Midnight Honor

Fearchar Farquharson with a slash of a pen. Yet he had humored the old gray warrior. He had invited him to Moy Hall and listened to his arguments, knowing all the while exactly what he was going to do.
    As it happened, Angus had seen Anne Farquharson before he had even set eyes upon the elegant ivy-covered walls of his home. She had been riding across the moor, her waist-long hair whipping out in a fiery red wake behind her. He had first thought she was on a runaway, for the stallion was huge andpowerful, his hooves thundering through the waves of deer grass like a rampant charger. But then he had seen two men in hot pursuit—her cousins, he would later learn—and he had seen her halt on the crest of a hill to mock, with a crudely up-thrust finger, their paltry efforts at catching her.
    The image of her face, as breathtakingly beautiful as the Highlands that rose in untamed splendor around her, had stayed branded on Angus's mind for days afterward, and had kept intruding on his thoughts each time he opened his mouth to argue with Fearchar over the terms of the betrothal. It should not have intruded. It should not have affected the way he thought or acted or even breathed at times—and yet it did.
    Even now, after four years of marriage, Wild Rhuad Annie could still leave him stripped breathless. She could render his palms damp and his groin aching with memories of her body sliding hard over his. She could set him pacing in a library, adjusting collars and cuffs, posing in front of a window with an assumed nonchalance every time he heard a footstep out in the hallway.
    Angus finished the last warm mouthful of claret and checked the clock again. It was ten minutes past six. The invitation had said seven, though dinner could not be fashionably served until ten. It would take at least an hour to travel the frozen miles to Culloden House by carriage, and while it was the height of bad taste for a guest to arrive on or near the actual stipulated hour, Angus could not reasonably delay his departure much past six-thirty. Seven at the very latest.
    He could, of course, not go at all. He had even less desire than Anne to see the smug, pretentious faces of Duncan Forbes and his phalanx of strutting English bloodhounds. But he was trapped as surely as if there were a boot planted solidly at the back of his neck.
    He was not aware he had closed his eyes until the faint whisper of silk on wool prompted him to open them. He turned, just his head at first, and by such slow fractions of inches it took several seconds to complete the motion.
    More than long enough for the flush to rise in Anne's throat and darken her cheeks.
    She was definitely not dressed to remain sitting at homeby the hearth. She shimmered against the darker hallway like the luminous wing of a dragonfly, the bell-shaped expanse of her skirt spreading wide enough to fill the doorway. The bodice of embroidered pale gold silk was cut square, the stomacher molding her waist and descending in a flattering, deep V. Her breasts were pressured upward, rising softly over the upper edge of silk, and although an admiring eye might linger there in appreciation of the creamy half-moons, it was eventually drawn upward to the slender column of her throat, then higher still to the carefully piled extravagance of gleaming red curls.
    Angus tried to blindly set his glass on the mantel, missed, and had to take his eyes away from Anne for a moment in order to steady the crystal base on the stone. When he looked back, she had swept inside the room, the slitted panels at the front of her skirt flaring stylishly over the rich layers of petticoat beneath.
    “I am sorry I am late. Drena had a deal of trouble with my hair.”
    “The delay was well worth it,” he murmured. “You look lovely.”
    Compliments, as always, left Anne flustered and she gave her hands a nervous twist in the direction of the side table. “Are we in a dreadful hurry, or might I have a sip of wine before we leave?”
    “Of course you may.” He glanced past her shoulder to where Hardy hovered just out of earshot. The elderly valet came forward at once, signaling another servant, who was burdened under an armload of capes, to wait off to one side.
    After Angus nodded to indicate he would take another, two glasses of wine were poured and set on a silver tray. The first was presented to Anne, who exchanged a furtive glance with Hardy before taking it. His eyes gave away nothing, no hint that he could detect the