Midnight Honor

his sister before she slumped over onto the floor.
    “Good gracious,” Anne cried. “Is she hurt?”
    “She's not hurt,” Deirdre assured her, “she is merely exhausted and cold. She's not been getting the proper rest for several weeks now, and all this horseback riding …
astride
, no less … 'tis a wonder she hasn't miscarried!”
    “Miscarried?” Anne looked at Catherine's pale face. “She's with child? Should I send for a doctor?”
    “I'm fine,” Catherine gasped. “It was just a little spell of dizziness. Damien, for heaven's sake, put me down.”
    He ignored her and obeyed Anne instead as she waved for them to follow her up the stairs to the bedchambers, where she stood aside and watched him set his sister gently down on the bed. “Is it not exceedingly dangerous to be riding around on horseback in such a condition?”
    “I've tried telling her that,” Deirdre said. “But she's as stubborn as a boil. If her husband knew, of course, he'd tie her hand and foot to a post and leave her there to rant about the unfairness of it all, but—”
    “The
Camshroinaich Dubh
doesn't know his wife is pregnant?”
    “She claims she has not yet found the right time to tell him.”
    “Perhaps a doctor would be a wise precaution, then. Just to make certain everything is all right. I would surely not want a man like Alexander Cameron angry with me should I be found wanting in my duties as hostess.”
    “No,” Catherine called weakly, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “Please do not send for a doctor. I have already spoken to Alex's brother, Archibald, and he has pronounced me hale and hardy. I am truly just cold and tired. And since everyone under the sky appears to know my little secret now except for my husband, I expect I shall
have
to tell him before he hears the gossip from Cumberland's drummers!”
    “Fine,” Deirdre said, ordering Damien to the door with an imperious wave of her hand. “But in the meantime you'll take off those filthy rags and get yourself into a proper hot bath. If Lady Anne will tell me how to find the kitchen, I'll make you a nice hot cup of tea and fetch some bread to settle your stomach.”
    “Just tell Drena what you require and she will bring it at once,” Anne said, beckoning to the maid. “In the meantime, I will leave you to rest. Please remember what I said: If you need anything, anything at all, just tell Drena.”
    The two women smiled their thanks. Anne hurried backdownstairs, for there were baggage carriers entering the front hall like a row of ants and servants everywhere, some attached to the prince, and others sent by lairds to make requests from the household. The hall quickly filled with noise and confusion, all of which might have grown to unmanageable heights if not for the sudden ominous thundering of a familiar voice.
    Anne gratefully located the golden head belonging to John MacGillivray. He was standing in the middle of the foyer, his hands on his hips, his expression promising violence as he directed servants this way and that, dependent upon whether they were making inquiries, bringing deliveries, or were simply underfoot. He must have caught the splash of pale blue satin on the stairs, for he paused to grin up at her—a distraction that cost him in skin and blood as one of the porters scraped his bare calf with the edge of a wooden trunk and sent him dancing up onto one foot.
    The prince, true to form, declared himself too feverish to take his meal in the dining room that evening. He begged Anne's pardon, sending his regrets along with a sheaf of dictated memorandums to Lochiel, Ardshiel, and Keppoch, the three chiefs who had been appealing to him to send contingents into Lochaber to oust the government troops from Fort Augustus and Fort William.
    They were to get their wish. The prince had decided to dispatch them on the morrow with their respective clan contingents to blow both forts to splinters, if that was what was required to remove the Hanover presence from the Great Glen. Lord George Murray was due in Inverness at any moment and would undoubtedly, in his surly way, demand to know why the prince's forces sat idle. Charles had every intention of assuming command of the effort to take the Highlands, and despite a flurry of responses that came back from the chiefs advising him to wait for Lord George, he stood firm in his decision. Further, he ordered MacGillivray and the men of Clan Chattan to scout the terrain and determine the number of