A soft smile spread across Marian’s face, but her gaze no longer lingered on Anna. Instead, it drifted across the room to Lachlan. He stood tall among the men, laughing easily as his presence commanded without effort. Her eyes fell to his hands, strong and sure in the way he held his tankard, and she remembered the way they felt on her waist earlier.
The memory came unbidden.
A sudden warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the crowded hall, and she struggled to focus on her conversation with Anna.
“Don’t you worry, Marian,” Anna murmured, her hand coming to rest on Marian’s arm, drawing her back to the present. “You will, I promise.”
Marian let out a small laugh. “You say that as though it is simple.” Her voice held a quiet skepticism, though her eyes were now fixed on the intriguing movements of the dancers.
“It is not,” Anna said gently. She studied Marian for a moment with the sort of understanding that came from having once stood in a similar place.
Marian hesitated before speaking again, her fingers tightening lightly around the handkerchief she held.
“I was not sent here to become anything, Anna,” she said quietly as Anna guided her to a table nearby. “I was sent here because I was… convenient.”
“Convenient?”
Marian let out a small breath as they sat down. “My mother and uncle sent me here to…” She looked around briefly, her voice lowering. “…secure an inheritance tied to the MacLeod lands.”
She straightened her back.
“But I know they sent me because they wish to get rid of me, and I do not wish to return home either. It is my wish to remainin the Highlands and make the castle my home, if it truly is my inheritance.”
Anna’s expression softened rather than hardened at the admission.
“You were sent here,” she said quietly. “But that does not mean you are without worth.”
Marian nodded. She thought about Anna’s words for a moment before her gaze drifted back toward the center of the hall, where couples spun and laughed beneath the warm glow of torchlight.
Music filled the room, vibrant and alive, and the dancers moved with a kind of effortless belonging that made her suddenly aware of how different she was.
She watched them for several long seconds, feeling the familiar ache she had known since childhood—the quiet certainty that she had always been placed somewhere rather than chosen.
As though summoned by the thought, she turned her head slightly and saw Lachlan walk away from the men, his gaze sweeping across the hall.
He must be looking for someone.
She looked away fast, but not before she saw a flicker of something cross his face. Something that looked almost like… longing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lachlan had no intention of seeking her out.
He had parted ways with Marian as soon as he could to put some distance between them, and yet his gaze drifted toward her again.
This was the third time since they arrived at the cèilidh.
It means nothin’.
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he forced his attention away from her, downing whatever was left of his ale in one single gulp.
He slammed his tankard down on the table with a dull thud, his gaze flicking toward her once more.
She stood at the edge of the hall, just beyond the reach of the dancers, engaging in a conversation with Lady Murray. Herposture was confident as she gave a little laugh, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
Lady Murray handed her a glass of ale, and she took it, its sharpness hitting her at the first sip in a way that made her eyes narrow.
Inexperienced Sassenach.
