Lady Miracle (8 page)

Diarmid kicked at the small camp fire with more force than necessary to extinguish it, as if a few blows could destroy old hurts, old memories. Then he walked away through the silvery heather stems to ready the grazing horses for travel.

After hours of consistent bouncing on the stiff leather saddle, her bottom felt numb. Michaelmas shifted uncomfortably and decided that the broad warrior’s saddle beneath her was unsuited to a side position. Just now she would like nothing better than to walk the rest of the way to Dunsheen. She was unused to long hours on a horse.

She shifted her hips again, and thought longingly of the comfortable saddle she had owned in Italy, of carved wood covered with padded, tooled leather, hung with bells and ribbons and trimmed in silver. That and a graceful Arabian horse had been given to her by an Italian duke whom Ibrahim had treated.

But all of that was gone, sold with the rest of their things, part of her past. She had come back to Scotland to begin a new life among the people and in the land that she loved best. Then she sighed, thinking what a poor beginning she had made in Scotland. She had planned to be a licensed physician by now, with a few rooms in the town, ready to build a flourishing practice for women and children especially.

Now she had no idea in what direction her life would turn. She looked at Diarmid, who rode just ahead of her, cutting a path through the deep autumn grasses that covered the moors. He would determine, at least for a while, her future.

He galloped ahead, moving easily, as if he shared sinew and bone with his black horse, both of them agile, muscled, lean and dark. With a broadsword thrusting out of the leather sheath at his back, his wild mass of dark hair, and his body clothed in the thick folds of the green and black plaid, he was the image of savagery, a man sprung from the race of legendary wild men said to exist in unexplored parts of the world.

The Lowland Scots called the people of the northern hills savages and Wild Scots. Looking at Diarmid Campbell, she understood why. But she also knew that there was another side to the wild Highlander, and the contrast intrigued her. He was an intelligent, educated man and a capable surgeon.

She frowned, glimpsing his left hand where he held the leather reins lightly. The scars she had seen were the remnants of an old injury. Without closer examination she could not be sure, but the damage appeared to inhibit his finger agility.

Likely a battle injury, she thought, and pressed her lips together in sympathy. Sad and ironic that he had suffered such a wound. He likely had the strength to grip a sword or a tool, but he might lack the finer skills needed for delicate surgical work.

As she watched him, he suddenly turned and looked directly at her. His gray gaze was so intense, even at a distance, that she lowered her eyes as if to protect her thoughts. Then he turned and galloped onward. The ease and speed with which he rode made her long to move with the same freedom.

As a child in the hills of Galloway, she had known such freedom while playing with her closest friends, all lads, and her younger half-brothers. With them, she had ridden astride, climbed trees and castle walls, had sworn mighty oaths, and had fought mock battles with wooden swords. But her years in Italy as the wife of a prominent man had changed her in countless ways. She had lost her spontaneous nature, always conscious of the proper behavior for a lady and a professional medicus.

But this brief journey alongside Diarmid Campbell had affected her unexpectedly. The scent of autumn grasses, of heather and pine and clear water, the sweep of the crisp Highland air against her skin, had stirred wonderful memories of the simple happiness she had known as a child.

Watching Diarmid ride ahead, she decided to reclaim at least one of her Scottish ways or be left behind. Yanking her skirts above her knees, she swung her right leg over the saddle and found the opposite stirrup with her foot. Balanced lightly on the horse’s back, she leaned forward and rode into the wind.

She caught up to Diarmid in moments, her black cloak whipping out and the skirts of her surcoat and gown fluttering over her bare thighs. The veil and wimple sagged and she snatched them off, feeling her braids tumble down. The chilly breeze stung her cheeks. As she neared Diarmid and reined in the horse, she laughed aloud, thrilled by those few wild, abandoned moments.

Diarmid turned and slowed, watching her as she approached. His gaze traveled down her body to her legs, encased in black woolen hose gartered above her knees, and then up, taking in her face and pale, untidy hair. He tilted his head leisurely.

“You know how to ride properly after all, I see,” he said.

She sobered in an instant, pulling her skirts down to cover her legs and shoving back her hair. “I rode straddle as a child,” she answered, glancing away from his compelling gaze toward the steep, rugged hills and the misted blue mountains far beyond them. “How far is Dunsheen from here?”

“At the foot of that tallest mountain,” he answered, pointing at a distant peak. “We’ll arrive after set of sun. I assume you would rather ride in the dark than spend another night in the hills.” He urged his horse forward in a steady canter. Michaelmas pressed her knees into her own mount, keeping pace.

As they rode, she watched the pale ring of clouds that covered the highest mountaintop, and wondered what waited beneath those slopes. She wondered, too, who else lived at Dunsheen with Diarmid and the little injured girl. And she wondered if Diarmid Campbell’s wife knew that he had gone to fetch a healer.

“Does your family know that you mean to bring another healer to Dunsheen?” she asked.

“My family?”

“Your wife, your kin.”

He watched the pathway. “They do not know that I went to Perth to fetch you. I have been in the Lowlands with the king’s troops for nearly three months. But my kin will not be surprised that I have hired another healer.”

“You have not hired me,” she said. “I come willingly.”

He laughed, short and curt. “Is that what you call it? As I remember, you accused me of abduction—several times.”

“Well, you did neglect to ask for my services,” she pointed out. “You ordered me to come with you, and then took me out of the hospital like a sack of meal, without courtesy.”

“You were in trouble,” he said firmly, “and I saw the need to remove you. I was not going to bother with bowing and waiting on your will. That may do in Italy or France, but in the Highlands we deal directly with matters.” He slid her a glance. “And do not forget that I sent Mungo back for your things when you demanded it without much courtesy. Nor did I burn your breakfast,” he added. “All that is courtesy enough, I think.”

“You deal like a warrior—but I am not one of your soldiers to command.”

He smiled. “They say that physicians are warriors against pestilence and injury and death.”

“That may be, but we are accustomed to respect.”

“Come to Dunsheen and look to my niece, Lady Michael.” He smiled, lopsided and charming. “If you will.”

Michaelmas could not help but laugh. Then she realized what he had said. “Your niece?”

“Brigit is my brother Fionn’s daughter. I am her guardian now.”

She remembered his brother from the battlefield near Kilglassie. “He is dead, then?”

Diarmid nodded curtly.

“I am sorry,” she murmured in sympathy. “I thought you spoke of your own child.”

“I no longer have a wife. And we had no children.”

“I understand,” she said. “I was widowed last year.”

“I am not a widower,” he said. She glanced at him, puzzled. But the rigid set of his head and back discouraged her from asking more. He rode beside her through the cool morning light, strong, silent, and increasingly mysterious.

As she glanced at him, she saw a muscle pump along his jaw and a faint blush touch his cheekbones. She had met his prideful, arrogant side; now she glimpsed again that vulnerable man she had seen before, the one who carried a bitter sadness. He kept his sorrows and secrets to himself and drove forward on some hidden, relentless quest to find a cure for an ailing child. Wanting to know more, she could not ask; wanting to help, for that was irrevocably part of her nature, she had only one recourse. “I will examine Fionn’s daughter for you, since you ask it of me.” She hoped her willingness would bring back the lighter mood of a few moments earlier.

But he only nodded brusquely. “I need more of you.” Simple words, firmly spoken.

She shook her head. “Only that, Dunsheen.”

Diarmid stepped his horse closer to hers and reached out to pull on her reins, slowing both horses. He leaned toward her until she angled her head to look at him. “Promise me what I ask, and you will have whatever you desire in return,” he said fervently.

She stared into the silvery depths of his eyes. A tiny shiver slipped down her back, thrill as much as dread. “Whatever you desire, Lady Michael,” he repeated softly.

She looked away. “I will not bargain with you.”

“I will pay you well.”

“I do not need coin.” She pulled at the reins, but he controlled her horse for the moment.

“What, then?” he asked. “Land? Cattle? What is it a woman wants?” He frowned. “Marriage? Your brother wants you wed again. Would a husband meet your price?”

She gasped indignantly, although her heart surged. She wondered if he meant himself, but his earlier remark about a wife was cryptic and confusing. She dismissed the thought—she would never take a husband as stubborn and demanding as this man.

He took her wrist in his hand, his fingers hard and warm. “I do not beg favors,” he said. “But by God, girl, I am perilously close to it with you. And I will not think kindly of either of us if I come to that.” He drew a long breath. “I know you can heal Brigit. I want you to do it.”

She shook her head. “Take the child on a pilgrimage to a holy place if you are determined to petition God for a miracle. I am no saint.”

He turned her hand in his and stroked his thumb over her palm. Shivers ran through her, utterly pleasurable, deeply stirring. “Saint or none, you have angel hands,” he said. “The loan of those is all I seek from you. You may ask what you want in return.”

“I do not market miracles.” She jerked her hand away.

He let her go without comment, and urged his horse to walk beside hers. He did not glance at her, although she looked at him repeatedly. Finally she could bear the silence no longer.

“I would like to help your niece,” she said. “But I cannot do what you want.”

“You can,” he said evenly, looking ahead.

She wanted, in that moment, to resist whatever he asked of her out of sheer stubbornness. But he asked the impossible. She had learned to suppress her gift until it hardly stirred within her anymore. Quite simply, she could not do what Diarmid asked.

“Miracles cannot be ordered,” she said.

“You can do this,” he said, unperturbed.

She could not tell him the truth, and she could not convince him. The man was made of stone. She blew out an exasperated breath and slid a dark look at him. “Perhaps I should ask a miracle of
you
,” she snapped in frustration.

He smiled, a slight, crooked lift of his lip, as if he welcomed the challenge. “Name it. Within my abilities, of course,” he added drolly.

His confident manner sparked her anger further. She grasped at the greatest challenge she could think of immediately. “Win a castle for me,” she blurted out. “Surely waging a war is within your considerable abilities.”

He stared at her. “Do what!”

“Win a castle for me,” she repeated. “One of my choosing.”

“Not much of a miracle, that. Any castle can be broken.”

“Do not break it,” she said earnestly. “Win it whole.”

“I see. And if I do?”

“Then I will try to do what you ask of me.”

“Try?” His voice was low and strong.

She shrugged. “It is all I can promise. Win Glas Eilean for me, and we will have a bargain.”

“Glas Eilean! I know the place,” he growled.

Too late she realized that his castle was not far from Glas Eilean. Perhaps he would even welcome the opportunity to claim such a valuable property for his own. She lifted her chin to cover her distress at the thought. “I hold the charter to it—but you must take it from the man who holds it, and then give it over to my half brother’s keeping.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek and his eyes glittered cold. “I will not lay seige to Glas Eilean,” he said flatly.

She had not expected that answer. “Why not?”

“My sister lives there. The man who holds it is Ranald MacSween. Her husband.”

She gaped at him as he dug his heels into his horse’s sides and rode ahead. If MacSween, the man who had defied Gavin’s men, was Diarmid’s brother-in-law, then perhaps Diarmid and Gavin were not friends after all, as she had assumed.

She groaned inwardly. She should not have been so hasty to devise a miracle for him to perform. She should not have come with him; perhaps her actions would now make worse trouble for Gavin in his attempts to win back Glas Eilean.

Diarmid rode far ahead of her again. She leaned forward, skirts flying, to catch up to him. “I did not know,” she said.

“There are some bargains I will not make,” he said, staring straight ahead.

“Then you understand my position. There are bargains I will not make either.”

“Ah,” he said. “Then we have no agreement.”

“None,” she said decisively.

He rode beside her without speaking. As her anger cooled, she slid a glance toward him. Sunlight glinted bronze through his brown hair, and the muted colors of his green and black plaid blended with the hills and moorland around them. She studied the smooth carving of his brow and nose, the clear gray of his black-lashed eyes, the proud lift of his strong jaw and the firm set of his mouth. Even the small muscle that tensed in his lean, whiskered cheek seemed determined.

No agreement. She was relieved, in a way. If he had promised to fulfill her impulsive demand, she would have been obligated to match his request. She glanced at him, curious and fascinated. Diarmid Campbell was a warrior, strikingly handsome, powerful in demeanor, intelligent and deeply secretive. He was a chieftain with obligations and duties to fulfill.