Marti Talbotts Highlander Series 1 - Anna Rachel u Charlet

another to the other men.
    Connor was having trouble controlling himself. A thousand things could go wrong, he didn’t want Rachel to go out at night and especially not to enemy territory. What kind of man would he be, if he let the woman he loved face that kind of danger alone? Still, Kevin was their laird and Connor could not, and would not disobey him. He slumped against a wall and tried to accept what was happening. Before he knew it, the great hall was empty excep t for Kevin and his son, Sween.
    “Come here , son.” Kevin waited until Sween got up and came to face him. “Can you sneak up on a lad without him noticing?”
    The boy hung his head. “Nay, father.”
    “Can you split an apple with an arrow or break a lad ’ s arm?”
    Sween shook his head.
    “Rachel can do all that and more. It is good for a lad to be brave, but not if he is unwise. Challenging Rachel’s skill is unwise. She can hurt you if you do it again and I will let her. Go to bed.”
    The boy ran up the stairs, disappeared into his bedchamber and Kevin didn’t smile until he heard the door close. Then he filled a goblet with wine and took it to Connor. “Your father was a good lad. I trusted Clymer with my life and he never let me down. It is for his sake I keep you close and I am pleased you fight so well. ‘ Tis time you became my third.”
    Connor was pleased, but that was not foremost on his mind. Even so , he said, “I am honored.”
    “My wife and her mother left us once and took Rachel with them. Did you know that?” He watched Connor shake his head, handed him the wine and then walked back to the table to pour a second goblet of wine for himself. “We had only been married a few short weeks. I love Anna and would rather face a hundred warriors alone than to again feel the pain her leaving caused me.” He paused and motioned for Connor to come sit with him at the table. “Rachel, Anna and Catherin have the courage of a raging bull and I wish I had ten men like them. You have that same courage, but you will need much more than courage if yo u hope to win Rachel’s heart.”
    The door opened, Justin stuck his head in and announced more arrivals.
    “How many are still outside?”
    “Five families, but they are coming.” Justin pulled his head back out and closed the door.
    Kevin sipped his wine and turned his attention back to Connor. “As I was saying, you will need to be far wiser than I was when it comes to Rachel.”
    “In what way?”
    “It will take a while to explain , but we have time. Rachel will go on foot, it is two or three hours each way and we have a long night of waiting ahead of us.”

    Rachel thought it was very clever the way Kevin hid the passageway through the outside wall. As far as Rachel could tell , only five people knew it was there and Connor wasn ’ t one of them. It was another thing she could do that Connor couldn ’ t. The door was right behind the cottage Rachel shared with Catherin and Justin. Justin was a good man and treated her mother as though she were a rare treasure. He was very loving and never told his wife what to do. Nevertheless, if he suggested something, her mother was happy to please him.
    Every once in a while her mother got a confused look in her eye and if the bridge was up at night, Catherin slipped through the hidden passageway to go outside the wall. Rachel had no idea what caused the odd behavior, and her mother always came back sopping wet. Why anyone would swim in the moat at night instead of a perfectly good loch in the daytime was beyond her. But that was what her mother preferred and Rachel didn’t question it. When Catherin came back, the confused look on her face was always replaced with smiles. Sometimes her sister Anna went out too, but not very often. It was just something that happened.
    A few years earlier, Rachel wondered if there were more hidden doors and started examining the rest of the wall closely, when no one was watching. She found two more doors, hidden behind bushes that clearly had not been disturbed in years. Bushes all along the outside of the wall hid all three doors and finding them with the naked eye was impossible.
    This night Catherin was inside the cottage. She sat on Rachel’s bed, watched her roll up two yellow Ferguson plaids and tie the bundle with twine. “Kevin will kill the lads who hurt the woman and the child. He promised me.”
    Rachel wasn’t sure why Catherin said that, but she was sure her mother was right;