Midnight Honor

physical pain.
    “Angus—”
    “Don't ask me, Anne. Please don't ask me to do something I cannot do.”
    “But why?” She sat up and curled her legs beneath her, heedless of her nudity. “Just tell me why. I know your heart is not with the English. I know it.”
    “Ahh, there it is.” He snatched up his shirt and shook out the creases before shrugging it on over his head. A quick tuck into his waistband left wads of uneven linen here and there, but he donned his waistcoat anyway and buttoned it snug to his torso. His fingers served as a comb between adding layers of clothing—and as a means of avoiding having to look at the pale figure on the bed.
    He could not believe he had allowed himself to fall asleep. Neither could he believe he had permitted himself to be lured to such recklessness by soft breasts, softer lips, and silky thighs. Robert Hardy would be beside himself, thinking his master had been captured. At the moment, with Anne sitting there in a waterfall of tousled red curls, it did not seem such a bad notion, but Angus pushed the thought aside and reached for his tunic.
    “Just tell me why,” she said again.
    “I have told you a dozen times. I've given my word, my oath as an officer of the crown.”
    She watched him struggle with the brass buttons.
    “You promised me not so long ago that you would never lie to me,” she said evenly.
    “I am not lying; I have given my word. Have you seen my gloves?”
    The cold efficiency was back. His movements were calculated and sure, his jaw squared against any suggestion that a few hours of exhaustive lovemaking could have changed the way the earth spun on its axis.
    Anne looked down at her hands, for her world had certainly been sent on a spin. “They're on the chair, under your cloak.”
    He grunted his thanks and swung the enormous wool cloak off the seat and settled it around his shoulders. He stood there a moment staring at the top of Anne's head, at the white slope of her shoulders, at the lushness of her body. He actually started to pull on one of his gloves before he turned, suddenly, and threw both of them across the room. He would have liked to pick up the chair, the stool, the kettle of simmering water and hurl those as well, but there was enough chaos in his mind already without adding more.
    “I came here last night with every intention of taking you away with me. Of
ordering
you, as my wife, to come away with me. If I had done that, what would your answer have been?”
    She replied without hesitation. “I would have refused.”
    “And what reason would you have given me? What possible reason could you give for disobeying your husband, theman to whom you made a solemn vow to honor and obey? You would have said you had a previous, binding oath to another, one that had nothing to do with love or marriage vows, and for some unfathomable reason you would have expected that to be all the explanation I would need. Why, then, I would ask by imploring all the saints in heaven to give me the strength to understand, is it not enough of an explanation for
you?
Is
your
word worth more than mine because you happen to think your cause is more just? Or do you not see the contradiction, the pretension, the
irony
of your asking me to break an oath when you yourself would not consider doing so for an instant?” He spread his hands and dropped them in frustration. “You cannot have it both ways, Anne. Either I am a man of my word, or I am not. Which is it to be?”
    “Your loyalty to the Stuart king should come first,” she cried softly. “Your grandfather was a member of his council, your father fought in The Fifteen.”
    He expelled a breath and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was stuffed with thatching and hung on ropes stretched across a plain wood frame, all of which protested loudly, each in its own manner. During the night creaks and rustlings had amused them, now it grated on the nerves and made their surroundings seem cheap and tawdry.
    “Anne … look at me.” He waited a moment, then took up her hand and raised it to his lips. “I never swore an oath to the Stuart king. Never. Not here, not in Italy, not in France. My grandfather did, my father surely did, and perhaps my brothers, too, but
I
never swore allegiance to James Francis Stuart or his son, not even in absentia. Not even in a secret toast to the king over the water.”
    “What about your loyalty to Scotland? Do you want to see our country under English rule