Midnight Honor

She would have done so even if The MacGillivray had not requested a momentalone. The interminable hours spent at the dinner table had been a strain on her nerves and the thought of the upcoming dancing was more than enough to make her want to seek out a quiet, shadowy corner somewhere to wait for Angus to say they could leave. He had caught her eye several times during the various courses, his expression anxious each time, as if he were wondering who he could approach to act as his second should either his wife or his mother offer an insult that could not be retracted. He had not followed her out of the dining room, and the last glimpse she'd had, he was standing in a corner conversing with Duncan Forbes.
    When she was fairly certain no one was paying her any notice, Anne made her way down the stairs and along the huge vaulted hallway to a rear corridor leading off to the left.
    When she rounded the corner, she stopped and looked back again, feeling more like a thief than a guest, for while it was one thing to caper about the countryside in the dead of night, it was quite another to be caught skulking around in the Lord President's library.
    The tall double doors were standing slightly ajar when she approached. The hallway was well lit and there were no guards cordoning off any areas of the house, yet she still felt like an interloper and walked with her skirts raised to lessen the sound of her petticoats brushing over the floor. She peered between the opened doors but could see very little of the interior. The room was barely lit, and she suspected that if MacGillivray was already inside, he had perhaps extinguished some of the candles and lamps to make it less hospitable to any guests who might be ambling by.
    She drew a deep breath and casually pushed the doors wider. Staying within the bounds of the light that came from the hallway, she walked almost to the center of the room before halting again.
    “Hello?” she called softly. “Is anyone here?”
    It was a large, scholarly room, darkened by wood paneling, muted further by rows of crowded bookshelves that rose twenty feet to the ceiling. Two shell-shaped alcoves were framed in crimson draperies that hung above the arch and fell in deep swags on either side, tied back with thick ropes tomatch the braided gold fringing. One of the alcoves contained an upholstered chair for reading in the natural light; the other housed French doors that opened out to the terrace. A huge cherrywood desk occupied the space between the two windowed bays, set beneath a large tapestry depicting a medieval battlefield with archers and knights in heavy armor.
    The air was musky, redolent of leather and paper, as silent as an ancient scriptorium, and Anne made one full, slow revolution, awed by the sheer number of books, curious as to who might actually have read them all. She found her answer in the gilt-framed portraits that were hung between the sections of shelves; they were men with the stern faces and long chins of academics, nary a soldier or warrior in the lot.
    “As grim an' dull as they come,” MacGillivray agreed, stepping out of one of the alcoves. “Nae wonder Forbes is such a heroic fellow. That one”—he hooked his thumb derisively in the direction of one pinch-lipped ancestor— “looks as though he just took a mouthful o' sheep dung but disnae have the guts to spit it out.”
    “This is very dangerous,” Anne said. “If someone should walk by and see us here we would have the devil of a time explaining ourselves.”
    “Two old friends, taking a breath o' fresh air. Where's the harm?”
    Aside from the obvious trespass, she thought, the harm was in the lack of light, the heavy shadows, and the crooked, challenging smile on his face. It was in the not-so-casual gleam in the unfathomable black eyes, and in the memories of a hot afternoon behind a booth at the fairground.
    “Come,” he said, indicating the French doors. “We can talk out on the terrace.”
    It was cooler outside, but because the bulk of the house gave them shelter against the wind it was a fresh change from the candle smoke and cloying perfumes.
    She walked to the far end of the promenade and stood a moment looking out over the crystalline stillness of the gardens before she turned and met the dark eyes.
    “I hope you've not brought me out here to talk aboutFearchar's proposal from last night. Since you were relieved to hear me turn him down, I cannot imagine what else there is to be