Midnight Honor

the charge, the first to meet the awful fusillade from a thousand English muskets. It was true the English stood in disciplined lines like a row of child's skittles, but it meant they could fire, load, and fire their weapons again over and over in the time it took for the Highlanders to rage across an open field to meet them. John would be there, in the front ranks, through every deadly volley, for it was not the Highlander way to crouch behind rocks or wait in ambush. Honor and tradition sent themcharging headlong to meet their fate with the battle cry of the clan screaming from their lips.
    Anne would be forced to stay well back out of range of any stray shots or cannon shells. If she saw her brave golden lion go down, would it seem so important that she had remained faithful to the man who might well be the one who fired the fateful shot?
    It isn't fair
, Anne thought.
Not to John, not to me, not to Angus
.
    “Thank you,” she whispered. “For walking me back.”
    The ache was still there. The agony of indecision, of knowing right from wrong but still wanting … even if it was just for the one night…
    “I'll send one o' the lads to fetch ye in the mornin',” he said. “Try to get some sleep.”
    She nodded, unable to tell him how absurd a hope that would be, unable to speak at all for the tightness in her throat. His footsteps made a sound like that of crushed glass on the frozen earth, and as she watched him stride away into the darkness, she thought it sounded a little like the brittle cracking of her heart.
    With a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of her soul, she entered the cottage and looked around. Small. Nondescript. Desolate. Exactly the kind of cottage in most respects as the one she had called home throughout most of her life. She was never meant to be the chatelaine of a grand estate like Moy Hall. She was never meant to wear corsets and fine silk, or to have upward of seventy servants look to her for instruction.
    She tipped her head back against the wood of the door frame. Would it have been so terrible to forget she was that grand chatelaine for just one night? The loneliness was like a palpable thing inside her, but so were the feelings and emotions of Wild Rhuad Annie. MacGillivray wanted her; the heat was in his every breath, his every unguarded glance. What woman with any manner of grip on her wits would send him away, he to his cold bed, she to hers? What warm-blooded woman in her right senses would not want to feel those arms around her, hear that voice trembling in her ear, feel that naked body pushing slowly into hers?
    She groaned softly and closed her eyes.
    Was it possible to love two men at the same time? Would her soul burn in hell for even daring to ponder such a thing?
    The sound of a quiet knock on the door sent her jumping forward. She turned and stared at the scarred timber a moment, wondering if John had been thinking the same thoughts. If it was him, if he was standing there, his bonnet in his hand, a curse on his lips, and a careless disregard for eternal hellfire burning in his eyes … then, in fairness or not, the decision had been taken out of her hands.

Chapter Thirteen
    A fter her initial gasp of surprise, it took a further moment to recognize the shadowed figure who stood in the entryway. The collar of his cloak was up, his hat was pulled low over his brow, and the weak lamplight barely touched on the shape of his nose or the grim, flat line of his mouth.
    “Angus?”
    He reached up and pulled the bonnet off his dark hair, and if not for the fact she was still clutching the door, she might have staggered with the shock. As it was, she was thankful she had something to hold on to, to support her for the ten seconds it took to blink the whirling black dots out of her vision.
    “Angus?” she whispered. “Is it really you? Where … where on earth have you come from? How did you find me? Good God, you look like a block of ice! How long have you been out there?”
    “I am not sure. A couple of hours, I suppose.”
    “A couple of—? But… where? Why—? How—?”
    She knew her questions were incoherent as well as incomplete, but her tongue did not seem able to catch up to the wild tumbling of her thoughts. Flustered, she pulled him inside, only thinking at the last moment to glance out into the darkness before she pushed the door shut.
    “No one saw me,” Angus said. “I was careful.”
    “But where have you come from? How did you find