Marti Talbott's Highlander Series 1 (Anna, Rachel & Charlet) Read online

CHAPTER II

  Suddenly, Connor was flat on his back on the ground. His shoulder length hair was spilled across the grass and his eyes were wide. His sword was out of his hand; Kevin had both of Connor’s arms pinned under his knees and was ready to slice his throat with a dagger. Connor was almost as big as Kevin, but a good fifteen years younger and it shouldn‘t have been that easy.

  “Know where she is, but do not ever look at her in battle.” Kevin had fury in his eyes. “It will cost you your life.” They were both sweating profusely, but he had no intention of letting the younger man up. He needed men as skilled as Connor. “And know this as well, if you die she will become another lad’s bride.”

  Connor blinked twice. He hadn’t considered that and was about to speak when someone in the forest shouted Kevin‘s name. There was no mistaking the urgency in the lad’s voice and all the men instantly got to their feet prepared to fight. Kevin quickly got off of Connor and glanced around to see if anyone was watching their backs. He was pleased. Just as many faced the opposite direction and Rachel was out of sight.

  A second later, Justin broke through the trees on his horse. He halted, quickly slid down and ran to Kevin, “Three slain!”

  Kevin was shocked. For years, he successfully avoided conflict with the other clans and the MacGreagors lived in peace. Now there would be a war. “Who?”

  “Olson, his wife and one son. We are searching, but we fear the other two boys have been taken.” The rage in all the men was building and Justin could feel their tension.

  “Did you find the lads who did it?”

  “Nay, but Olson put up a good fight. We found this.” He opened his hand and showed a bloody piece of torn yellow plaid.

  Kevin turned to his men and pointed at six of them, “Bring the other families inside the wall until we know what is happening.” Then he chose six others. “Find the priest, bury the dead and do it quickly.” He watched the men run toward the stables and then turned his attention back to Justin. “Ferguson?”

  “You know it is, Kevin. Laird Ferguson thinks you have a better life than he and he aims to take it from you.”

  “We have heard these rumors for years. Why now?”

  Anna didn’t go to meet Emily as she said. Instead, she went to her mother’s cottage. She knocked on the door and as soon as it opened, she pulled her mother into her arms.

  Catherin caught her breath. “What is it, Anna?”

  She kissed her mother‘s cheek and smiled. “I did not mean to alarm you. Come sit down, there is something I have not yet told you.” She waited for her mother to sit down at the table, and then took a seat across from her.

  With the same dark hair and blue eyes as her daughters, Catherin was still an attractive woman even at her age. Her cottage was typical with two small rooms. The first held Rachel’s bed, a table and chairs and in the second was the bed she shared with her husband, Justin.

  “Rachel asked about my broken nose today.”

  Catherin looked down. “She has seen my scars often and she does not ask. Why now suddenly? Has something frightened her?”

  “She did not say so. The memories are there Mother, in the back of her mind. We both know they are, she was almost four when we left England. Neil is six and he remembers things that happened when he was three.”

  “I would die a thousand deaths before I would have her remember.” Catherin got up and walked to the window. “When my nightmares wake me, I sometimes cry out. Rachel does not open her eyes, but she covers her ears. I know she hears; she must.”

  Anna went to her mother, turned her and pulled Catherin into her arms again. A tear rolled down Anna‘s cheek, “I did not tell you, but she was there the day he beat me. She saw it.”

  Catherin began to sob.

  Anna let her cry for a while, then pulled away and wiped her mother’s tears with her thumbs. “We should go back and burn the manor again.”

  That made Catherin smile. “Aye, we should. We should even build it back and then burn it again.”

  Suddenly, Justin burst through the door and he looked surprised to see his wife’s tears. “You have already heard?”

  Catherin went to him and hugged him. “Heard what?”

  “You have not heard? Then what upsets you, wife?”

  Catherin poked him in the shoulder. “I asked first.” He did not return her smile. Instead, he kept one arm around his wife and reached for Anna. When Anna came to him, he whispered, “Three slain; Olson, his wife and son.” Justin gave them a few moments to absorb the news and kissed each on top of her head. “Where is Rachel?”

  “She was south of the meadow when I last saw her,” Anna answered.

  “I will find her. Kevin wants everyone inside the wall and has already sent lads to bring the other families in.”

  “Sween and Donny went fishing,” said Anna.

  “Kevin knows, he will find them.”

  Finding Rachel turned out to be far easier than finding Sween and Donny. One stream fed the moat from the north while another emptied it to the south. Once the four men realized the boys were not fishing the moat, they split up to search along the two streams. Kevin warned them not to go too far away and the boys disobeyed, so when he finally found his oldest son, he meant to scare him.

  The boys were happy, talking far too loudly and both were lazily sprawled out on a rock facing the wide stream. At his nod, Kevin and Justin attacked at the same time, grabbed the boys, and tossed them into the water face down.

  A smaller, but a nearly exact version of his father, Sween was so startled, he quickly turned over and grabbed for his dagger. But it wasn‘t in his sheath. Instead, his father had it in his hand and Kevin was not smiling. The boy was caught and the only choice he had was to scramble to his feet and wordlessly follow his father home.

  That night, Rachel boldly stood face to face with Kevin near the long table in the great hall, ignoring all the other people in the room. “I can do it. I have been inside the Ferguson hold three times and they never once noticed.”

  It was a large room and could easily hold a hundred people during celebrations. Candles in holders burned at intervals along the walls and more were on the table. At the end of the room was a large stone hearth and a small back door leading to the place food was prepared. Stairs led to a balcony from which more doors opened into bedchambers.

  “Nay,” Connor said from behind Rachel. Then he noticed the warning look Kevin shot him.

  “I can do it, Kevin, you know I can.” Rachel was determined and prepared to argue if he turned her down.

  Sween’s golden curls were finally dry after his unexpected dip in the stream and he looked smug, “I could do it better than a girl.”

  Rachel turned to glare at her nephew, but it was Kevin’s much more fierce glare that made the boy sit down and close his mouth. Kevin then looked to his wife for advice. Anna was very protective of Rachel and one word from her would keep him from letting Rachel go.

  Anna walked to her husband and turned to face her sister. “What will you do if the boys are there?”

  “Save them, of course.”

  “Nay,” said Kevin. “You will locate them and report back to me. If they need to be rescued, the lads will do it.”

  Rachel was sure she could save the children all by herself, but she didn‘t argue. “I will do as you say.”

  “How did they not notice you?” Connor was brave enough to ask.

  She grinned at her sister, “I stole one of their plaids.”

  “Do you still have it?” asked Anna.

  “Aye and two more. I also have...”

  Kevin interrupted her. “Is the list of your stolen property very long?”

  “Very, very long, I am afraid.” She studied his face to see if he was getting mad. He didn’t seem to be, but it wasn’t always easy to see on the men’s faces -- all except Connor. She always knew when he was riled. In fact, he was riled most of the time. She sighed at the thought.

  “I will go with her,” s
aid Connor.

  She spun around and glared at the one man she detested most. “You will not! You will only hinder me.”

  Anna tried not to smile, “She is right, she will have enough to worry about without having to protect you.”

  Connor was deeply insulted. “It is I who will protect her.”

  Kevin held up his hand to silence them and noticed Justin’s nod of consent. Justin was Kevin’s second in command and a wise man. He was also Rachel’s stepfather. Kevin took Rachel in his arms, hugged her and then stood her back. “Go and prepare. Be sure to tell your mother, I will not have her upset when she discovers you gone.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Rachel, do you know how to find your mother’s secret?”

  She knew exactly what he was talking about and quickly nodded. She hugged her sister and then ran out the heavy wooden door.

  “God be with you,” Anna breathed and then headed up the stairs to pray beside her bed. She would likely be there the whole night and expected her mother to join her soon.

  Connor kept staring at Kevin. He hoped Kevin would give his nod and let him go with Rachel. If the Fergusons committed the murders, they would be expecting someone to come and he did not want Rachel to go alone.

  Kevin didn’t give Connor permission to go. Instead, he sent his youngest son to bed and asked Justin for an accounting of all the families brought inside the wall over the last few hours. Not all of them were accounted for and there was a lot left to do; the outside families needed to be fed and sheltered. They also needed to bring more water inside the wall, so Kevin gave orders, one right after 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 except 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 you 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; Kevin would kill them.

  “Rachel, sit by me for a moment.”

  She was dressed, almost ready to go, and there was time so she did as her mother requested.

  Catherin held her hand out, turned it palm up and opened it. Inside was a small blue stone. “Take the stone. If you are captured, try to send the stone to us. Trust a lass to bring it.”

  “How will I know which lass to trust?”

  “Say these words exactly and say it in English, not Gaelic. Say: ‘God condemns the soul of a lad who hurts a lass or a child.’ Can you remember it?”

  “Yes mother. What if none of the lasses speak English?”

  “My sister lives with the Fergusons.”

  “I did not know you had a sister.”

  “I have three. She is the only one I have managed to find over the years, and I have met her often in the woods. When she hears the words, she will know who you are and she will help you.”

  Rachel took the stone, pulled out her dagger, dropped the stone to the bottom of the sheath, and replaced the dagger. She grabbed her bow, checked to make sure she had a full count of arrows and kissed her mother on the cheek. “I will come back, I promise you.”

  It was dark and the last of the families were still coming across the bridge when Rachel walked out. Once she was across, she turned to look back at the keep. Kevin and Connor were standing on the landing watching her and her mother was headed up the steps to join her sister in prayer. She was relieved to see Kevin wasn’t going to let Connor go with her. She turned back around, searched the woods with her eyes, looked up at the sky and waited for a dark cloud to cover the half moon.

  When the moon came back out, Rachel was gone and Kevin remembered to take a forgotten breath. He watched as the drawbridge was raised, and then glanced at Connor and smiled. He wasn’t sure the young man would ever take air again. “She needs you, Connor, she just does not know it yet.”

  “What makes you think she will choose me?”

  “Rachel is convinced she hates you.”

  “Of that, I am well aware.”

&n
bsp; “Aye, but she notices no other lad.” He watched Connor’s eyes begin to brighten. “Come, I will finish telling you how to win her and try to save you the trouble I had.”

  Both men went back into the great hall, sat down at the long table and Kevin began, “The truth is, I was a foolish young lad when Anna became my wife. I wanted sons and considered little else. Perhaps someday Anna will tell you what happened, but for now I tell you this: Once I loved her, I was determined not to let her out of my sight. I thought I would die without her, but Anna taught me a lad can not keep a lass unless she wants to be kept. He must honor her, trust her and listen to her. Most of all, he must be willing to let her go. Do you understand?”

  Connor wrinkled his brow, “Not in the least.”

  “Allow me to put it another way. To win Rachel’s heart, you must set her free. If you try to control her, she will hate you for it and you will lose her.”

  Rachel was right, once she walked through the gate to the Ferguson hold, no one paid any attention to her. Instead of the large, well-kept MacGreagor structure, the Ferguson hold was much smaller and the grounds had not been cleaned recently. They need Kevin, she thought. Kevin used cleaning duties to punish the children when they needed to think about their crimes. The older the child and the bigger the crime, the longer they cleaned. Lying or stealing meant a full week of cleaning up after the horses and Rachel remembered that duty well.

  She saw very few flowers around the cottages in the Ferguson hold, their stable didn’t have a roof and some of the people needed a bath in the worst way. But the Fergusons seemed happy.

  Rachel had been inside for more than an hour and was about to leave when she spotted a woman watching her. She tried to ignore the woman, and when she glanced at her a second time, the woman was slightly shaking her head, as if to warn her of something. Rachel lowered her eyes to signal she understood and when she raised them again, the woman disappeared into the crowd.

  It was an excruciating hour...after hour...after hour before Rachel finally opened the door to the keep and walked into the great hall. Her clothes were sopping wet, her hair was a mess, most of her arrows were gone and she still wore the Ferguson plaid. As soon as she saw him, she ran into the arms of the man she’d called father for as long as she could remember.