Marsali MacKimmie

Marsali is Laoghaire's daughter, a sharp-tongued teenager who greets Claire's return to Scotland with open suspicion and loyalty to her own mother. Headstrong and unafraid to speak her mind, she bristles at the new arrangement in her family and makes her displeasure known, even as a growing attachment to Fergus complicates her certainties.

Lauren Lyle plays the prickliness without making Marsali merely difficult; there's real hurt and real backbone underneath the glares. The writing lets her be wrong, young, and stubborn all at once, and Lyle finds the humor and warmth waiting on the other side of that temper, so her eventual thaw feels earned rather than convenient.