Midnight Honor

troops garrisoned at Fort George.
    “The bastard is gonny put up a fight,” MacGillivray said,buckling on his heavy leather crossbelts. He had come to dinner along with nearly fifty other lairds, only to see the pinch-faced O'Sullivan handing out the prince's slips of paper. There had been no gracious word of thanks for hauling his royal personage safely through the mountains. No courteous acknowledgment of the trouble Anne was taking to meet his every comfort, or of the risk she was taking just letting him sleep under her roof. There was not even to be a full day's rest for the men, who would have appreciated a small respite after the draining march. “Or does he think Loudoun will just smile and hand him the keys to the gates o' the fort?”
    Anne watched him struggle a moment with a knotted thong on his gunbelt, then gently pushed his big hands aside. “Just be careful. We cannot spare any men at the moment to come break you out of gaol if you are caught.”
    “I'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about. I'll say it here an' now: I dinna like the idea o' strippin' away nearly a thousand men to send them to Lochaber while ye're left here on yer own.”
    “Lord George will be arriving with a thousand more any hour now,” she said, untying the knot and presenting him with both ends of the thong. “And I am hardly on my own.”
    John ignored the thong and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face upward. His eyes were so close it was like staring into a bottomless black well, and his gaze was so intense she actually felt a shiver of fear.
    “This is no joke, Annie. We're ten miles from Inverness— no' even a hard ride on a good horse. Loudoun's men have not been sittin' idle while we've been away proddin' Hawley up the arse. And aye, ye're as good as on yer own here, with a sick prince, a pregnant woman, an' a handful o' men so tired they can barely keep their eyes open.”
    “Lord George is half a day's march away,” she reiterated, frowning slightly.
    “A half a day by whose say-so? That bluidy Irish futtrat O'Sullivan? He wouldna ken how to judge how long it would take to walk from here to the loch.”
    He let go of her chin and turned his attention back to retying the pouch that held his balls of shot. Anne continued to stare up into his face, distracted by a cut just below his earthat had not been there earlier in the day. She noticed it now because he must have rubbed it and reopened the wound, leaving a smear of blood on his neck. And she noticed it because it was not ragged, like a scrape. It was clean and even, as if it had been delivered by the slash of a knife … or the point of a sword.
    She watched him tying the thong, his fingers still clumsy at accomplishing such a simple thing, and now she could see that the knuckles of his right hand were torn and red-raw, and that he seemed to be favoring the left arm, keeping it tight against his ribs.
    “You've been fighting again,” she said quietly.
    “I fight every day. It's called keeping the men drilled an' primed for battle.”
    She reached out and took his hand into hers, flattening it so the full extent of the scrapes and bruising was evident. “You drill with your fists?” Her gaze flicked over to his ribs. “What would I see if I asked you to open your shirt?”
    “A fine, braw stot of a man. What would I see if I asked ye to open yers?” When he saw her surprised glance, he blew his way through a Gaelic oath. “That was a ripe fine foolish thing to say an' I beg yer pardon, lass. It just fell off ma tongue.”
    “You're forgiven. As long as you don't lie to me. You were fighting again, were you not?”
    His eyes came up to hers again. “'Twas nothing. A wee disagreement.”
    “Not with one of our men, I hope?”
    He hesitated. When he shook his head Anne knew better than to probe further. In the long march from Falkirk, she had heard of at least a dozen fights MacGillivray had either participated in or broken up. Her cousins had taken their fair share of bruises as well, most in response to an overheard insult or disparaging remark against the absent chief of Clan Chattan. Cameron had thought it best—safer for everyone concerned—to keep Angus's reasons for returning to Edinburgh confined to just a few people. John and Gillies knew. Her cousins and grandfather knew. Everyone else assumed he had done what many other English officers had done the moment they mouthed their parole: arrogantly gone back to his