Read Lady Miracle for Free Online

surgery patients again. One man was still fevered, and she would watch him carefully, but the rest seemed content. With few exceptions, the patients in the common hall were elderly and infirm rather than seriously ill, and so the hours after midnight tended to be quiet.
    She sighed, leaning her back against the wall as she sat on a wooden bench beside Jean’s bed. As she watched golden candlelight flutter over the walls, she heard Jean stir restlessly. Michaelmas glanced at her, then relaxed when she was sure that the old woman slept soundly.
    After supper, when Jean had complained of pain in her chest and arm, Michaelmas had been glad that she had agreed to sit with the patients in the night hours. Marjorie or Alice would come later, but for now she wanted to watch Jean more closely.
    She closed her eyes and listened to the quiet sounds around her. Varied snores mingled with the rush of the outside wind. Across the room, one of the Highlanders mumbled in Gaelic in his sleep, and grew quiet.
    The soft language reminded her of Diarmid Campbell. She had thought of him often, astonished and alarmed by his impossible demand of her. He knew the secret that she guarded. If Father Anselm or the prioress discovered it, they could bring charges of heresy against her again. She could not endure that, particularly in her own homeland.
    Fear gave her these thoughts, she told herself; surely that horror could never happen to her again. But if she went with Diarmid Campbell to his castle in the western Highlands, no one else would learn what he knew. She could examine the child, using only her medical knowledge, and propose a treatment. Then she would return to Gavin’s home at Kilglassie.
    Certainly she could no longer stay here at Saint Leonard’s Hospital. Her dream of using her skills to help others had been rejected and ridiculed. She was not wanted here.
    Shifting on the hard bench, she thought about sending word to her brother that she was ready to be escorted home to Kilglassie Castle. Diarmid Campbell had mentioned that Gavin had told him where to find her. Several weeks ago, her brother had sent a letter by messenger; at the time he had been somewhere in the Lowlands, traveling and fighting alongside the king.
    Frowning, she tried to recall Gavin’s last letter. Her brother had discussed at length the dilemma of Glas Eilean, her Highland property. Gavin had the king’s permission to take the castle under his own control, but the captain who had held it for years refused to relinquish it. Gavin also mentioned that he would continue to look for a Highland laird to suit her—and the needs of that castle, she thought bitterly.
    Gavin had received several offers for Michaelmas’s hand in marriage since she had been widowed, from Highland chieftains, a Lowland knight in the king’s service, and even an English baron. She had turned them all down, although she knew that her brother favored a Highland union for her.
    She had never seen Glas Eilean Castle, but she knew that its seaward position gave it great political and strategic value. She was sure that any man interested in marrying her wanted Glas Eilean above all else. But she had no interest in another marriage. As a widow and a physician, she wanted a peaceful, independent life in which to establish a practice. That path had proven more difficult than she had thought, but she did not care to give control of her life to a man she might barely know.
    At least she knew that Diarmid Campbell did not intend to seek her hand—and her charter to a castle in the Isles. He must be wed, since he was here only to ensure his child’s well-being. His fatherly devotion was admirable, if his methods were unusual. She could not erase from her mind the image of him standing amid the white sheets, his stance powerful, his gray eyes like slices of shining steel. The aura of force that surrounded him was undeniable. And if the arrogance he had shown her was typical of him, she had done well