Midnight Honor

craned his neck at every turn to try to catch Anne's attention, but she ignored him.
    With her foot tapping impatiently to the music, she started her search at the far end of the cavernous room again, skimming past the clusters of uniformed officers, the tables of refreshments, the curtained recesses where twenty-foot-high arched doors opened onto stone balconies …
    Her gaze faltered and flicked back to the doors.
    When she had first entered the library, the curtains in the two alcoves had been swagged and tied with gold cords. But when she had paused at the door before leaving and glanced back … they had both been lowered!
    She fought the instant surge of panic and forced herself to remain calm, to think as hard as she could and remember
exactly
what she had seen when she looked back from the doorway. Both curtains had been tied back when she entered, she knew that much without a doubt, but regardless of how she tried to change the image in her mind, both sets of drapes were also hanging free when she departed. Someone must have been in the library with her! Someone who had stayed behind? Or someone who had crept back after the others departed?
    Just before she'd had her wits startled by the mouse, she had heard a noise she had thought sounded like a stealthy footstep. Whoever owned that footstep must have heard her kick the bejesus out of the mouse and ducked into the second alcove, lowering the panels as she had done to conceal himself.
    But if that was what had happened … it meant that someone had seen her searching the Lord President's desk! Someone had seen her pick the lock, steal the papers, then stash them away under her petticoat!
    Lady Drummuir jumped at the sound of breaking glass,gasping when she turned and saw blood welling through Anne's fingers. “Good God, child, what have ye done?”
    Anne had not been aware of squeezing the wine goblet or of its shattering in her hand. She was only vaguely conscious now of the dowager holding her hand away from her dress and shouting at one of the servants for a clean cloth.
    All she could think of was that someone had been in the library with her, watching her steal important papers from the locked desk of the Lord President of the Court of Session.
    “Och, ye've gone an' cut yerself, dearie. Here, let me wrap it so ye dinna drip all over yer fine gown. Cheap bloody glass, that's what it is,” the dowager snorted. “He's had all his crystal and silver plate packed into boxes an' sent to London for safekeeping. It's nae wonder the plates didna crack under the weight of the bread, an' the cutlery not bend each time ye touched it to yer lip.”
    Anne allowed herself to be led out of the ballroom, her hand bundled in a napkin. A few of the ladies near the exit gasped and swooned for the benefit of the men in their company but for the most part the accident hardly drew notice. She was taken into a small parlor, where water and more cloths were fetched, along with Doctor Faustus MacMillan, a short strut of a man with bloodshot eyes and rolled sausages for fingers. Under Lady Drummuir's caustic eye, he bathed the latticework of small cuts and bound the hand in clean strips of linen. He was just finishing when Angus and Lord Forbes came through the door, the former looking genuinely concerned as he went down on one knee beside Anne's chair.
    “What happened? I was told there had been a mishap, that you were bleeding.”
    The doctor glanced over the top of his pince-nez. “Nothing too serious, m'lord. Cut herself on a glass, she did. More blood than bother.”
    “It was a silly accident,” Anne said in a whisper. “The glass broke when I lifted it off the tray.”
    “Your hand—?” Angus started to reach for the bandaged hand, but Anne flinched away from his touch.
    “My hand is fine. There are a few small cuts, nothing that will not heal in a day or two. It was foolish to even bring the doctor away from the party. I could have tended it myself.”
    She tried to keep the words from sounding as though they were spat from between her teeth, but because they were, it was difficult to measure any success.
    “Are you certain …?”
    “I am absolutely certain. Please, do not worry yourself any further.”
    “Worry?” Forbes exhaled a breath and clasped his hands behind his back. “He was damned near beside himself, dear lady. Blanched like a lovesick swain, I vow, and with good reason, for I confess my own heart skipped a beat or two. Point out the