Midnight Honor

obvious you wanted to be anywhere else, with anyone else but me, that you were doing it strictly and stoically for the good of the clan, that it was just another thankless part of your duty, another tiresome and unwanted burden you inherited along with the title?”
    “Anne …” He was genuinely appalled. “I never thought that. Not once.”
    She passed a hand in front of her eyes as if to ward off the futility of any more lies. “Fearchar told me he had to practically threaten you to honor the agreement. He also told me that you, in turn, demanded the dowry money because you knew he did not have it, and he would have had to forfeit the contract if he could not raise the stipulated amount.”
    “It was five thousand pounds,” Angus murmured. “And if I truly had not wanted to go through with the marriage, Anne, I would not have been in that chapel at all.”
    She started to turn away, clearly disdainful of his efforts to patronize her, but he quickly set his wine aside and caught her shoulders, forcing her up onto her knees before him, bringing their faces so close she had no choice but to look up into his eyes.
    “While Fearchar was telling you these fables, did he happen to mention where he came by the money for the dowry?”
    “He said he was forced to sell off a valuable parcel of land.”
    “Valuable?” Angus snorted. “It was a stretch of bog along the edge of Meall a'Bhreacraibh that sits under three feet of water for nine months out of the year.”
    “Meall a'Bhreacraibh? But… you have land adjoining that moor.”
    “Aye, and my agent thought I was mad for buying more at such a ridiculous price, but he did as he was told and paid for it in cash, and never told Fearchar who the simpleton was who paid so much for something so worthless.”
    “You
gave him the money?”
    “Call me the biggest fool for it, if you will, but I thought the price well worth it.”
    Her lips parted slowly, and her shoulders lost some of their stiffness. “You did?”
    “Then”—he seemed to stall over the words for a moment—“and now. I never regretted my decision for a moment, Anne. And if I appeared to hesitate in the church that day, it was because I was afraid if I moved, I might wake up and the dream would shatter. You see, I knew even then that MacGillivray would have been your likely choice had the two of us been standing side by side. Fearchar told me you and he were lovers—”
    “We were
never
lovers,” she began.
    “I knew that on our wedding night, and you can have
no
idea how thankful I was you were a virgin—solely because you would not know how much terror I was feeling that you might think me an inadequate lover compared to John.”
    Anne felt the particles of dust in her chest stir and begin to take shape again. “Yet you married me anyway?”
    He brought his hands up from her shoulders to cradle each side of her face, then bent his head forward until their brows touched. “I had seen you out riding on that great beast of yours and I swear my heart stopped from the sheer beauty of the moment. Your hair was wild, your skin was flushed from the wind, and your laughter …” His hands tightened and his eyes closed. “I thought if I could just hold that moment in my heart forever, it would be enough. But then I found the betrothal papers, and I knew I could hold so much more.”
    Anne said nothing; she just stared. His lashes were dark against his cheeks, and his mouth looked so grim it took all of her willpower not to simply fling her arms up around his neck and crush his lips beneath hers.
    But she resisted. She moved her hands slowly instead, lifting them to touch his cheek first, to brush aside an errant wave of hair, then to thread her fingers deep into the silky brown locks. She tipped her mouth up to his, her eyes wide open, her body edging closer, and felt the tremors in his hands as they slipped down to her neck, then her shoulders again, and for the length of two, three pulse beats she feared he might still push her away.
    Her lips pleaded silently for forgiveness, begging his to respond. And when they did, parting around a harsh groan of abandoned pride, his arms went around her and gathered her close, so close she feel his heart thundering within his chest. The air was driven from her lungs on a cry of unabashed relief, but his mouth was there to capture it, to share it, to revel in the mutual banishment of any lingering fears and hesitations. He brought her up hard against