Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  John stuck his cigar in his mouth and clapped a hand around the shorter man's shoulder. “Ye're a good friend, Gillies, but ye've likely just saved me from a fine case o' the pox.”

  Gillies grinned. “Dinna tell Robbie that. She wrung him out in the haystack no' an hour gaun. He's lyin' there still, drained tae the bone, weak as a saplin', declarin' undyin' love.”

  “Love,” John snorted. “Almost as bad as the bloody pox. Let's away. It'll be dawn in a few hours, an' ye've given me a taste for fresh bannocks.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ninety miles directly to the southwest, Angus Moy had such a foul taste in his mouth, no amount of claret, whisky, or French brandy was proving able to remove it. It was not the lingering effects of the meal he'd had earlier, for the salmon served that evening at Holyrood House had been succulent, the venison tender enough to cut with a fork. It was the company that was wearing on his patience, souring his disposition, a condition that seemed to be becoming increasingly frequent with each passing day. Even with his own men, he found himself snapping their heads off with little provocation other than a sidelong glance or a heartbeat of hesitation. He had, to his utter personal disgust, even ordered a man flogged for failing to groom his horse properly the day before.

  The harshness of the penalty had, perversely, won him respect from another quarter. General Henry Hawley was a seasoned campaigner, a veteran of the wars in Europe. He was a particularly cruel commander, a harsh disciplinarian beloved by no one, respected only by those who shared his penchant for floggings and hangings. Every day without fail there were entries made in the Order Book, names of men sentenced to the lash who received any number from the minimum of twenty-five strokes to the maximum of three thousand. Gibbets were one of the first structures erected when Hawley made camp, and the more prominent the location, he reasoned, the better for maintaining the proper morale. In Edinburgh, he had chosen the town square, for his occupational powers were not limited to soldiers; there were a number of townspeople he felt were deserving of lessons in constancy.

  Businessmen known to have willingly provisioned the Jacobites with weaponry or munitions were fined into bankruptcy and locked in public stocks to be spat upon and pelted with rotted garbage. Those found guilty of participating in acts of sabotage or suspected of causing general mischief were either lashed to within an inch of their lives or hanged by way of example alongside soldiers accused of cowardice or sedition. Women fared little better. Doxies who stated their preference for men in kilts were treated to the whirligig; they were strapped into a chair and raised off the ground, then spun at such length and with such vigor, the nausea and vomiting lasted for days.

  Following Cumberland's example, Hawley had forbidden gambling and banned women from the company tents. A man with an urge had to either ease it with his own hand or risk the lash by bribing his way outside the picket lines to the wagons of the camp followers—none of whom suffered a lack of steady custom despite the restrictions.

  Naturally these rules did not apply to officers. Many of them traveled with wives or mistresses, and to judge by the resplendent array of silks, the glittering splash of jewels, the sweeping décolletages and seductive come-hither smiles, one would be hard-pressed to believe the country was in the midst of a rebellion. No common barracks for these fine officers, either. The lavish homes of the burghers and bankers had been appropriated as billets, the wine cellars and pantries accessed freely, with only the vaguest promises of compensation.

  Angus had been assigned a lovely gray brick home with a spectacular view of the spires and steeples of the ancient royal city. From an upper window he could watch the effects of the sunrise against the massive edifice of Edinburgh Castle, the battlements braised gold and orange, shrouded in sea mists that gradually burned away to reveal the glinting mouths of the cannon that looked down over the streets. Old Colonel Guest had stubbornly refused to surrender the castle throughout the three months of Jacobite occupation, and had even threatened to fire his heavy guns on the city should any attempt be made to breach the walls. Fortunately for the townspeople, Charles Stuart had had no siege cannon in his possession at the time, and the castle was left unmolested.

  Upon the hasty departure of the Jacobite forces, the gates had swung open with great pomp and ceremony to welcome General Hawley when he reclaimed the capital city. Hawley, in turn, had relieved the beleaguered troops and paraded Colonel Guest from the inner courtyard of Crown Square along the Royal Mile to opulent lodgings at Holyrood House as if he had single-handedly preserved the crown's possessions in Scotland.

  Since Angus was, in effect, a bachelor during this sojourn, he had been billeted with Major Roger Worsham. He had little doubt the pairing had been on purpose, so that his comings and goings could be closely monitored; to that end, Worsham was, if nothing else, efficient to a fault. If Angus went for a stroll, he was afraid of stopping too quickly lest the major walk up his heels.

  As far as his personal habits went, the man was a lecher and a boor. He had convinced Adrienne de Boule to come away from Inverness, and while she was officially housed in another area of the city, there were nights Angus could hear them laughing and carrying on in Worsham's room at the end of the hall. Several mornings, whether by accident or intent, he had emerged from his room to find Adrienne in various stages of undress, either accompanying the major down to breakfast or trying to entice him back to bed. The first couple of times she had seemed genuinely embarrassed. After that, she only laughed at his shocked expression.

  Angus, on the other hand, had not heard from Anne since he had left Inverness. She had not written, had not even troubled with the courtesy of informing him she had left Drummuir House. Indeed, he might not have known at all had his valet, Robert Hardy, not let it slip that he had sent for some of Angus's personal possessions and been informed by the housekeeper that not only had Anne left the dowager's house, she had removed her things from Moy Hall and taken up residence at Dunmaglass as a guest of John MacGillivray.

  When he had first heard this, Angus had been dumbfounded. He had known she was upset over his departing for Edinburgh, but he had not foreseen the possibility of her being so repulsed she would move out of his home and into that of another man.

  Generally speaking, his insights into the workings of a woman's mind were limited, but with Anne, who never saw any reason or use for pretense, he felt reasonably sure he knew where he stood in her estimation at any given time. If anything, it had been her inability to conceal any of her emotions that posed the greatest threat to her safety these past months. The daggers in her eyes were real; anyone foolhardy enough to earn her wrath was impaled on the first glance. Angus himself had felt the flashing darts on many an occasion, but she had always stopped short of letting him bleed to death. And more times than he was proud to admit, he had used her obvious vulnerability to defuse a potentially explosive situation.

  That vulnerability was her love for him, and as much as he wanted, needed, craved to see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, feel it in her body when she shuddered in his arms, he could not let anyone else see it. He could not, for instance, let Forbes or Loudoun have the faintest suspicion that he would have forsaken everything, his clan, his titles, his wealth, his very life in order to protect her from harm.

  The major had not mentioned the incident at Drummuir House again, but it was clear he had not believed for an instant that Angus and John MacGillivray had been drunk together that or any other night at Moy Hall. Whether or not he believed Anne had merely been walking off a cramp in the hallway was doubtful as well, but without proof he could do nothing more than speculate over who had stolen the dispatches and how they had eventually made their way into Lord John Drummond's hands. It had been an astonishing coup by the Jacobites, and part of Angus was as yet unable to grasp the fact that his wife had been singularly responsible for sending six thousand crack troops back to Holland.

  There had been further rumors that the Farquharson trio had been riding ar
ound the shire attempting to foment rebellion within the clan, and reports that MacGillivray and MacBean had been raiding the quartermaster supplies at Fort George, but again there was no proof, and half of what the Jacobites had accomplished thus far—including the panic over the imminent landing of a massive French fleet—had been achieved by fabrications and rumors. Until the actual retreat from Derby, the government had not even had a clear idea of how many Highlanders had marched into the heart of their country. Lord George Murray had been adept at subterfuge and confusion, sending out patrols ahead of the advancing army to warn the towns and cities in their path that a great hoard of ravenous Highlanders was descending on their countryside. Twenty and thirty thousand troops had been reported at various times, sending the population fleeing before them and allowing the few thousand Jacobites to enter the English cities unmolested.

  The retreat had been as much of an embarrassment to the Hanovers as to the Jacobites, for when the news spread that there had never been more than five thousand Scots in the prince's camp, the Elector's generals were a laughingstock.

  One would think they had learned a hard lesson, but General Hawley sat idling away his days and evenings in Holyrood House while the prince's forces regrouped and re-supplied, growing stronger each day. The Stuart's main army was back to full strength at Glasgow, while Lord Lewis Gordon was welcoming fresh contingents to Aberdeen every day.

  Despite receiving daily—sometimes hourly—reports of increased activity, Hawley appeared unconcerned. Angus suspected the general's own arrogance dictated that he wait until there were sufficient numbers to make opposing them worthwhile. How, he had been heard to proselytize, could sending his eight thousand troops to quash a disorganized rabble of twelve hundred be regarded as anything more than a hollow victory? Even twenty-five hundred posed no real threat. Charles Stuart was preparing to decamp from Glasgow and march to Stirling; defeating him would be a worthy challenge.

  Angus listened to Hawley's boastings and only thought him the greater fool for his arrogance. He had surely read the reports after the battle of Prestonpans, wherein the officers stated that the sheer terror evoked by the sight and sounds of a Highland charge had scattered most of their men into a retreat without their having fired a single shot. The blond, pike-faced Hamilton Garner had been on the field that day. If anyone should be tugging on Hawley's ear, it should be Garner, for he had been among the few who had stood their ground and met the bloody onslaught, but at an appalling cost of over half the dragoons in his regiment.

  “Ah, there you are, MacKintosh.”

  Angus cursed inwardly and took another sip of brandy. At the conclusion of the evening meal, he had removed himself from the smoke-filled drawing room and had hoped to steal away from Holyrood House before his absence was noticed. Waiting for the distraction of musicians and pretty women to take effect, he had temporarily taken refuge in the portrait gallery, a long, arched affair of marble and gold gilding.

  “Admiring one of the royal ancestors, are you?” Major Worsham came up beside him and tilted his head to study the painting Angus was standing under. The walls were hung with tapestries and life-sized portraits depicting the royal house of Stuart in all its former glory; the one Angus had gravitated toward was of the prince's great-great-grandmother, the Stuart queen known as Bloody Mary.

  She had been a strikingly handsome beauty in her youth, and the artist had not spared the power of his brush to portray her. Her hair was as red as flame, her throat smooth and long, her eyes as blue as sapphires where they gazed seductively down from their lofty perch.

  “There is certainly much to admire,” Worsham conceded, “despite her penchant for murder and intrigue. I can see why you would choose her to contemplate over the others, however; the resemblance to your wife is quite startling … around the eyes and the mouth in particular.”

  Angus turned, surprised and vaguely unsettled at the sight of another scarlet-clad officer standing behind him. It was Major Hamilton Garner, with the sloe-eyed Adrienne de Boule on his arm.

  “I am afraid I don't quite see it,” Garner said affably. “But then I only had the pleasure of making your lady wife's acquaintance the one time.”

  “There are some vague similarities,” Angus admitted.

  “Come now,” Worsham argued with an airy wave of a hand. “The hair, the eyes, the fulsome shape of her … upper form. The likeness is there. I am driven to inquire if you have ever had the Lady Anne sit for a portrait?”

  “I have suggested it several times, but she always manages to find an excuse. I fear she imagines too many shortcomings, which would in turn lead to exaggerations on the canvas.”

  “Shortcomings? I was not aware of any.”

  “She thinks she is too tall,” Angus murmured, looking up at the painting again. “And she believes her nose is violently crooked, whereas I have assured her it only tilts … ever so slightly … to the left.”

  “Gad. Most married men would not be able to tell you if their wives had blue eyes or brown. Never say that you find yourself missing her company, sir.”

  Angus caught himself and smiled wanly. “I confess there are times I miss the diversion.”

  “Even when there are so many others about?”

  Angus glanced at Adrienne, as he was invited to do. Her hair was piled high and powdered as white as her skin, of which there was no lack on display. She was a tiny, slender creature to begin with, but her waist had been pinched even smaller, and her breasts pushed so high there were two faintly pink rims of nipple showing above the rich burgundy silk of her gown.

  She saw him staring and smiled.

  “Your wife,” Garner said casually. “I understand she has been diverting more than her fair share of attention these days.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You've not read today's crop of dispatches?”

  Angus looked into the jade green eyes and had the sensation of being lured out onto ice that was too thin to bear his weight. “I have been conducting musket drills in the field with my regiment all day, and I confess the thought of a hot bath was more appealing than wading through a small hillock of parchment.”

  “Then you know nothing of your wife's activities in your absence?”

  “You make it sound as if she has stormed London and taken the king hostage.”

  Garner's laugh was a brief exhale from the back of his throat, as phony as the air of friendly camaraderie. “I would suggest, sir, that this is no jest. It seems your wife has been making quite the spectacle of herself. We have it on good authority that she has been gadding about the countryside in secret, aspiring to incite rebellion amongst your clansmen. To be more precise, she has declared for the prince and spent the last three weeks collecting signatures on a petition that would give her the necessary leverage to assume leadership of the clan in your absence.”

  Angus looked at him in astonishment. “I don't believe it.”

  “The source is reliable,” Garner added, watching Angus's face intently. “Lord Loudoun himself questioned a man they recently arrested and who was … persuaded … to reveal what he knew about a flurry of rumors we had been hearing for the past fortnight. In all honesty, it must be said there was a suspicion in some quarters that you might have sanctioned, even encouraged her activities, but”—he held up a hand with the arrogant negligence of someone accustomed to offering insults without fear of reprisal—“Lord Forbes has personally vouched for your loyalty and has assured the general your commitment to King George is firm.”

  Angus set his glass on a nearby table and clasped his hands behind his back. “My commitment to Scotland is firm, sir. To do what is best for her and her people.”

  “An admirable sentiment, I'm sure, but as you know there can be no room for sentiment on a battlefield. As a fellow officer I am more concerned with knowing that when my dragoons charge the field, your infantry will be behind us to offer their support.”

  “So long as your men are charging in the right direction, Ma
jor, you have no need to concern yourself over the whereabouts of me or my regiment.”

  The green of Garner's eyes darkened, and Angus could feel the ice cracking beneath his feet. It was well known throughout the ranks of the military that Garner was both a master swordsman and an expert marksman. To date, there had been only one cloud dampening a perfect record of duels fought and won.

  “You take liberties with my humor, sir,” Garner said stiffly.

  “You take liberties with my country, my family, and my good name. I do not know who this ‘reliable source’ of yours might be, but I can assure you my wife is not gadding about the countryside. She is in Inverness, the guest of my mother the dowager Lady MacKintosh, and if there are rumors, I suggest they are unsubstantiated at best, unmitigated folly at worst.”

  “And of course you can offer proof she is at Drummuir House?”

  Angus's eyes cut swiftly and coldly to Worsham. “I should not have to prove any such thing, sir.”

  “But if you did,” the major countered, his eyes glinting.

  “If I did,” Angus said, “I have letters from both my wife and my mother. Long, boringly detailed letters about how they have been spending their long, boring days. How can you be certain the woman riding about the countryside creating havoc is my wife?”

  “Various reports have mentioned a tall, red-haired woman in the company of John MacGillivray,” Garner said. “They place her at his house as well, at Dunmaglass.”

  “Various reports swore the prince's army was fifty thousand strong. If the proof you offer is that this woman has red hair, I suggest you try to find a farm, a village, a city tavern lacking someone who fits the same description. At the very least, I would suggest you make the acquaintance of John MacGillivray's fiancée—a very tall, very striking woman with a veritable cloud of long red hair—before you offer insults against my wife.”

  Garner's eyes narrowed. It was a safe bet the major had not met Elizabeth Campbell, or even if he had, that he would not remember she was short and dark-haired. In any case, Angus braced himself, wondering where his best chances lay in a duel—with sabers or pistols.