Midnight Honor

lock of dark chestnut hair curling down over his forehead. Every time she looked she hoped it would not just be an image she saw there. He had surprised her once, appearing unexpectedly. He could do it again, could he not?
    If he was alive.
    A draft tickled its way across her cheek and caused the candle flame to splutter. The wind was gusting outside, hard enough to cause a backwash in the chimney and send tiny puffs of smoke and ash curling down over the grate. The fire was high enough not to suffer for it; nonetheless the air smelled of pine knots and charred memories.
    “Angus.” Her whisper sounded loud in the silence. “Where are you? I know you are alive. I would have felt it if you were not.”
    She pushed away from the door and walked into her dressing room, passing through to the adjoining chamber. Obviously Hardy had not thought it necessary to burn any lamps or stoke the fire in his master's room, and Anne's candle cast the only pinpoint of light through the darkness. It seemed even quieter here. Colder. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and as she drew a slow, deep breath into her lungs, it was there: the faint tang of sandalwood oil.
    She felt the tears coming and did nothing to try to stop them. It was all right. She was alone and it was all right for
la belle rebelle
to cry. There was no one here to see her or to judge her, no one she had to impress with her wit or her calm demeanor. Here, she did not have to be strong or brave or have all the answers. She did not have to hide the fact that she trembled inside with fear and felt so helpless at times she just wanted to scream. Nor did she have to hide the fact that she hated herself for the envy she felt for Elizabeth Campbell of Clunas, which was so completely unwarranted and unfair to MacGillivray that she sagged under the added burden of shame.
    The candle started to shake, and became so heavy she had to set it aside. Blinded by tears, she crawled up onto Angus's big bed and dragged one of the huge velvet cushions to her breast, hugging it there, holding it there until she cried herself to sleep.

Chapter Nineteen
    P rince Charles rose from his sickbed long enough to give an impassioned speech to the Camerons and MacDonalds before they departed for Lochaber. Fort Augustus was the closest, located at the southern end of Loch Ness, a dark territory of thick mists and monsters. Fort William was another thirty miles south and west, verging on the vast area controlled by the Campbells of Argyle. At last report, Fort Augustus was maintained by a skeleton garrison of fewer than a hundred men and should pose no problem to the combined forces of Lochiel and Keppoch. It was Fort William, with a garrison of over five hundred men and a strong battery of heavy guns, that had to be taken in order to control the exposed underbelly of the Highlands.
    Anne dressed brightly to wave the brave clansmen off. She rode Robert the Bruce to the far end of Loch Moy, then sat atop the highest knoll, smiling and returning the waves of the Highlanders who marched past. Once again the glen was filled with skirling pipes and tartans of red, gold, blue, and green. No more than fifty lairds and captains were mounted; the rest walked, as they had walked the countless miles from Glenfinnan to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Derby, from Falkirk to Inverness. Some of them sang as they marched. Most left the enthusiasm to the pipers who filled theirchanters and squeezed out stirring
piob rach'ds
meant to strike terror into those who heard the distant, haunting echo.
    MacGillivray had taken his men out before dawn, so Anne did not have another opportunity to wish him Godspeed. It was just as well. Though she had scraped snow from her windowsill and held it over her eyes, she knew he would have detected the traces of her tears, and she wanted nothing to distract him from the dangerous business he was about.
    When the Cameron clan filed past, one of the officers pulled his big black stallion out of formation and trotted up the hill to where Anne sat. Alexander Cameron tugged on a forelock by way of greeting and drew up alongside her, watching the men tramp past and nod in their direction. Pride was blended equally with trepidation on his face; it did not take much to guess the cause of either one.
    “I have come to shamelessly beg another favor of you, Colonel.”
    “I will take good care of your wife, Captain. As will she, in turn, take good care of your child.”
    The dark eyes