Midnight Honor

catch you at it. Until he does, he would not dare go against the guarantee Lord Forbes has proffered on your behalf.”
    “How do you know about that? And why the devil would they think—?” He stopped as they entered the ballroom and Adrienne's skirt was snagged on the saber of a passing officer. First and always a flirt, she assured the handsome young man there was no damage, then for the two full minutes it took for the guests to assemble and form lines for the dance, she teased him about the size of his weapon and the hardness of his blade.
    The music commenced and she came forward, bowing in front of Angus, low enough for him to whisper urgently over the top of her head.
    “Why the devil would they think I have been passing information to the Jacobites?” he hissed.
    “Because your wife is one of them, m'sieur, and I, too, saw the look of longing on your face when you were studying that portrait in the gallery.”
    “Politics aside, Anne has better sense than to involve herself in something so dangerous.”
    Adrienne straightened and gave him an odd look, then swirled away in a graceful circle, the burgundy silk of her wide, ruffled skirts flaring out in perfect symmetry with the dozen other colorful skirts on either side. When they were close enough again, she smiled and barely moved her lips as she spoke. “You foolish man. Do you really believe she is languishing at Drummuir House?”
    “I do not know what you are implying, but—”
    “You
really
do not know?”
    “Of course I bloody don't—” They parted, and Angus had to bite his tongue until the next pass.
    “Your wife is a day's ride from Aberdeen,” Adrienne said, sweeping forward to execute a graceful measure. “She hasbrought eight hundred of your clansmen with her, all armed, all wearing the Stuart cockade.”
    Angus stumbled. He bumped into the gentleman beside him, who accepted his hastily murmured apology before the couples parted and moved into the next pattern of intricate steps.
    Eight hundred men!
    That could not possibly be true!
    Good God, if it was … What was she thinking? No, obviously she wasn't thinking at all, but…
eight hundred men!
He, the chief of Clan Chattan, had barely managed to muster six hundred to his command, and by the time he had arrived in Edinburgh, all but forty had melted away into the night, refusing to raise arms against the prince.
    Adrienne swept back in a crush of burgundy silk. “They have even accorded her a rank,” she said sweetly. “They call her Colonel Anne. She has appointed officers to serve under her, of course; most notably Captain John Alexander MacGillivray.”
    This time Angus stopped. His hands hung limp at his sides and he was oblivious to the stares and hissed rebukes of the surrounding gambollers. The vast amounts of alcohol he had consumed throughout the evening seemed to catch up to him all at once, swamping his senses, leaving him light-headed, his mouth dry, his palms wet. Seeing the color drain swiftly out of his face, Adrienne quickly took his arm and guided him through a set of open doors that led out onto a stone terrace.
    At her prompting, he took several deep gulps of cold air, which helped considerably. At least he was in no danger of dropping to the floor like a sack of grain. Adrienne disappeared for a few moments, then was back pressing a glass of undiluted claret into his hand.
    “Drink it,” she ordered. “All of it.”
    “How do you know these things about Anne? How do you know they're true?”
    “My sources are better than Hawley's,” she said simply. “I expect that situation to change any day now, however. As soon as your Colonel Anne arrives in Aberdeen, it will be difficult to convince anyone that she is at home writing letters.”
    Angus rubbed his temple. “I… don't understand. I mean, I know she is spirited and headstrong, but this … this goes far beyond anything she has done before.”
    “Yes, well, we all of us do things from time to time that go far beyond anything we have done before, especially in times like this. Sometimes we even surprise ourselves by pretending to be something we are not. By pretending, for instance, that we enjoy being pawed and fondled when we can barely endure the touch of a man's hand. That particular man, at any rate.”
    His frown deepened as he looked at her. “Worsham?”
    “He is a pig, m'sieur. A cruel, mean pig, and I scrub myself raw each morning after I have been with him.”
    “Then why