Midnight Honor

explaining why you did not declare for the prince.”
    “Do not attempt to use my own words or logic against me, madam,” he warned, pushing away from the door. “Or to twist them to suit your own purposes. You know damned wellyour place was not on that field today. You know damned well what could have happened.”
    “Indeed,” she answered calmly. “John might have been killed. I thought the risk worth taking.”
    Angus's chest swelled as he took several measured breaths. His hands clenched into fists and the knuckles turned pink, then white, as he debated whether or not to strangle her now and be done with it. In the end, he came forward and took her face between his hands, drawing her into a hard and forceful embrace that lasted far longer than reason or sanity decreed. His mouth was bruising, almost brutal, his body clearly too aroused to even contemplate denying him anything, not even when he scooped her into his arms and deposited her summarily on the bed.
    With their mouths still joined, his hands fumbled at joinings and closures and in a few feverish moments, his kilt was raised, her trews were stripped away, and his arms were hooked beneath her knees, lifting them, raising them so that she was completely open to the heat and hardness of his body. He plunged savagely and repeatedly between her thighs, thrusting deep enough to shock them both into stiffening as the heat poured from his body into hers and kept pulsing, strong and swift, until there was nothing left but the quiet pants of repletion.
    “You realize,” he gasped when he could, “that I would be more than justified in beating you blue for disregarding the orders both MacGillivray and I gave you. I could tie you hand and foot to a wagon and send you home with ten men strong enough to keep you locked in a turnip bin if need be.”
    Anne swallowed hard. She was bent almost in half, her knees pinned to her shoulders, and the image of being stuffed into a vegetable bin struck her as being a terrifyingly funny threat after all she had been through that day.
    “Have you nothing to say? No clever witticisms? No sarcastic rebuttals?”
    She curled her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head. The rest of her body began to shake as well, bringing Angus's head up off her shoulder.
    “Are you mocking me, madam?”
    A great, glorious peal of laughter burst from her lips. “Never, my lord. I would never mock you for thinking of turnips at a time like this, not when my leg is cramping and the buttons on your damned
Sassenach
uniform are leaving imprints of the Royal Scots battalion crest on my belly.”
    Cursing softly, he carefully extricated himself and sat upright. There he was, chastising her for her outlandish behavior, yet his own had undergone so many changes of late—many that were so astoundingly out of character he did not know whether to be disgusted or amused by this latest display of crudeness.
    “I'm sorry. I… I don't know what came over me.”
    “The same thing that came over me last night,” she said, touching his arm. “I believe the common folk call it lust.”
    He leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. “Is that supposed to make me feel better, knowing I have lost
all
saving grace?”
    She rose up onto her knees beside him and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “Why should you be any different from me, my lord? You need only smile or crook your finger at me and I can barely stand.”
    He stopped short of snorting, but only just.
“Me
crook
my
finger? One look from you, madam, the smallest touch, the faintest scent of your hair or skin, and I am reduced to a randy schoolboy stumbling about on three legs. Even now, as angry as I am, as angry as I should be, all I can think of is being inside you again. It is as if I can't get enough of you. As if I am afraid I will never get enough of you.”
    Anne smoothed a dark lock of his hair off his cheek, tucking it tenderly behind his ear. She cupped his cheek in her hand and gently forced him to turn his head, to look at her. “I wonder: Will you still feel that way a dozen years from now?”
    “Those words will be on my lips with the last breath I draw on this earth,” he whispered tautly, “and the first I take in eternity.”
    Trembling, Anne drew him down onto the bed again. “I am so very glad, my lord, for I will never tire of hearing you say them.”

    At almost the same time Anne was welcoming Angus back into her arms, General Henry Hawley raised his