Midnight Honor (3 page)

Anne had been a waddling sprite of two when Fearchar had secured her future by betrothing her to a MacKintosh. It did not matter that Angus was twelve years older than she and a fourth son, not destined to inherit more than a comfortable livelihood. It was a union that would bring together two of the largest clans amongst the dozen that had amalgamated to form the powerful Clan of the Cats. It was also probable that Angus's father had agreed to the arrangement only because he assumed—or hoped—the pug-faced, barefooted toddler would succumb, long before she came of an age to marry, to one of the many childhood diseases that ravaged the Highlands.

No one could have anticipated Lachlan MacKintosh's own death a few brief years later, or that those same indiscriminate childhood diseases would remove, one after another, his three eldest heirs in line of succession. With the
swiftness only fate can deliver, the title and estates were conferred upon Angus, who, having had no thought of inheritances or weighty mantles of responsibility, had been living on the Continent. He had been absent for so long, in fact, and was so far out of touch, it took nearly four months for word to reach him that he was the new Chief of Clan Chattan.

The tall, elegant gentleman who arrived at Moy Hall was not like any of the rawboned, braw lads who had been flirting shamelessly with Anne and stealing kisses behind the haystack. He was reserved and articulate, a scholar and a brilliant mathematician who was so thorough and businesslike, he startled the dust out of countless ledgers and tally books throughout Invernesshire. The MacKintosh estates, which had been run haphazardly for a decade or more, came under a stern and caustic pair of pewter gray eyes—the same shrewd eyes that uncovered the articles of betrothal negotiated by Fearchar Farquharson and Lachlan MacKintosh nearly two decades before.

He was not shy in his attempts to have the agreement voided, since it was hardly a suitable alliance for a powerful clan chief. In an effort to arrive at an agreeable compromise, he arranged for a meeting with Fearchar and they had remained closeted in the library at Moy Hall for eight long hours. Fearchar proved to be a worthy opponent. Not even the demand to honor the original dowry of twelve thousand merks—an astronomical sum to a man whose greatest asset was his word—bowed the gnarled old warrior and within the prescribed time he returned to Moy Hall bearing a pouch of coins in the full amount.

Anne had entered the church in Aberdeen with a sinking heart and leaden feet, aware that the vows she was about to take would not only bind her to a man who did not love her and did not want her, but also condemn her to a life of whalebone stays and frilly petticoats.

She had been fully halfway to the altar before she saw her husband for the first time. The sunlight, streaming through a stained glass window, had lit the chestnut waves of his hair like a gleaming crown. Wearing a blue grogram coat over a satin waistcoat richly ornamented with embroidery and gold
lace, he had been dressed in the formal
breacan an fheile
. A tartan of green-on-black plaid had been draped over his shoulder, pinned with the silver-and-cairngorm brooch bearing the clan crest and motto. The light had flared blue along the shaft of the dress sword he wore at his side, and the air had sparkled with a million floating dust motes, all of which seemed to pour around his shoulders like a silver stream.

Angus Moy was, quite simply, the most beautiful human being she had ever set eyes upon, his face so perfectly sculpted that no one feature overawed another. His mouth, his nose, the metallic gray of his eyes had surely been fashioned by the faeries to stop a woman's heart, and Anne's was no exception. How long she had stared through the crystalline silence, tongue-tied and wooden-limbed, she had no way of knowing.

The groom had not moved either, but it was to be suspected it was more because of horrified surprise, for Anne was no petite, fine-boned flower trembling at the thought of being plucked. She was tall and amply proportioned, with a tautness in her legs and arms that had been honed by years of riding and swaggering about with her cousins. Her face was freckled from the sun, and although her hair had been tempered by pins and combs into a semblance of respectability, the wind had played havoc with a few fiery strands that dangled down her back and over her shoulders.

Eneas actually had to prod him into moving forward to take her hand, and when they had faced the minister, they both seemed paler for the experience.

“I am thinking about him,” she said aloud, startled out of her reverie by a cold slap of night wind. “And if I think about him I will turn around and ride home. Or I will never be able to go home again.”

“Did ye say somethin', Annie?”

She looked up sharply. “No. No, I was just cursing the wind.”

“Aye, well, it'll ease off once we get through the pass.”

Instead of answering she tucked her chin back into her plaid and prayed her huge gray gelding would keep a steady foot as they crossed the saddle of land between the two hills
known as Garbhal Beg and Garbhal Mor. Here, the icy gusts were strong enough to tear the breath from her lungs, the howling as loud as a dozen banshees screaming into the night.

Not until they were through the pass and beginning their descent did the dreadful wailing cease and the wind die off enough to allow Anne to wipe her eyes and look out across the sprawling expanse of the valley below.

The clouds had thickened, reducing the moon to a clotted glow high above. Snow lay in a thin crust on the slopes and gave shape to the tumble of rocks that littered either side of the track. It was there, from one of the deep, black crags, that she caught a hint of movement.

Taking her cue from Robbie, she released one gloved hand from the reins and slid it beneath the folds of her tartan. Her fingers closing around the scrolled butt of her pistol, she withdrew the gun from her belt, her thumb cocking the hammer in the same smooth motion.

“Easy on, the pair o' ye.” The muffled voice came out of the shadows, low as a heartbeat. “Ye were that late, we almost sent riders out tae search.”

“I had to be sure the household had gone to bed,” Anne said with a sigh.

The dark shape of Eneas Farquharson, oldest of the Monaltrie brothers, detached itself from the jumble of rocks and, without waiting for assent, swung himself up pillion-style behind Robbie.

“Yer husband is still in Inverness, is he no'?”

Her pride stung a bit at the knowledge that her kinsmen thought Angus dangerous enough to watch his every move. “Aye. He's away visiting his mam until tomorrow.”

“She serves up a rare joint o' beef, does the Lady Drummuir. We supped wi' her just last night an' the taste is still on ma tongue.”

Unlike her son, the Dowager Lady MacKintosh was a staunch and extremely vocal Jacobite who proclaimed herself too old to worry about repercussions.

“You took a terrible risk riding into Inverness.”

Eneas shrugged. “Ye ken Granda' when he has a thought in his heid. Or the scent o' real meat up his nose.”

Anne shook her head and resheathed her pistol. “How is Mairi? And the children?”

“She sends her love. So dae the bairns.”

Anne felt another tug on her heartstrings. She had not seen Eneas's wife or children since the families had been forced into hiding. “I brought some things for you to take to them—warm clothes, shoes, food.” She patted the bulging sacks draped behind her. “And some books so Mairi can keep them up with their schoolwork.”

She could not see it through the wiry froth of beard that covered the lower half of his face, but she could sense his big grin. “Aye, they'll be thankin' ye for that.”

“I'll not be thanking
you”
—she scowled halfheartedly— “if I waken in the morning coughing my lungs into my hands.”

“Bah. Ye're made o' sterner stuff than that, an' ye know it. Granda' was out just a wee while ago takin' his bath in the stream. Had tae crack through the ice first tae dae it.”

Anne shuddered and hunched deeper into her tartan. “How is he?”

“Och, healthy as ever. Skittish, but, with seein' ye again, as ye ken he must be if he took a proper wash.”

Eneas chatted happily about his family all the way down the slope. There were thick stands of pine trees skirting the glen, serving to buffer the wind and allow a stillness of sorts to settle over the bowl of the valley. At the far end, a large two-story stone house sat tucked against the edge of the forest; behind that she knew there was a hundred-foot sheer drop to the loch below. There was only one approach to Dunmaglass, and someone must have been watching between the slats of a shuttered window, for no sooner had the horses drawn up in front of the house than the door swung open, throwing a garish slash of yellow light across the snow.

Anne blinked into a lantern as it was swung up into her face. It was held by James, the third Farquharson of Monaltrie and twin to Robbie, younger by six minutes. All three of Anne's cousins were of middling height with short, stalky legs and barrel-shaped torsos hewn out of solid muscle. They shared the familial blue eyes and red hair, though in the twins
the latter was thick and straight and stuck out above their ears in a way that made them always look slightly demoniacal.

Anne dismounted and Jamie swore a streak in Gaelic, hugging her with enough force to spin her around off her feet. He barely waited until she had caught her breath again before he snatched the bonnet off her head the way he used to do when they were children.

Her hair tumbled down in a wealth of unruly curls and she would have boxed his ears for the impertinence if she was not so happy to be reunited with all three of her cousins. She was even more eager to see her grandfather again, and, linking arms with the twins, she urged them toward the open door.

Dunmaglass, albeit larger and better appointed than most stone houses scattered through the glens, was typical of one belonging to a Highland laird who gave more weight to what was practical than to what was pretty. The ground floor consisted of two main rooms, one the kitchen and pantry, the other a parlor for taking meals and entertaining guests before the comfort of an enormous open hearth. Solid wood planks covered the floor where once, to judge by the faintly redolent scent that no amount of beeswax could quite disguise, sheep and goats had been penned inside as a pragmatic measure to save them from the worst of the winter freezes. In the absence of livestock, there were chairs and a long pine table, an overstuffed sofa of indeterminate color and age, and a large braided rug made of many twists of old rags. A staircase against a side wall gave access to the sleeping quarters on the second floor.

Fearchar Farquharson sat at the end of the table closest to the heat of the fire, with his bony knees spread wide apart, his ancient walking stick planted between them to support his hands. His skin was the texture of wrinkled parchment, draped in folds from the sparse white wisps of his hair to the ragged collar of his coat. His fingers were dried brown twigs; the bared shins that poked out from beneath the hem of his kilt were not much more than bone and grizzle with a transparent layer of weathered skin overtop.

Only the eyes were still sharp and vibrant, the blue as piercing as the steel edge of a dirk.

“Och!” He thumped the floor loudly with his stick and
cackled. “Wee Ruadh Annie! So ye've come, have ye? Gillies here didna think ye would, but I ken'd ye would. Weel! Why are ye just standin' there like a blin' lump? Come here an' gi' an auld mon a kiss.”

Anne dropped to her knees before him, laughing as he welcomed her into his arms with a hug of amazing strength.

“It is so good to see you, Granda',” she cried. “And good to see you looking so well.”

“Och, weel, it takes a mout longer f'ae these auld bones tae stir of a morn, but they dae. Miles get longer, clachans farther apart, but aye, I'm hale n'braw, thank the Laird above. Here, let me look at ye, lass. God strike me deid, but ye're a fine sight f'ae these tired eyes. An' what's this?” He reached boldly forward and laid a hand on her belly. “Wed four years an' still nae bairn on ye? Christ in a crib, had I ken'd yer husban' wouldna be up tae the task, I'd ha' wed ye tae wee Gillies here. He'd've known how tae fill ye wi' babbies. He'd've had three sprouted an' anither well planted by now, an' ye'd've both had a mout o' pleasure puttin' them there.”

Anne sighed, accustomed to her grandfather's coarseness, but she could tell by the look on “wee” Gillies's face that he still suffered for it.

MacBean was a stout, rawboned Highlander who stood barely above five feet, but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in the width of his massive shoulders. His face was as craggy as the mountain range he called home, yet he could blush as swift as a lass at the wrong turn of a phrase—especially any phrase involving those mysterious creatures of the opposite sex. He was painfully tongue-tied around women of any age, a vulnerability that amused the old gray fox no end.

“Ye look like ye've a bone stuck in yer gullet,” Fearchar snorted. “Speak up, mon. Can ye nae work up enough spittle tae say hallo tae wee Annie?”

Already as red as raw meat, Gillies burned an even hotter shade as he nodded and murmured, “'Tis bonnie tae see ye again.”

“And you, Gillies. I'm glad to know you've been taking care of Granda' for me.”

The stick rapped on the floor again. “I take care o' masel',
lassie. I only keep these belties wi' me tae see
they
stay out o' trouble. Ye've seen The MacGillivray, have ye not?”

Once again Annie followed the authoritative end of the walking stick and noted the shadowy figure seated well back in the corner of the room. A pair of long, muscular legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankles; arms the thickness of small tree trunks were folded over an equally impressive expanse of chest. Dunmaglass was his home, and it was his neck that would be stretched on a gibbet if any of them were caught holding a clandestine meeting.

John Alexander MacGillivray was a rare oddity in the Highlands. Not only did he stand a full head taller than most men, but his hair was the burnished gold of ripe wheat. He was not particularly handsome in the usual sense; his mouth was a touch too bold, his eyes were frighteningly black, and his jaw was fashioned from a square, immovable ridge of solid granite. But his smile could turn a woman's thighs to jelly, and rumors of what lay beneath his kilt could send her wits flying out the nearest window.