Midnight Honor

must, logic and reason will prevail. I stronglydoubt the Duke of Cumberland will want to be seen as a conqueror who makes war against women and children; even so, it might be prudent to remove yourself from Moy Hall.”
    Anne shook her head. “Angus told me to wait for him here, and so I shall until I hear otherwise.”
    “You saw your husband?”
    “Briefly. He helped me move John MacGillivray's body.”
    Lord George pursed his lips, and she could tell he was searching for some delicate way to say what needed to be said. “That may not have been the wisest thing for him to do. If he was seen, or if his efforts on our behalf have been exposed …”
    “If he has been arrested, or if he needs my help, how would I know this if I were in Ruthven or hiding in a cave up in the hills? No, my lord, I know you are only thinking of my welfare, but I have done so many things to disappoint him throughout our marriage, been so stubborn, behaved so foolishly at times.” She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “He would not even be facing a possible threat of hanging if not for me, if not for my challenging him, after Falkirk, to take more risks. At the very least I owe him my loyalty now.”
    Lord George bowed his head a moment, then looked up. “You give yourself too much credit for the risks he has taken, my dear. Angus was taking risks for us long before Falkirk.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean … there were other occasions on which your husband helped us when he could have as easily, and far more safely, helped himself. We had spoken, you see, just after Loudoun and Forbes began calling upon the lairds and blackmailing them with threats of arrests and forfeiture if they joined the rebellion. I can tell you that Angus, for one, was quite incensed by the Lord President's arrogance. Moreover, the veiled threats levied against Lady Drummuir, yourself, and the other clan lairds had the exact opposite of the desired effect, and might have put him in the front ranks at Glenfinnan had I not suggested he might be helpful to us in other ways.”
    Anne stared at him, wondering if perhaps he had taken a blow to the head. “You asked him to spy for you?”
    “He was in the perfect position, after all. He had been away on the Continent long enough for his lack of political zeal to be convincing. He was an important enough man to win a position of favor and trust with both Forbes and the Earl of Loudoun. Despite giving me a very firm and clear no at the time—I believe he made reference to leaping out of the pot and dancing in the fire—I began to receive intriguing and interestingly worded letters. They pertained to mutual business interests, for the most part, but the odd one contained a phrase or two that made no sense at first, not until one began to realize the ‘shipment of grain’ he was alluding to coincided with the arrival of troop ships. Or that the ‘meat shortage’ they were experiencing in Perth and Stirling meant that there were far fewer troops garrisoned in either city than the government boasted. I doubt we would even have attempted to go up against General Cope at Prestonpans had we not known beforehand that the ‘apples in the orchards were still very green and quite inedible.’ By this method he told us General Cope had little more than raw recruits to send to the field that day. On at least two other crucial occasions, he was able to warn us away from potential traps.”
    “Angus did all of that? But why did he not tell me— especially after Falkirk, when he openly agreed to go back to Edinburgh to spy?”
    “Perhaps he wasn't entirely sure how you would receive the news. I expect it came as a shock to him that you were able to raise the clan without his approval, and perhaps he regarded his own contributions as being too little, coming too late.”
    “Midnight honor,” she whispered.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “That was what he called it. Eleventh-hour heroics.”
    She looked down at her hands. They had begun to tremble so badly she had to clasp them tightly together. All those months she had railed at him with her contempt! All those times she had fallen less than a hair's breadth short of calling him a coward, questioning his loyalty, his honor! He had said, on his last visit to Moy Hall, that he had one more confession to make to her. Was that what he had been about to tell her: that all the months she had thought him a Judas, he had been secretly working for the