Free Hero in the Highlands by Suzanne Enoch

always did, and it would be clan Maxwell that paid the price, no matter who’d provoked whom.
    The officer brushed past her, carrying with him the smell of damp soil and fresh pine needles. He was tall, too, only lacking half a handspan on Tormod himself, though he was far leaner than the barrel-chested blacksmith. Up this close she had to admit that “pretty” was the wrong word for him, even in jest. With that scar running down the left side of his face—and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes from squinting in bright sunlight, that hard, precise mouth, and most especially the … direct, assessing eyes, she could call him handsome, striking even, but not pretty. That was if she’d cared to call him anything all, which she certainly did not.
    She started back through the door, but the head groom caught her arm. “Lass,” Oscar Ritchie muttered, “watch yerself.”
    â€œI will,” she returned, scowling a little as she pulled free. If Oscar could point out one moment where she’d ever been foolish, she’d like to hear about it.
    â€œYe ken who that is? I saw him when I fought at Badajoz. The Beast of Bussaco, they call him. Major Gabriel Forrester. They say the Frenchies piss themselves when the Sixty-eighth Foot marches onto the field with him at the head.”
    Fiona stopped her retreat, uneasy alarm running through her. “‘The Beast of Bussaco’?” she repeated.
    The groom nodded. “Aye. He’s been stabbed, shot, and near blown to the devil by cannonfire, but nae a man’s been able to stop him. I dunnae ken why he’s here, but he’s nae some fancy fellow parading aboot in a uniform.”
    â€œThank ye, Oscar. I’ll be cautious, but ye do recall I’m nae a man.”
    His mouth twitched. “I’d nae go up against either of ye, Miss Fiona.”
    Major Gabriel Forrester. Having a name to go with the face shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. And now she knew a little of his reputation, as well. Whether that would give her an advantage when he told them whatever it was he wanted, she had no idea, but at least she no longer felt completely blind. And she knew something of what lurked behind that pleasing countenance of his. Things that didn’t surprise her. Not when she looked into those eyes.
    â€œThe day room is up the stairs and first door on yer right,” Uncle Hamish was saying, as if it weren’t a very bad idea to invite a dangerous foreigner, an enemy, to join them for tea and biscuits. As she topped the stairs her mother’s brother snagged her elbow, drawing her up against him. “Be polite, lass,” he murmured. “We dunnae need the army deciding Lattimer would make a fine post for a hundred of their soldiers.”
    That actually troubled her even more than the way men kept grabbing at her today. They’d gotten word that old Lattimer had died, back when the solicitors had been sending their insulting letters—as if she and the Maxwells had been cheating them or something. But no heir had been found. Did that mean Lattimer had gone to the English Crown? That they could indeed use it however they saw fit? “I’ll behave,” she agreed. “But he cannae set up a military post if nae a man ever sets eyes on him again.”
    â€œWe’ll worry aboot that later, Fiona.” He released her and strolled into the room. “I’m Sir Hamish Paulk. My home, Glennoch Abbey, is a mile west of here. And ye’ve met my niece, Fiona Blackstock.”
    She folded her arms across her chest, waiting for the major to introduce himself. Would he refer to himself as the Beast of Bussaco? He’d asked for—demanded to see, rather—Kieran, and as far as she was concerned, that meant whoever he was, he could deal with her. If he wouldn’t lower himself to speak with a woman, then he could go drown himself. She certainly wouldn’t weep any