Midnight Honor

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.
    Anne had known The MacGillivray most of her life. His smile could still raise a flush of gooseflesh on her arms, and while her wits and thighs were safe enough, it had not always been so. Indeed, there had been a time when Wild Ruadh Annie and Big John MacGillivray were veering toward becoming much more than just friends.
    “Lady Anne,” he said quietly, nodding.
    “MacGillivray.”
    It felt awkward addressing each other with such formality. Then again, it had been many a year since she had shadowed her cousins around to all the fairgrounds in the hopes of wagering a penny or two on MacGillivray's wrestling skills. In fact, it had been after one arousingly successful day when he won all five bouts he had entered that he had taken Anne out behind one of the booths and kissed her for the first time. It had been a hot day and he had been stripped to the waist, his muscles oiled and gleaming in the sunlight….
    “Come,” Fearchar said, startling Anne as he dragged an empty chair closer to the fire. “Set yersel' doon, lassie. Ye must be chilled frae the long ride. Ye'll take a dram tae warm yer bones?”
    Anne smiled. “Aye, Granda'. A bit of warmth would not go amiss.”
    The old warrior chuckled and waved a hand by way of a signal to James, who produced a stoneware jug of
uisque baugh
. Fearchar removed the bung and tipped the crock to his lips, taking two deep swallows before he passed it to Anne.
    She accepted it warily, hesitating when she saw the bright and entirely involuntary film of water sparkle in his eyes. “Your own, then, is it?” she asked in a wry murmur.
    “Aye.” He sucked at a large mouthful of air to cool his throat. “An' I'll thank ye tae notice I've no' lost ma touch.”
    Anne braced herself and raised the jug. She matched the two hearty swallows her grandfather had taken, determined not to choke as the fiery Highland spirits slid over her tongue and scorched a path through her chest into her stomach. Once there, though, a fireball exploded, searing through her veins, boiling into her extremities, where it scalded the nerve endings and left the flesh numb with shock.
    When she could, she followed Fearchar's example and took an enormous mouthful of ale from the tankard that had appeared magically at her elbow, swallowing in broken gulps that set her cousins, Gillies, and even the stone-faced MacGillivray laughing.
    “Mary Mother of Christ,” she gasped. “'Tis a wonder you've not burned a hole clear through your bellies!”
    Fearchar smacked his lap and gave a gleeful cackle. “Blew up three stillmen, but, when they thought tae take a pipe afterward.”
    “I'm not surprised.” She took another cooling mouthful of ale and wiped the foam on the back of her hand. “Though I'm sure you've not brought me all the way out here tonight just to prove you can still brew up the barley with the best. What has happened? Why are you here in Inverness when you know full well every soldier in Fort George would trade their firstborn sons to collect the reward the
Sassenachs
have put on your head?”
    Fearchar's happy expression faded and he glanced quickly at the other men in the room before gathering a rattled breath to speak.
    “Ye've no' heard, then.”
    It was