Midnight Honor

crinkled at the corners. “I've promised I'll be back within the week, but she can get a bit of a temper on her if she is disappointed.”
    “Then you would be wise not to disappoint, sir.”
    He looked away a moment, then looked back, the crinkle turning to a frown. “You've still not heard anything from The MacKintosh?”
    “No. But I was not expecting daily letters. We both agreed it would be safer all around if nothing passed between us. He might write something, or I might write something, that could put him in danger.”
    “Probably wise, aye. You might be interested, however, to know that there were some dispatches delivered into camp early this morning.”
    The change that came over Anne's face was like the sun breaking over the tops of the trees. “You have heard from Angus?”
    “He informs us that Cumberland has declared the Highlands to be little better than a hell on earth. Apparently his men have no heart for our winters. On the first attempt to follow Lord George through the mountains, two hundreddeserted. The second time, he lost nearer to four hundred. On the advice of his generals, he has decided to double back to Aberdeen and wait for the roads to become passable.”
    “They have retaken Aberdeen?”
    “And Perth. But to reach us, they have to cross those.” He gave a nod to the formidable blue-and-purple peaks of the Grampians that sprawled from one side of the horizon to the other. “Even if he waits for spring, he'll find all that snow has melted to fill the bogs and flood the moors.”
    “Angus … is well?”
    Cameron looked back. “He is doing a very brave thing, Lady Anne. He has all but stretched out his neck and laid it on the execution block. This is why you should try not to be too hard on him when you hear he is on his way back to Inverness.”
    “He is coming here?”
    “Well, not
here
precisely,” he said, indicating the frozen beauty of Loch Moy. “Several regiments are being sent by sea to reinforce Lord Loudoun's position, his own among them. The news is five days old, but we have no reason to doubt its veracity. And, oh—” He paused and removed a letter from his breast pocket. It was written on pink paper, folded and sealed, bound with a red ribbon. “This came with the packet of dispatches he managed to smuggle out before his ship sailed. I imagine pink paper is difficult to come by in an army camp. Even an English army camp.”
    With those words and a handsome grin, he tugged his forelock again and wheeled his stallion around, descending the slope to rejoin his clansmen.
    Anne continued to hold the letter in her gloved hand for a full minute without making any move to open it, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she was afraid it might fly out.
    Angus was alive and on his way to Inverness. Cumberland's army would not be invading the Highlands anytime soon. She really did not need to know anything more than that, yet to judge by the thickness of the letter, he had a great deal to tell her.
    A group of clansmen hailed her as they marched past and Anne responded with a dazzling smile. She tucked the letter into her belt and returned their waves, then glanced up at thesky, thanking the one who needed to be thanked the most for delivering the news safely into her hands. There was not a single cloud to be seen. The sun was warm and the snow glittered under its benevolent eye like a blanket of diamonds. Anne was as superstitious as any Highlander with good sense ought to be, and had the day been overcast and gloomy, she would have recognized it as a portent of ill fortune to come. But with the sun blazing from above and a letter from her husband pressing against her heart, she felt more confident about the future than she had in many long months.
    “Are you certain your information is correct, sir?”
    The speaker was Duncan Forbes, and the news was shocking enough to make him temporarily forget that his nephew Douglas was pouring him another whisky. He turned, pulling the glass out from under the decanter, then cursed roundly when the liquid splashed his hand, his leg, and the carpet in due order. With him inside the fortified walls of Fort George were Colonel Blakeney, newly arrived from Perth with fresh dispatches from the Duke of Cumberland; Lord Loudoun, who was pacing in circles like a bear tethered to a ring; and Norman MacLeod, Chief of Clan MacLeod and the officer in command of the Highland regiments at the fort.
    “My source is above reproach,