"Charlet, I am not yet finished."
She stopped and turned back, "Did someone else walk into the wall?"
He grinned. "Not that I am aware of."
His expression turned serious and she became concerned, so she went all the way back to him. She remembered how he used to put his arms around her when she was little and she wished he would do it now. It would make her feel less concerned. "I do not please you?"
He did wrap his arms around her and then quickly let go, "Of course, you please me. You have pleased me since the first day you came to us." Kevin urged her to sit down at the table and then retook his seat. "It is time to tell you something."
She gracefully folded her hands in her lap. "What?"
"I have had an offer of marriage for you and I would like you to carefully consider it. It is from an Englishman."
Her brows shot up, her jaw dropped and she couldn't even speak. A Highlander wanted her to consider marriage to an Englishman? She sighed, shifted her eyes, and then her temper took over and she glared at him. "Kevin, if you wish to be shed of me, just say so. The Camerons will take me, I know they will."
She got up and started inching toward the door. "I would much rather be married to one of them. I would even sooner marry a Ferguson or a MacDonald. Naturally, I want to stay here, but if you do not want me, then I..." She darted out the door and was gone.
Kevin strummed his fingers on the table and began to count, "One Highlander, two Highlanders, three Highlanders, four..."
Charlet stuck her head back in the door, "What Englishman?"
*
The Highlanders called their laird's home a Keep. It was a two-story building made of stone with a large courtyard and stables enough to house twenty-five horses. Cottages and a web of paths were spread out behind the Keep with a garden at the far end. A high wall surrounded it all, complete with a moat and a drawbridge.
Julie and Kenna often walked the paths inside the wall, wandered over the bridge and strolled toward the loch to the east, or the meadow to the west. This day, they wanted to watch the door to the Keep, so they stayed inside the wall, only went as far as the first cottage and sat down on a log.
Julie whispered, "Charlet has been inside talking to Kevin forever. See how the guard does not let anyone in? I have never seen that before. In fact, Kevin never spends that much time with any of us."