Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  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 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 wing 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 stomacher molding her waist and descending in a flattering, deep V. 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 sorry I am late. 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 take 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. Because she interpreted “reasonable” as meaning not spitting in their faces or calling them cowards and traitors, Angus had not often pressed her into accompanying him to formal affairs held at Culloden House or Fort George. By the same token, it was because he had spared her the discomfort of enduring all the political bombast and conceits that she had ultimately decided to join him tonight.

  Moreover, it was true what he had said about his mother. If the Dowager Lady MacKintosh could sit through an evening without fisting either Duncan Forbes or Lord Loudoun in the nose, then Anne Farquharson Moy, Lady MacKintosh, could do the same. Conversely, if the Dowager did let swing, as she had one memorable afternoon a month ago in the marketplace, 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 unsheared sheepskin, but neither did she invite any inane conversations as she settled into the corner and kept her face turned to the window, the flare of the hood preventing any unnecessary or unwanted eye contact.

  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 light 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 balk now. They were through the gates and in the drive, pulling to a halt near the sweeping front staircase. 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 her cloud of red curls. The blue of her eyes seemed to glow brightly in the torchlight, and her cheeks, kiss
ed 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 again 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. Tonight what would it bring?

  “Shall we?”

  Anne's cloak was removed inside the foyer. The day rooms, parlors, and family dining hall were on the ground floor, all lit by multitiered 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, chins whose characters could have benefitted 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 thronelike 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 cend 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 de'il o' a gran'faither o' yourn still alive?”

  Startled, Anne felt the dowager'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 Forbes, and she guessed by the sudden twinkle in the rheumy eyes that the older woman was remembering it too.

  “Yes. 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 you asked about him.”

  The dowager cackled. “Fleas, has he? Aye, well, he alus were a hairy mon, but a guid 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. Alus gave a lass a right guid 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 dowager 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 curt bows and Angus led Anne away, noting as he did that her glass of 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 this would constitute a duty served,” she murmured.

  “You are doing just fine,
my dear,” Angus said, his voice equally low. “And no, it would 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?”

  The two women 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 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, Major Roger Worsham and Captain Fergus Blite, both 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.