Midnight Honor

rein of the Jacobite camp.”
    Angus had smiled as slyly as he dared. “The prince himself took my parole, and that once given, aye, I was allowed to keep company with my wife. I was able to move about with relative freedom, and was often invited to dine with the other lairds, some of whom, either through carelessness or misguided assumption, discussed matters with an unguarded tongue.”
    “Unguarded enough,” Major Garner had said at that point, “to have let slip some vital information I intend to act upon within the hour. If it is true the Jacobites have stockpiled avast quantity of weapons and ammunition at Corgarff Castle, its capture could seriously impair the Pretender's ability to re-supply his army. I plan to lead the assault myself, Your Grace, and you can be sure I will not return without a solid victory to report.”
    Garner had then raised his glass in a toast to credit Angus's cleverness. As Cameron had predicted, after Angus mentioned he had been in the company of the
Camshroinaich Dubh
, Major Hamilton Garner had turned from skeptic to guarantor almost in the blink of an eye.
    “Indeed, a victory is much needed,” Cumberland agreed. “Another humiliation would make us more of a laughingstock than we already are. All the same, if I were a suspicious man, Lord MacKintosh, I might question such blind faith in your information, not to mention your motives for leaving your beautiful wife and returning here to us.”
    Angus did not have twenty-two generations of noble blood in his veins for naught. He had returned the duke's stare with an icy detachment and an eyebrow arched with just enough arrogance to mock the very notion of collaborating with such obviously inferior outcasts.
    “I came back because I am a realist, Your Grace. I know it is only a matter of time before you catch up with the Pretender, and for the final denouement, I would prefer to be on the winning side.”
    “And your wife? What does she prefer?”
    “It would seem she prefers to play games and raise havoc, but in the end, she will simply return home to her tapestries and embroideries and remember this as nothing more than a grand adventure.”
    “We are told she actually took part in the battle.”
    “Yes, I have heard the tales about the red-haired Amazon who took to the field in full battle dress”—Angus had paused to offer a disdainful smirk—“and if your men believe them, then the Jacobite dissemblers have done their work exceedingly well, have they not? I was with her less than an hour after the first shots were fired and I can assure you, Sire, she was comfortably ensconced with the other wives of the officers, drinking chocolate and laughing over the little goldbraiding on her bodice that denotes her so-called
rank
. Better, I think, to put one's faith in the reports that may be proven true than in those designed to defy all logic and credibility.”
    Cumberland's eyes had narrowed and Angus had held his breath, for it all came down to whether or not they would believe his accounting of the events, or the vague reports of a handful of released prisoners, most of whom gave such varying descriptions of Anne he would have been hard-pressed to recognize her himself. In his favor, Alexander Cameron had given him the information about the cache of Spanish arms and ammunition the Jacobites were storing in Corgarff Castle. The fact that most of the guns were rusted and the ammunition was of so many different calibers it was more bother to haul than store would not be immediately apparent. With the news sheets in London depicting Hawley running from Falkirk with his napkin still tucked into his collar, the duke was almost desperate to put his faith in someone other than the incompetents who had failed him thus far.
    And in the end, he had. Major Garner led an attack against Corgarff Castle and returned to Edinburgh with a dozen wagons full of muskets and barrels of lead shot. Within the week, the
London Gazette
was depicting the triumphant Duke of Cumberland poised atop a mountain of weaponry that could have supplied the continental armies for a dozen years. Assured of his loyalty, Angus had found himself onboard the
Thames Rose
within the week, bound for Fort George with orders to aid Lord Loudoun in his defense of Inverness.
    Angus rubbed his gritty eyes again. The ship had been struck by a hellish storm and they had arrived in port battered, bruised, and a mere hour before Lord Loudoun declared he was abandoning the