back to Anne. “I trust you would report it upon the instant were you to see anything untoward in the vicinity? Any … wounded men, for instance. Or a large party of armed rebels.”

“Oh, upon the instant,” Anne agreed.

Worsham smiled again and this time Anne felt a chill run up her spine for it was not so much a smile as a grimace one might see on a skull.

“You know,” he said, “I have the most extraordinary feeling we have met before.”

“I am certain we have not, Major.”

“You were not out riding across the moors late last night by any chance, were you?”

The boldness of the question took Anne by surprise, as it was undoubtedly intended to do, and it was Angus who answered with a wry laugh. “Last night? Last night my dear wife was giving me a sharp piece of her tongue for having had too much to drink through the afternoon and squandering the venison roast she had ordered up for our evening meal.”

Worsham's pale eyes glittered as he studied Angus's easy smile. He was an expert interrogator and deduced at once that Angus Moy would be a difficult man to break. His fiery-haired wife on the other hand...

“My instincts, especially where a beautiful woman is concerned, are rarely mistaken. Perhaps you have been to London, Lady Anne? To the theater or opera?”

“No, Major.” Anne was aware of Angus moving infinitesimally closer. “I have never been to London, nor have I had the smallest desire to visit, for I have been told it is a dark, dreary place. They say that it always rains, and the smell of offal is so thick in the streets that it clings to all who hail from there.”

It took a moment for the veil to come off the insult, but when it did, the major's throat turned a mottled shade of scarlet. As stiff as his back was already, he managed to square his shoulders into blocks, and if not for the sudden skirling of a chanter from the far end of the hall, the tightly pressed lips might actually have pulled back into a snarl.

As it was, Anne felt Angus's hand grasp her arm and steer her over to one of the oak columns, ostensibly to clear the way for the pipers to call the guests into the banquet room. Over the strains of the Forbes's piob' rachd , Angus leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Just for your own information, Major Worsham is rumored to be one of the Duke of Cumberland's favored protégés. He sharpened his teeth serving under General Henry Hawley and has spent the last six months in Flanders slitting throats by moonlight.”

“He is a bloody Sassenach ,” Anne whispered back, “and does not frighten me.”

“Well, he should. I strongly doubt the last man who told him he smelled like shit is able to smell anything at all.”