Midnight Honor

…?”
    “Because he is a poor reader,” she said, smiling slyly. “He often has to sound words aloud to understand the letters that he sees on the paper. And this he most often does at night in his room, when none of the other officers can see him and perhaps laugh at his inability. At first he was careful in my presence and only moved his lips, but then he found something he thought would entertain me and when I told him it only bored me and put me to sleep, he started doing it just to annoy me. It amuses him, you see, to annoy and torment. The more I ignored his dispatches and charts and memoranda, the more he began to read aloud, and because I have a very good memory, I am able to write down these same words later and pass them on to men who know how best to use the information. It is not as valiant as donning a sword and riding about the countryside calling men to arms, but my talents are severely limited. Specialized, even, you might say. This was something I could do, and do well.”
    “You're a
spy?”
    “I prefer to call myself a loyal Jacobite, m'sieur. And perhaps the next time you see me in the hallway coming down to breakfast, you will remember the extent of my sacrifice and not scowl quite so darkly?”
    Angus was speechless, but she only laughed and shook her head at his naiveté. “Now then, my bold captain—whose confidence I assume I may trust—these letters from your wife that you spoke so gallantly of, I do not suppose they truly exist?”
    “Surely Worsham will not ask to see them.”
    “No. But he will have your room searched, you may count upon it.”
    He spread his hands in a gesture of impotence.
    “Long and boring?” she asked with an exaggerated sigh.
“Bien
, I have a maid, Constance, who enjoys talking so much she forgets to take a breath. I shall sit her down with a quill and a sheaf of paper and by morning, you shall have your letters. Dozens of them, for she is creative enough you could well end up with a penny novel. Be sure you read them, in case you need to know what they contain.”
    “Is that not a horrendous risk to your own safety?”
    “Yes, it is.” She rose up on tiptoe and put her mouth to his ear. “And you shall owe me an outrageous favor in the future.”
    Her lips brushed his cheek, then his mouth, then she was gone, stepping back inside the ballroom with a coy snap of her fan.

Chapter Twelve
    T hree days later a courier arrived at General Hawley's headquarters informing him that the prince had decamped and was heading east. At the same time, Lord Lewis Gordon had left Aberdeen with upward of thirty-two hundred men and was headed west, hoping to unite with the main body of the prince's army before it reached Stirling.
    On January 13, unable to ignore the threat any longer, General Hawley sent his second in command, Major-General John Huske, marching from Edinburgh. Two days later, Hawley himself marched, reuniting with Huske's troops outside the city of Falkirk. There he was joined by an additional twelve regiments of Argyle militia, bringing the royalist strength up to eight thousand. For the first time since the conflict began, the numbers were equal on both sides, and both sides were spoiling for a much-needed victory—Hawley to avenge the poor performance of the Elector's troops thus far, Charles to restore the confidence lost on the retreat.
    “Will ye take anither dram, lass?” The question was bellowed over the din as Archibald Cameron lifted a freshly opened crock of
uisque baugh
to his shoulder. “Yer eyes are barely crossed, an' we've still a blather o' toasts tae make tae both yer courage an' yer beauty.”
    Anne laughed amidst much banging of mugs and cheers of approval. Her eyes might not have been crossed, but her senses were fuddled—wonderfully, dizzyingly so—and she raised her cup for another splash of whisky and a raucous round of support.
    She was the sole female in a tavern filled to capacity with brawny Highlanders who had marched to the heart of England and back; brave men all, who had not only been forewarned of her presence in Aberdeen but knew the role she had played in removing the Dutch from England. The two factions of the army had come together near Stirling; easily half the prince's men had lined the approach to the city to welcome Lord Gordon, doffing their bonnets and spinning them overhead like dervishes.
    Anne, for one, had never seen such a spectacle, let alone been part of it. Yet there she was, sitting high