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 batted 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 myself.”
“You have business that takes you away at all hours?”
“No. But I am rarely at home to 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 intrigue.
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 offered. “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 following 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 remember that,” Worsham said, and the pale eyes flicked back to Anne again. “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 Anne felt a chill run up her spine.
“You know,” he said, “I have the most extraordinary feeling we have met before.”
“I am sure 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. “And yet my instincts, especially where a beautiful woman is concerned, are rarely mistaken. Perhaps you have been to London, my lady? To the theater or opera?”
“No, sir,” Anne said carefully. “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 rach'd, 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's a bloody Sassenach,” Anne whispered back. “And he 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.”
Chapter Six
Anne's esteemed mother-in-law laughed with the gusto of a man. “Ye told him he smelled like what?”
Nearing seventy, Lady Drummuir had the robust girth and forthright manner of a woman who had lived too long and seen too much strife to worry about petty gossips and social-conscious peers—several of whom snapped open their fans at the sound of her gaiety.
“Like shite?” She wiped her eyes, the laughter jiggling the prodigious expanse of her bosoms. “That'll be the second time in the spate of a week, then, he's been told he needs to bathe wi' more care, damned Sassenach.”
The dinner had progressed smoothly enough. The avid appetites of more than sixty guests had been tempted with courses that included collops of beef, smoked salmon, saddles of venison, and huge bowls of poached sea scallops swimming in butter. Most of the focus, therefore, had been on the extravagant quantities of good food and wine—both of which had been in short supply in recent months. To be sure, there were the occasional bursts of laughter and rousing cheers from the sea of redcoats surrounding Lord Loudoun as they offered periodic huzzahs to celebrate the retreat of the Jacobite army. Angus, because of his rank and privilege, was situated somewhere in their midst, but Anne and Lady Drummuir had chosen of their own accord to sit much farther along the table, where the company consisted mostly of older crones and homely spinsters.
And a few surprises.
Anne was already in her seat when she glanced along the table and saw a familiar mane of tarnished blond hair. Granted, it was combed smooth and bound at the nape, but there was no mistaking the massive shoulders and dark brooding eyes of John Alexander MacGillivray.
Anne would be the last one to express surprise at seeing a known Jacobite sympathizer seated at the Lord President's banquet table. Apart from the fact he was a wealthy and powerful laird in his own right, it was most likely MacGillivray's black-market burgundy that the guests were drinking, for his clansmen were as renowned for their smuggling ventures as they were for their warlike independence. He would have been invited, as Anne had, out of a sense of courtesy, and like Anne, he had probably come out of respect for the Dowager Lady Forbes.
She managed to pass him a fleeting smile before being drawn back into the conversation with Lady Drummuir.
“He had the nerve to bring a troop of men to my house an' search the cellars,” she declared with an impressively indignant flaring of nostrils. “He claimed he'd heard a rumor the Jacobites were hoardin' a supply of lead shot in my wine tuns. I told him no' to be such a daft bastard; the tuns were used to store the powder, the prince had all the balls.”
Douglas Forbes, the Lord President's nephew, actually chewed twice on his mouthful of black pudding before he caught the pun, at which time he nearly choked. Etiquette and civility had dictated that a member of the immediate family must be seated near the ladies MacKintosh, and he had actually volunteered for the privilege. He was between Anne and Lady Drummuir, and through the course of the meal there had been several occasions when
he required a sharp clap between the shoulders from one or the other.
It was the dowager's turn this time and she obliged with a hearty cuff that nearly sent him across the table. “There now, laddie, take a wee sip of wine. Yer torment is almost over. See there? The ladies are heavin' off their fine fannies to go take a winkle, an' the men are takin' their brandy an' cigars in the drawing room so the lads can clear away the tables.”
“I assure you it has not been a torment, Lady Drummuir,” he said with a grin. “Far from it.” He noticed Anne moving, and stood quickly to hold her chair as she rose. When she thanked him for the courtesy, he flushed and stammered out an emboldened invitation. “If you would not regard it as being too presumptuous, Lady Anne, I would be spectacularly honored if you would grant me the pleasure of a dance later this evening. If your time is not already spoken for, that is. And of course, if you would care to dance. With me, I mean.”
Anne took a moment to admire the throbbing shade of red his ears achieved.
“Spectacularly honored? I do not believe anyone has attributed such merits to a mere dance. In this case, although I thank you for asking, Mr. Forbes, I suspect your uncle would prefer if you did not.”
“So long as the preference is not yours, Lady Anne, my uncle can go shoot himself in the foot.”
She laughed and tipped her head. “You offer too much temptation, sir. The honor would be mine, and I should like very much to dance with you.”
The lad was so thrilled he started to escort her out into the hallway, but The MacGillivray was suddenly beside them, the glint in his eye advising Douglas Forbes to melt onto the floor with the other gnats instead.
“I need a word with ye,” he murmured, barely moving his lips as he walked Anne to the end of the dining hall. “Slip down the stairs an' meet me in the library soon as ye're able.”
He did not wait for her answer, nor could she think of one on the instant, startled as she was by the request. At the door, she watched him bow and stride off down the hall, gallantly excusing his way through several dozen chattering females.
“A prime piece of lusty manhood is that MacGillivray,” Lady Drummuir mused, slipping her arm through Anne's as they followed at a more sedate pace. “If I were forty years younger, I'd no' have to rely on gossips to tell me what was under that kilt of his. Aye, a hundred pairs of thighs will weep when they hear the news he's finally decided to wed.”
“He has?”
“Ye've no' heard? He's thinkin' of asking after Elizabeth Campbell of Clunas—or so the faeries tell me.”
The dowager's faeries comprised a network of spies as extensive as anything the British military had in the field. If they said John MacGillivray was taking a bride, it was just a matter of picking out a frock to wear to the church, and Anne wondered if that was what he wanted to speak to her about. If so, she was happy for him. Truly, she was. John was a fine man, loyal and honorable, with none of the airs or arrogance borne by many who turned heads wherever they walked.
Try as she might, however, she could not call forth a clear image of Elizabeth of Clunas. Nothing came to mind beyond plain brown hair and a great many freckles.
“I said—” The dowager's voice cut sharply into Anne's reflections. “Odd he did not mention it to you.”
“Why should he?” Anne said.
“No reason. No reason at all, though I would have thought he might have said something last night when ye visited Dunmaglass.”
Anne just turned and stared.
“Och, lass, ye'd be surprised the things I know. For instance, I ken what your gran' wanted to speak to ye about, too, an' ye were wise to turn him down. No good could ever come of splitting the clan. Too many are split already, an' wounds like that will never heal. Never.”
“Does it not tear at your heart,” Anne whispered back, “to see our clansmen wearing the uniform of the Black Watch? To see Angus in uniform leading them?”
“Child, ma poor heart has been torn so many times over the years, it should have lost the ability to beat long ago. God knows it is in shreds over some of the choices Angus has made, but he's my son an' I love him. Though I may rail an' rant an' stomp about like a blathering fool, an' have no doubt one day Duncan Forbes will have me dragged off to prison in the hopes the rats will bite off ma tongue, I'll not put a knife in Angus's back. I ken he is only doing what he thinks is best for the clan.”
“Whether the lairds agree or not?”
“Neither you nor I will live long enough to see the day all the lairds of Clan Chattan agree on a single point. Ye must have noticed: He's called only on those who have no qualms wearin' the black cockade.”
It was true enough, Anne thought. Angus had been careful selecting the men to fill Loudoun's requirements; he had known better than to order men like The MacGillivray or The MacBean to take up arms for the Elector's army. They likely would have shot him out of hand and tossed his body down a well, never to be seen again.
“Angus has promised me … he gave me his word our men will not be involved in any fighting,” Anne said with quiet intensity. “He insists they are to be engaged as guards and sentries only.”
“That would be bonnie,” Lady Drummuir agreed. “Though I dinna see how he can keep to such a promise. Not when Forbes and Horse-Nose Loudoun will make a point of placing the Highland regiments in prominent positions.”
“He will keep it,” Anne insisted. “He has never lied to me or broken his word, despite all that has happened, and I do not believe he will do so now.”
“Aye, well then, we'll both keep the faith, shall we? He's a good lad when he's no' being so bloody pigheaded. Naturally, if ye tell him I said as much, I'll deny it, for it does no harm to keep yer sons a wee bit afraid of ye.” The dowager's gaze strayed to where Lady Regina Forbes and her chair were being carried into an adjacent room. “Poor soul. Not only is she frail as a leaf, but have ye ever seen skin that color on aught but a corpse? I suppose I must go an' pay ma respects, though if that slack-witted daughter-in-law of hers says the smallest word to me, I'll be windin' up ma fist again.”
Anne kept company with one of the spinsters for a few moments, then excused herself to casually follow some of the other guests as they drifted downstairs. She would have done so even if The MacGillivray had not requested a moment alone. The interminable hours spent at the dinner table had been a strain on her nerves and the thought of the upcoming dancing was more than enough to make her want to seek out a quiet, shadowy corner somewhere to wait for Angus to say they could leave. He had caught her eye several times during the various courses, his expression anxious each time, as if he were wondering who he could approach to act as his second should either his wife or his mother offer an insult that could not be retracted. He had not followed her out of the dining room, and the last glimpse she'd had, he was standing in a corner conversing with Duncan Forbes.
When she was fairly certain no one was paying her any notice, Anne made her way down the stairs and along the huge vaulted hallway to a rear corridor leading off to the left.
When she rounded the corner, she stopped and looked back again, feeling more like a thief than a guest, for while it was one thing to caper about the countryside in the dead of night, it was quite another to be caught skulking around in the Lord President's library.
The tall double doors were standing slightly ajar when she approached. The hallway was well lit and there were no guards cordoning off any areas of the house, yet she still felt like an interloper and walked with her skirts raised to lessen the sound of her petticoats brushing over the floor. She peered between the opened doors but could see very little of the interior. The room was barely lit, and she suspected that if MacGillivray was already inside, he had perhaps extinguished some of the candles and lamps to make it less hospitable to any guests who might be ambling by.
She drew a deep breath and casually pushed the doors wider. Staying within the bounds of the light that came from the hallway, she walked almost to the center of the room
before halting again.
“Hello?” she called softly. “Is anyone here?”
It was a large, scholarly room, darkened by wood paneling, muted further by rows of crowded bookshelves that rose twenty feet to the ceiling. Two shell-shaped alcoves were framed in crimson draperies that hung above the arch and fell in deep swags on either side, tied back with thick ropes to match the braided gold fringing. One of the alcoves contained an upholstered chair for reading in the natural light; the other housed French doors that opened out to the terrace. A huge cherrywood desk occupied the space between the two windowed bays, set beneath a large tapestry depicting a medieval battlefield with archers and knights in heavy armor.
The air was musky, redolent of leather and paper, as silent as an ancient scriptorium, and Anne made one full, slow revolution, awed by the sheer number of books, curious as to who might actually have read them all. She found her answer in the gilt-framed portraits that were hung between the sections of shelves; they were men with the stern faces and long chins of academics, nary a soldier or warrior in the lot.
“As grim an' dull as they come,” MacGillivray agreed, stepping out of one of the alcoves. “Nae wonder Forbes is such a heroic fellow. That one”—he hooked his thumb derisively in the direction of one pinch-lipped ancestor— “looks as though he just took a mouthful o' sheep dung but disnae have the guts to spit it out.”
“This is very dangerous,” Anne said. “If someone should walk by and see us here we would have the devil of a time explaining ourselves.”
“Two old friends, taking a breath o' fresh air. Where's the harm?”
Aside from the obvious trespass, she thought, the harm was in the lack of light, the heavy shadows, and the crooked, challenging smile on his face. It was in the not-so-casual gleam in the unfathomable black eyes, and in the memories of a hot afternoon behind a booth at the fairground.
Midnight Honor Page 9