Midnight Honor

thinking about him,” she said aloud, startled out of her reverie by a cold slap of night wind. “And if I think about him I will turn around and ride home. Or I will never be able to go home again.”
    “Did ye say somethin', Annie?”
    She looked up sharply. “No. No, I was just cursing the wind.”
    “Aye, well, it'll ease off once we get through the pass.”
    Instead of answering she tucked her chin back into her plaid and prayed her huge gray gelding would keep a steady foot as they crossed the saddle of land between the two hillsknown as Garbhal Beg and Garbhal Mor. Here, the icy gusts were strong enough to tear the breath from her lungs, the howling as loud as a dozen banshees screaming into the night.
    Not until they were through the pass and beginning their descent did the dreadful wailing cease and the wind die off enough to allow Anne to wipe her eyes and look out across the sprawling expanse of the valley below.
    The clouds had thickened, reducing the moon to a clotted glow high above. Snow lay in a thin crust on the slopes and gave shape to the tumble of rocks that littered either side of the track. It was there, from one of the deep, black crags, that she caught a hint of movement.
    Taking her cue from Robbie, she released one gloved hand from the reins and slid it beneath the folds of her tartan. Her fingers closing around the scrolled butt of her pistol, she withdrew the gun from her belt, her thumb cocking the hammer in the same smooth motion.
    “Easy on, the pair o' ye.” The muffled voice came out of the shadows, low as a heartbeat. “Ye were that late, we almost sent riders out tae search.”
    “I had to be sure the household had gone to bed,” Anne said with a sigh.
    The dark shape of Eneas Farquharson, oldest of the Monaltrie brothers, detached itself from the jumble of rocks and, without waiting for assent, swung himself up pillion-style behind Robbie.
    “Yer husband is still in Inverness, is he no'?”
    Her pride stung a bit at the knowledge that her kinsmen thought Angus dangerous enough to watch his every move. “Aye. He's away visiting his mam until tomorrow.”
    “She serves up a rare joint o' beef, does the Lady Drummuir. We supped wi' her just last night an' the taste is still on ma tongue.”
    Unlike her son, the Dowager Lady MacKintosh was a staunch and extremely vocal Jacobite who proclaimed herself too old to worry about repercussions.
    “You took a terrible risk riding into Inverness.”
    Eneas shrugged. “Ye ken Granda' when he has a thought in his heid. Or the scent o' real meat up his nose.”
    Anne shook her head and resheathed her pistol. “How is Mairi? And the children?”
    “She sends her love. So dae the bairns.”
    Anne felt another tug on her heartstrings. She had not seen Eneas's wife or children since the families had been forced into hiding. “I brought some things for you to take to them—warm clothes, shoes, food.” She patted the bulging sacks draped behind her. “And some books so Mairi can keep them up with their schoolwork.”
    She could not see it through the wiry froth of beard that covered the lower half of his face, but she could sense his big grin. “Aye, they'll be thankin' ye for that.”
    “I'll not be thanking
you”
—she scowled halfheartedly— “if I waken in the morning coughing my lungs into my hands.”
    “Bah. Ye're made o' sterner stuff than that, an' ye know it. Granda' was out just a wee while ago takin' his bath in the stream. Had tae crack through the ice first tae dae it.”
    Anne shuddered and hunched deeper into her tartan. “How is he?”
    “Och, healthy as ever. Skittish, but, with seein' ye again, as ye ken he must be if he took a proper wash.”
    Eneas chatted happily about his family all the way down the slope. There were thick stands of pine trees skirting the glen, serving to buffer the wind and allow a stillness of sorts to settle over the bowl of the valley. At the far end, a large two-story stone house sat tucked against the edge of the forest; behind that she knew there was a hundred-foot sheer drop to the loch below. There was only one approach to Dunmaglass, and someone must have been watching between the slats of a shuttered window, for no sooner had the horses drawn up in front of the house than the door swung open, throwing a garish slash of yellow light across the snow.
    Anne blinked into a lantern as it was swung up into her face. It was held by James, the third Farquharson of Monaltrie and