Midnight Honor

artillery, cavalry, and thousands of infantrymen who have been fed nothing but a steady diet of drilling and discipline. Suppose—just for the sake of argument, if you will— that the prince is captured or slain today, and his army is driven from the field in defeat. Anne's cousins safeguard her as they would a younger sister, and I've no doubt that every man who sees her riding before them like a Celtic Jeanne d'Arc would sooner drive a red hot stake into his own eye than be caught looking upon her with anything other than pure, honorable thoughts. But if the British win, they will not stand on ceremony. Men will be hanged, executions will be rife, and any woman found wearing the white cockade, regardless ofwho she is or what noble quest brought her to the field, will be treated like spoils of war.”
    “That will never happen,” MacGillivray said, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword again.
    “Can you guarantee it? Can you absolutely guarantee you will walk off the field alive, victorious, and in total command of an army drunk on blood lust? If so, you are a better man than I, for I've seen a full British volley, and I've seen a battalion of cavalry at full charge, and I'll not be foolish enough or arrogant enough to predict my own odds of survival at the end of the day. But if I do come through this alive, I've a better chance of stopping my wife from being raped by a corps of triumphant dragoons than you would with your pride bloodied and your sword surrendered.”
    MacGillivray bared his teeth in a snarl and started to say he would never surrender his sword, not while his body still drew breath, but another, calmer side of him could see Angus's reasoning. Much as it galled him to think of the consequences of defeat, after they had waited so long to take part in the rebellion, he had to admit the possibility was abhorrently real. He also knew full well how murderous a British volley could be. Anne believed he was immune to fear, but he was not; he simply pushed it to the back of his mind and refused to look at it too closely.
    A cold, fat droplet of rain splashed on his face. The sky was as light as it was likely to get and he could hear the distant cacophony of pipers skirling the men awake, bolstering them for the long day ahead. With the camp spread so far, the sounds came from all directions, pipers from each clan playing their distinct
piob rach'd
to stir the blood. The MacGillivray's personal contingent comprised about eighty men, all of whom would be in the front ranks on the field of honor.
    “All right,” he said with a grim, reluctant nod. “Ye have ma word I'll not say anything to Annie about this. I'll not even tell her we saw ye or spoke, because then she would be hangin' off ma collar wantin' to know exactly what was said, word for word, and I'm no' sure I could lie to her. It will be enough of a trial just gettin' her to stay off the field.”
    “You will do it, though. You
will
keep her away from thebattlefield at all costs! In this, I do not care if you have to tie her hand and foot to a tree somewhere. In fact, I would almost prefer it.”
    John resheathed his sword and fetched his bonnet from the forest floor. “She's no' completely daft. Besides, she's the only one who will be able to keep Fearchar off the line.”
    “Good God, you aren't suggesting—”
    “Aye. Barely strong enough to lift a dirk without topplin' over from the weight, but he's insistin' on standin' in the front rank. It will be up to Annie to see him safe away where he willna be trampled to death in the charge. If she canna do it, or willna do it, I'll be after findin' enough rope for the pair o' them.”

Chapter Fifteen
    A nne was in no fit mood for company when Robbie and Jamie Farquharson came pounding on her door shortly after dawn. Angus had been gone perhaps an hour, and she had spent the time sitting alone in the dark, wrapped in a blanket that still held the scent of his hair and body. At first she had only felt abysmally sorry for herself. But knowing that would never do, she allowed anger, then resentment to flood into the empty spaces Angus had so recently filled with hope and promise.
    Try as she might, she could not be entirely angry with her husband, for he had made the point well when he asked if his honor was worth any less than hers. It wasn't, of course, and she supposed she had known it all along; it had just been difficult to accept. Oddly enough, it brought some measure of