Midnight Honor (29 page)

Hawley had vowed not to make that particular mistake again and, to guard against it, had camped with the choppy waters of the firth at his back and a sodden moor on his flank. But he had grievously underestimated his enemy's ability to rebound from a disheartening retreat that might well have demoralized any other army.

“If you actually do prevail at Falkirk,” Angus said, “have you given any thought to what Cumberland's reaction will be? Despite your efforts to stymie him with nonexistent French fleets and Dutch treaties, he will be returning from London with over five thousand Hessian soldiers, all of whom
are
huge ugly brutes who sharpen their bayonets with their teeth.”

Alexander Cameron's dark eyes glittered. “So Cumberland is in London, is he? We were wondering where he had gotten to, and since none of our people could seem to find him, we were worried he might have been creeping up on us by way of Rutherglen.”

Angus's brow folded sharply.

“Moreover, if he is bringing five thousand troops back with him—and I thank you for the advance warning—it should put him at least two weeks out of the hunt. As to his reaction should Lord George Murray prevail yet again, I would say he would be pissed. Aluinn?”

“Aye,” MacKail agreed amiably. “Pissed. John?”

MacGillivray nodded. “Aye, proper pissed.”

Angus stared, realizing Cameron had effortlessly extracted exactly the kind of information he had so boldly declared he would not give them. Great care had been taken not to divulge the Duke of Cumberland's whereabouts, and the news of the Hessians had been delivered orally by courier with nothing trusted to paper.

“No need to fall on your sword,” MacKail said, reading the look on Angus's face. “Alex does that to everyone. It's a knack. When you have been with him as long as I have, in fact, you expect to walk away scratching your head at least once a day.”

“Yes, well, I would rather not be around long enough to test your theory, if it is all the same to you.”

“Aye.” Cameron shifted, squinting up at the sky. “I can smell rain in the air. You had best be on your horse and away from here before the weather turns.”

Angus followed his glance and saw that what he thought had just been a reluctant dawn was in reality a low, dark ceiling of cloud hovering over the tops of the fir trees. The wind was beginning to gust as well, snatching at the wings of his cloak, driving the dampness straight down the nape of his neck.

“I'll show him the way,” MacGillivray said. “I've an escort of MacKintosh men waiting.”

“We'll say good-bye here, then.” Alexander Cameron
straightened, and without the smallest trace of malice or mockery extended his hand. “I wish you Godspeed and good health, MacKintosh. It is a true pity you have chosen to take your stand on the wrong side of the field, but I bear you no personal ill will. Oh, and by the way, if you are looking for General Hawley upon your return, I'm afraid he might have overslept this morning. Since we knew he detested camp cots and damp canvas so much, we persuaded the Lady Kilmarnock to offer the hospitality of Callendar House for the comfort of him and his senior officers. They threw a little party in his honor last night, and the wine may have gone to his head.”

“I've seen Hawley drink a quart of whisky without batting an eye,” Angus commented.

“Laced with opiates?”

Angus shook his head. “May I ask why you did not just poison him?”

“That wouldn't have been sporting, now, would it?”

Angus laughed despite himself and clasped Cameron's outstretched hand, reminded once again that he was trusting Anne's safety and well-being to the hands of these reckless madmen. He did not want to dwell on the dangers she would be facing in short order, but how could he not? She had promised to stay well out of harm's way, but how could he know for sure she would honor that promise?

Deep in thought, he followed MacGillivray along a path that would take them through the woods, but as soon as the village was out of sight behind the trees, the tall Highlander stopped and swung around.

“I just want ye to hear it from ma own lips that I never touched her. I wanted to. I came damned close more times than I care to admit, but she has never broken faith with ye an' I'll no' hear it said from any man's lips that she did. No' even yours.”

“I believe you. I believed Anne last night.”

“Last night? Last night we were both feelin' our
uisque
. I was the more fool for lettin' slip something I've been carryin' around on ma tongue like a glowin' brand, but it was damned near burnin' me. Aye, I would have let it burn her, too, an' the
devil take you, Angus Moy, if she'd given me the smallest sign that she could live with herself afterward.”

John stopped to take a heave of breath, the bulk of his shoulders and chest making him look as dark and threatening as the firs that loomed on either side of the path. Having made the comparison, it occurred to Angus that a body could be thrown under those trees and lie there undiscovered until the spring thaw.

“Aye,” John said, reading the wariness in Angus's eyes. “Have ye any idea how lucky ye are? Do ye ken how many times I've thought just to take ye in hand an' crack yer spine over ma knee? Ye'd snap like a twig, ye would. An' then it would be over an' done, an' I'd not have to look into her eyes an' see the hurt ye've caused. I'd tell her every day how brave an' beautiful she was, an' if she once …
once
looked at me the way she looks at you …” He had his hand raised for emphasis, but when the words and all their unspoken possibilities failed him, he curled his fingers into a fist and looked away, looked anywhere but into the face of the man whose betrayal had made Anne cry herself to sleep nearly every night at Dunmaglass.

In the end, he settled for spitting an oath into the ground as he turned away.

“John, I know how you feel. And I know how Anne feels, but you don't understand—”

The fist came up again in warning, still clenched, though the Highlander did not look back. “Enough. Ye've said enough. Another word, I might just as well spare the clan the shame of seein' ye across the battlefield wearin' Hanover colors.”

“Then that is what you will have to do, because by God”—Angus raised his voice to compensate for the distance MacGillivray's huge strides were putting between them—“I have stood here and listened to you declare your love for my wife; the least you can do is hear me out. If not as your chief, then as someone who was once your friend.”

MacGillivray stopped. His upper torso swelled as he sucked in a deep breath, then he reached up and snatched the bonnet off his head, throwing it down with another curse. He
shrugged off the length of plaid that had been wrapped around his shoulders, and reached up with two hands to grasp the hilt of the
clai' mór
he wore strapped across his back. The sound of five feet of honed steel sliding out of its studded leather sheath shivered through the cold air and sent Angus's hand to the hilt of his own slim saber.

He did not draw it, however, knowing it would be like matching a sapling against an oak tree, and when MacGillivray stalked back, close enough to touch the point of steel to the hard ridge of Angus's windpipe, the hesitation was mocked with a sneer.

“Ye want to say yer piece, say it.”

“As simply as I can, then: The reason I will be standing on the opposite side of the battlefield today is not that I want to be. It is because Forbes gave me his word … in writing and stamped with the royal seal… that as long as I served in King George's army neither Anne nor my mother would be in any danger of arrest. It was a guarantee of immunity, and had I not agreed to the terms, the opposite result would have been the immediate signing of warrants for them, for you, Fearchar, MacBean, and about two dozen other lairds of Clan Chattan. He was not going to give me any choice in the matter, just as he had not given much choice to other lairds in my position. Luckily, I was warned ahead of time and managed to convince him my years in Europe had left me indifferent to the political intrigues of either side. To my shame, I even led him to believe I was indifferent to my marriage as well, that Anne's arrest would be more of a blot against the noble name than anything else. Unfortunately, I seemed to have played the part too well, for she began to believe it herself, and for that damning cruelty, if you still want to take my head off my shoulders, do it now, for the pain of eternal silence would be less than what I have had to endure these past few months! Here! I will even make it easier for you! A clean stroke should free us both.”

Angrily, he tore at the fastening of his cloak and ripped it aside along with the underlying edges of his tunic and waistcoat. So vigorously did he yank open his shirt and invite a quick end, he scraped a peeling of flesh from his chest, deep enough that it turned instantly red with blood. There he stood,
his legs braced apart, the wind against his back, the dark locks of his hair blown forward over his cheeks, and waited for his fate to be decided in MacGillivray's eyes.

It seemed to be a long time coming, but in the end, John slowly lowered the point of his sword. His eyes were narrowed, glittering like two shards of black glass, and his eyebrows drew together in a deep V that only grew deeper and darker as he absorbed what Angus had said.

“Immunity? Ye've whored yerself to the
Sassenachs
to win us all a promise of immunity?”

“Bluntly put, as always. But yes. I thought it worth the price to safeguard my family. At the same time, it left you free to carry on your smuggling and blockade running, neither of which has sat well with Forbes, I might add, especially when he had the means and proof to arrest you half a dozen times over in the past months.”

MacGillivray glowered a moment longer. “Why, for the love o' God, did ye not tell me? Or Annie, for Christ's sake. Ye've put her through royal hell, ye bastard.”

“I thought I could protect her better this way,” Angus said lamely. “Her contempt for me had to be genuine if for no other reason than to help convince Loudoun and the others that greed was my only motive, nothing else. It was not the kind of act I thought she could sustain over several months.”

“But you could?”

“My entire life has been a performance; I was raised to wear a mask at all times.”

“Aye, well. Ye wore it well enough ye nearly sent her into the arms of another man.”

“It was a chance I had to take. Can you imagine the leverage Forbes would have had if he knew how desperately I loved my own wife?”

The admission, as much as the raw honesty in Angus's voice, set MacGillivray back another step. “Still an' all,” he said after a moment, “she willna thank ye when she finds out.”

Angus shook his head. “She mustn't find out. I want your word on that, John.”

“Why the devil would ye want me to swear to such a thing? If she knew why ye were doin' this—”

“She would only feel twice as guilty and hurt as before.”

“What about the others? Gillies? Fearchar? Do they no' deserve to know why their laird is wearin' the Hanover cockade?”

Angus released his grip on his torn shirt and drove his hands through his hair. “No. No, it has to be this way, and if you don't believe me, just look at yourself. Ten seconds ago you were ready to split me open like a melon. Now you have that same noble look on your face that you had when we were boys and Ranald MacFeef threw me in the bog. You were five years younger than I, but I was the one lying there sobbing over the stains on my brand-new satin breeches while you were standing over me like a bloody great wolfhound daring them to laugh or pelt me with another plug of dung. Tell me, if you can, that you would not come straight back to Falkirk with me now if I asked you to guard my back?”

MacGillivray glared. His lip curled as if he were about to deny the charge, but in the end he only spat out an oath. “Ye could always just turn around an' go back to the cottage. Then I'd guard yer back through the gates o' hell if need be. If we win today, I'm of a mind Loudoun's guarantees will no' be worth the paper they're written on, anyway.”

Angus cursed his way through a sigh of exasperation. “But if the British win, they might be worth the weight of every insult and affront I've had to endure.”

“In other words, yer lack o' faith in us hasna been entirely an act.”

“It has nothing to do with faith, my friend, and everything to do with artillery, cavalry, and thousands of infantrymen who have been fed nothing but a steady diet of drilling and discipline. Suppose—just for the sake of argument, if you will— that the prince is captured or slain today, and his army is driven from the field in defeat. Anne's cousins safeguard her as they would a younger sister, and I've no doubt that every man who sees her riding before them like a Celtic Jeanne d'Arc would sooner drive a red hot stake into his own eye than be caught looking upon her with anything other than pure, honorable thoughts. But if the British win, they will not stand on ceremony. Men will be hanged, executions will be rife, and any woman found wearing the white cockade, regardless of
who she is or what noble quest brought her to the field, will be treated like spoils of war.”

“That will never happen,” MacGillivray said, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword again.

“Can you guarantee it? Can you absolutely guarantee you will walk off the field alive, victorious, and in total command of an army drunk on blood lust? If so, you are a better man than I, for I've seen a full British volley, and I've seen a battalion of cavalry at full charge, and I'll not be foolish enough or arrogant enough to predict my own odds of survival at the end of the day. But if I do come through this alive, I've a better chance of stopping my wife from being raped by a corps of triumphant dragoons than you would with your pride bloodied and your sword surrendered.”

MacGillivray bared his teeth in a snarl and started to say he would never surrender his sword, not while his body still drew breath, but another, calmer side of him could see Angus's reasoning. Much as it galled him to think of the consequences of defeat, after they had waited so long to take part in the rebellion, he had to admit the possibility was abhorrently real. He also knew full well how murderous a British volley could be. Anne believed he was immune to fear, but he was not; he simply pushed it to the back of his mind and refused to look at it too closely.