Lady Miracle by Susan King Read Free Book Online Page A

largest book, she blinked back tears, missing Ibrahim and his wise counsel.
    She would have to help herself now to make a new life. She found the silver box that contained Gavin’s last letter. She tilted the parchment page toward the candlelight and squinted at the French words, shaped in Gavin’s precise writing hand. His calm personality seemed to exist in those small letters, quiet and comforting and capable.
    Quickly scanning the letter, she read again his mention of the captain of Glas Eilean, Ranald MacSween, who had refused to give up his position. Gavin had sent men there by sea to take over the fortress until Michaelmas married. But his sergeant had been killed in a battle at sea below the cliffs of Glas Eilean, and the rest of his men had retreated.
    “I have sent word to Ranald MacSween to abandon the castle,” Gavin wrote, “or I will come there myself with a contingent of men to dissuade him. I am not free to do so just now, for the king commands me elsewhere. But I pray that this man understands that the wrath of his king will turn toward him if he refuses me access to my sister’s castle.”
    She gripped the page and read on. She did not want Gavin to risk his life over some remote castle, and its more remote role in her life. She would give away that castle if she could, for it only caused men to fight and die, and at the least made strangers hungry to marry her just to gain control over its cliffs, which faced the southern approach to the Isles.
    Running her gaze down the lines, she searched for some hint of how to reach Gavin. But he only said that he was still in the borderlands with the king and would not be free to ride to Glas Eilean for weeks, perhaps months.
    Her fingers trembled as she replaced the letter in the casket and closed the lid of the great wooden chest. She stood, her back to the open window. The chill night breeze felt crisp, cutting through the fog of fear and confusion in her mind.
    She undid the linen wimple and veil pinned around her head, with its pleats and snug chin covering that denoted her widowhood. Then she took off the gold brooch pinned to the shoulder of her surcoat. The piece was quite old, a beautiful circlet of knotwork gold with a straight cross pin, studded with small garnets and sapphires. Gavin and his wife Christian had found the brooch in a horde of ancient gold hidden deep inside Kilglassie Castle. She had treasured the pin since childhood as a symbol of home and safety and love, thinking of it as her own luck charm.
    She sighed as she laid it down, thinking that the luck in the golden brooch would have to be quite strong to help her find the home and safety and acceptance she longed for in her life.
    She slipped out of her black surcoat and black serge gown—common dress for a widow in Italy, though not so common here—and stood in her long-sleeved chemise of heavy, creamy silk, and her low leather boots. Each movement was deliberate and calm, as if this was any other night when she readied for a few hours’ rest after staying late in the ward.
    But her heart beat in a heavy, panicked rhythm. She did not know what she should do on the morrow. She wanted to send word to Gavin as soon as she could, for she did not feel that she could stay here peacefully much longer. Perhaps she should send word to Kilglassie instead, and ask her mother to send a friend or a servant to come for her.
    Striving to calm herself by focusing on one small task at a time, she undid the tousled braids pinned over her ears and combed her fingers through until her long tresses slipped, pale and sleek, over her shoulder.
    ” Micheil. Here, at the window.” The voice was deep and soft, the words Gaelic.
    She jumped, deeply startled. Spinning, she saw a large shadow at the open window.
    Diarmid Campbell, his head and broad shoulders framed by the simple arched window, looked at her in the moonlight.
    “Michael,” he whispered. “Come here.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    “What are you doing