Midnight Honor

tot of
uisque
. Shall I have Gibb fetch some coffee, or would ye prefer something stronger as well?”
    “Nothing for me,” Angus said. “I will not be staying long.”
    “As ye like.”
    When his mother was gone and the door was firmly shut behind her, he turned his attention to Anne, who held his gaze for all of two seconds before averting her eyes and staring out the window.
    “You
should
be embarrassed,” he said with ominous silkiness. “You have more nerve than—” but an adequate comparison failed him and he settled for a heavy sigh. “I am almost afraid to leave the two of you here alone, for fear of the plots you and Mother might hatch together. Please tell me, at least, that last night's stupidity was unplanned.”
    She looked at him in surprise. “You don't actually believe him, do you, that MacGillivray and I stole away for a secret tryst!”
    “A tryst? No. But I do believe you were engaged in some sort of foolery, though whether it was before or after you picked the lock and stole the papers out of Duncan Forbes's desk, I do not know. And please, do not waste both of our time denying it; I was there, I saw you.”
    Someone else might have fainted dead away from the shock, or at the very least reddened with guilt, but to Anne's credit—and Angus's grudging admiration—she merely gazed at him across the beam of sunlight that was slanting brightly through the window between them.
    “It was you in the alcove?”
    “I thought I had seen movement behind the curtains, a shadow at the bottom that was blocking the sliver of moonlight one moment and gone the next. After we left, I watched the door for a few minutes to see if anyone came out, and when no one did, I went back inside. My hand was an inch away from the damned curtain when you squealed and started dancing about, and when I realized it was you, my first instinct was to rip the curtains down and see if you were alone; the second was to step aside and save you the embarrassment if you were not.”
    “Save
me
the embarrassment? After what I had just heard, I should think you would be the one who was shamed beyond measure. Or was it someone else I heard who soundedpleased to be joining General Hawley in Edinburgh, someone else who claimed he was bored with his wife's politics? Someone else who lied when he promised me
so sincerely
that our clansmen would not be involved in any real fighting?”
    “Do not attempt to steer the conversation away from your own actions,” he warned smoothly, not even having the grace to answer any of the charges. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you had you been discovered skulking behind that damned curtain eavesdropping on official military business? Can you even conceive of how lucky you were that it was I who came back to the library and not Worsham or that other bastard, Garner?”
    “At the time, I can honestly say I was not feeling anything but betrayed.”
    He looked away for a moment, not completely successful this time in stanching the flow of heat that mottled his throat and cheeks.
    “Do you still have the dispatches or did you give them to MacGillivray?”
    “Do you not even intend to defend yourself?”
    “Against what? You have already made up your mind that I am guilty of all charges.”
    “You have left me with little choice. You made me a promise; you broke it. You lied to me after swearing you would never do so. And at the time you swore it with such passion and conviction, I… I almost thought…” The words broke off as she caught her lip between her teeth and bit down hard. “I almost thought you meant what you said. That was, of course, before I discovered how much my …
antics …
bore you.”
    “At the time I made you that promise, I honestly believed it was possible to keep it.”
    “It has only been two days. Has so much changed since then?”
    Angus raked his hand through the dark locks of his hair, scattering whatever semblance of order remained of the stylish waves and curls. “Yes. Yes, by God, it has. It changed the instant I had to swear to Colonel Loudoun that MacGillivray was with me on Thursday night, that it could not have been hewho attacked Worsham's men. You can see how well the major believed me, for it directly contradicted his report that stated MacGillivray was at Dunmaglass, under the close scrutiny of his crack troop of dragoons.”
    “Then why did you do it?”
    “Not to sanction his actions in any way, I promise you. I did it