Marti Talbotts Highlander Series 1 - Anna Rachel u Charlet

men rode over the wide, wooden bridge into the substantial courtyard, dismounted and handed their reins to boys waiting to take the horses to the stables. From the courtyard, several tree-lined paths led to cottages, and then met at a communal garden in the back. Logs along the paths and near the garden offered the villagers a place to sit, talk and rest.
    Kevin was laird over a clan of no less than six hundred, all of whom seemed happy to have him back. Yet it was his sister, Katie, he most wanted to see. She stood on the wooden landing outside the two-story, stone and mortar keep he shared with her and her smile was radiant as always.
    At the age of 19, an illness plagued the land taking nearly half the Highlanders, his parents and all but one of his five siblings. Kevin suffered the high fever too and recovered to find himself the clan’s new laird. He expected to be laird one day, but not so soon, and he hardly knew what to do in the beginning. Still, he did as his father and grandfather before him had done -- he spoke the edict, “Any lad who harms a lass or a child shall be put to death.” It was a good law and he was willing to carry it out.
    By most accounts, it was a pleasant life. Yet for Kevin, being laird was a heavy burden he sometimes resented. If it wasn’t two followers who couldn’t get along, it was a land dispute or a threatened clan war. Most other clans saw the advantage of calling him friend and few were brave enough to cross him. Still, there were lairds who coveted the life the MacGreagors had and war was always a major concern.
    Kevin was a strong, but fair-minded man who was not as strict with his followers as some Lairds. Everyone was allowed to call him Kevin and none were required to bow or curtsey. Yet in the presence of other clans, his people showed their respect by doing just that, which pleased him very much.

    In the days that followed, Laird MacGreagor still could not get the woman on the horse off his mind. He was determined she would be his someday; all he had to do was find her. However , rumors of a coming battle left him with little time to search for her. He should have known better, but of an evening, he confided in his best friends, Thomas and Clymer. In a world where gossip was the favorite form of entertainment, it wasn’t long before everyone knew every detail, except for the color of her eyes, which he had yet to see. It was just as well. He couldn’t leave often and perhaps someone else would find her.
    No one ever did.

    Two years passed and at twenty-six, the time had come for Kevin to find a wife to give him sons. He hated the thought, but there it was. Yet not one of the women in his clan measured up , and knowing his heart was set, most didn’t even try. Lairds from other clans tempted him with daughters, hoping to make a favorable alliance, but Kevin found none of them pleasing either. At last, he didn’t care who she was. All he had to do was bed her to have sons.
    It was fortunate then, when a message arrived from an English Baron by the name of Stoneham, who offered his daughter in exchange for influence over another laird. Kevin quickly agreed.
    Kevin’s mother was one of only a few English women to live among the MacGreagor clan. Her greatest gift was to teach some of them her native language, and it had come in handy for Kevin on more than one occasion. Communication with his wife, at least, was not going to be a problem. Yet , he was not looking forward to being married to a woman he had ne ver seen.

    “I will not agree!” Anna braced herself. She knew what was coming and wasn’t at all surprised when her father slapped her face.
    Her home was a large English manor. It was a forbidding place with no gardens, little color in the courtyard and even less inside the many rooms. A stone wall surrounded the entire estate, the gates were almost always closed, and Anna was rarely allowed to go out. Her father was a wealthy man who found favor in the eyes of the king, and more often than not, there were guards everywhere.
    The day Anna feared most was finally here. Her father and two of his guards had her cornered in her small bedchamber with no avenue of escape. He was determined to send her away, and she would be of no use to anyone if he did.
    Baron Stoneham was a big man with foul smelling breath, who nearly always yelled. “You will agree! You are to go to his keep, agree to marry him and wait. Do you understand?”
    It was a waste, she knew,