Page 57 of Taken By the Savage Highlander

“Perhaps a short walk around the gardens would do you good,” Marian suggested, giving her wrist a final squeeze before letting go of Margo. She turned to where Gavin was helping Eleanor from her carriage. “Eleanor is invited to join us as well.”

“I am sure she will appreciate that,” Margo said with a smile. This welcome was so much warmer than what she expected. Marian acted as if they were old friends. “She did seem a bit put out that she was travelling alone.”

“She will not lack company here,” Marian told her as she waved Eleanor over to them. “Anna and Lilly are waiting in the Atrium. We were a bit worried that the excitement of your arrival might be a bit too much for her in her current state.”

Before Margo could question that, Eleanor joined them. She rolled her shoulders back, stretching her body as best she could without making a spectacle. As she opened and closed her hands, she said, “I am pleased to meet you.”

“This is Marian,” Margo said, grinning when Marian took hold of Eleanor’s wrists and greeted her with the same enthusiasm.

“I am so pleased that you were able to join us,” Marian said, squeezing once before releasing Eleanor.

“I hope there is not a problem out here,” a new, equally accented voice said.

Margo turned toward it, finding two women making their way toward them. The speaker was a pretty, soft-looking woman with brown hair pinned up, out of her face. The woman following her had a hand resting on the swell of her belly.

“Lilly, are you sure you should be out here?” Marian asked, putting her hands on her hips as she watched her maid approaching. “We were just coming to get you.”

“I felt as though I were going mad inside,” Lilly reported. She looked over at Anna and said, “You thought I would be fine, didn’t you?”

“You said that you did not think this was too exciting!” Anna said, sounding as if she could not believe she had been implicated. “I was content to wait until we were fetched.”

“Well, you didn’t stop me, and I cannot leave my Lady alone for too long,” Lilly said with a wave of her hand, fixing her gaze on Margo. “And you are the reason for this celebration.”

“From what I am told, Marian is the real reason for the ceilidh taking place,” Margo replied, unable to keep a girlish grin from her face. The energy of the other women was infectious, and though she had only just met them, she could feel sisterhood burgeoning between them. “If it was not for her planning it, we would not all be gathered here.”

“You gave me a reason to plan it,” Marian said, turning the attention right back on Margo. She herded them away from the carriages as the grooms arrived to stable the horses. “And I was eager to meet my new neighbors. We are only a day’s journey from one another.”

“I did not know that you were so close until Laird MacLeod told me that we would be coming for the ceilidh,” Margo admitted, a partial truth. She had no idea that there was another Englishwoman so close to the MacLeod land.

“I am a bit jealous,” Anna said, patting Lilly’s arm, linking their elbows together. “I have several days of travel to spend time with anyone.”

“Nothing is stopping you from inviting us over for a visit,” Marian pointed out, her eyes softening as they passed by Lachlan and Cameron. “Except, perhaps, your husband.”

“But if you come to our lands, you leave behind the sea,” Anna sighed.

“You also leave behind the storms and dangerous cliffs,” Marian said with a huff.

“You know,” Margo said as Eleanor fell into step at her side, “I am starting to believe that the Land uses the storms to communicate with us.”

For a beat, everyone went silent. Then Marian leaned in close, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone, “I have been thinking the same thing, but Lachlan told me to get my head out of the clouds.”

“I can feel it!” Anna said, giggling. “Like there’s a whole other person here.”

“She is quite right now,” Eleanor said, looking up at the sky, squinting at the clouds on the horizon. “And looks as though she will be staying that way.”

“She?” Margo asked as she followed her sister’s gaze.

“It makes sense,” Lilly murmured thoughtfully. “Only a woman could come in like a storm and leave things better than she found them.”

“You are right!” Margo agreed a little breathlessly, her cheeks hurting from smiling.

“Perhaps she is celebrating with us,” Anna suggested.

Margo nodded, at a loss for words. She was so overwhelmed with the warmth of belonging that her voice had been stolen. It seemed that Eleanor felt the same, her body relaxing as she laughed freely.

Yes. I do think the Land is celebrating with us. I think the weather is her gift. A blessing. Perhaps an omen that things with Cameron will work themselves out?

“They’re gettin’ on quite nicely,” Lachlan observed as the group of women sauntered into the garden, already conversing as if they were old friends.