Hero in the Highlands by Suzanne Enoch

run yet?” the butler took up again.
    That had been the plan, of course. Her father and Uncle Hamish had run the original strings themselves, some twenty years ago. Their experiment marked the last night the old duke had laid his head at Lattimer, as a matter of fact, and no one believed that had been a coincidence. And what worked for one duke would work just as well on another. Or it should have.
    But this duke was young—younger by some fifteen years than Lattimer had been at the time of his last visit, she reckoned. And this duke bore scars, not just of an unlucky brawl or a fall from a horse, but of war. A war he’d fought, rather than standing at the back and ordering other men to die. And he’d kissed her like he was drowning and she was air. She’d protested, of course; an arrogant, invading Sassenach had no right to lay a finger on her, much less his mouth. She hadn’t noticed the heat and the solid strength of him, and she certainly hadn’t appreciated any of those things. Yes, he looked like the personification of Ares, and yes, that and his self-confidence might be attractive to some English lass, but she wasn’t English.
    â€œDid he run, Miss Fiona?” Fleming repeated.
    She blinked. “Nae,” she said absently.
    â€œNae? But we put him in there especially,” Hugh, one of Lattimer’s two dozen footmen, protested, as he sent a longing look at the additional strings in his hands. “And I tested it during dinner. It should’ve worked.”
    â€œIt did,” Fiona conceded. “He’d just picked up the books when I knocked. He said the living frighten him more than the dead.” Well, that hadn’t been precisely what he’d said, and she had the feeling that nothing much did frighten him.
    â€œThis should’ve turned his hair white,” Hugh protested. “It would’ve done that fer me.”
    â€œWell, it didnae trouble him a whit,” she snapped back, still trying to dispel the image of that hard-muscled chest. For God’s sake, he’d been shot at least thrice, and it looked like someone had gone after him with a saber on more than one occasion. Oscar had mentioned cannonfire, as well. And he’d made it clear what he wanted of her. Had she convinced him that she wanted nothing to do with him? Damnation. She hadn’t even convinced herself.
    â€œNae a whit?”
    â€œHe’s got the wind crying through those holes in the chimney, too, but that didnae seem to bother him, either.” At the disappointed looks on the servants’ faces, she relented a little. “Tell the rest of the staff to go on with spreading the ghostly tales, but dunnae be so obvious aboot it that he catches onto the idea we’re trying to drive him off. The only way he’ll stay gone is if he doesnae want to come back.”
    â€œWe’ll see to it, Miss Fiona.”
    As the butler slipped out of the dark passageway and back into the storage room where she stood, she caught his arm. “Did Ian come by fer supper?”
    Fleming nodded. “Aye. He’s got only half a dozen men watching the road tonight, because of the weather.”
    â€œHe should’ve kept them all oot. We dunnae need more troubles right now to add to the ones we already have.”
    â€œSeems to me it’s the other way round. It’s him we dunnae need adding to our troubles.” The butler jabbed a finger toward the passageway and the master bedchamber beyond.
    Oh, she agreed with that. “Either way, one calamity at a time is more than enough fer me. Send Ian to see me when he gets back in the morning. And keep him clear of His Grace.”
    After the two men had gone, she shut and locked the storage room door behind her and the hidden passageway beyond that. The last thing she needed was for someone to decide to take matters into his or her own hands and spoil the game entirely. Of course, if one of the castle’s