Lady Miracle by Susan King Read Free Book Online Page B

here?” she whispered. She went to the window and swung the shutter wide. Her window faced the back of the hospital enclosure, on a ground level, so that Diarmid had no difficulty looking inside. She scowled at him.
    “I wanted to talk to you,” he answered, with the same calm manner he had displayed in the courtyard. Then, too, he had made an outrageous statement as if it was ordinary.
    She gaped at him. “In the middle of the night?”
    “Go to the door,” he murmured, and was gone. She leaned forward to peer through the window, and saw him disappear around the corner of the building.
    She ran to the door and waited, hands pressed against the wood, her heart thumping. Within moments she heard a soft knock. She unlatched the door and opened it a crack.
    “Let me in,” Diarmid said.
    “Be gone,” she hissed. “You are mad!”
    ” Ach , I will not harm you. I need to speak with you.”
    “Speak through the door. Or go back to the window.”
    “Will you have everyone listen, then?” he asked. “The monks are on their way back from chapel.”
    Sighing in exasperation, sensing his sincerity and recalling that he was a friend of her brother, she let him enter the room. His wide shoulders and wider stance seemed to fill the small cell as she shut the door behind him.
    Aware that she was clad only in the silk chemise, she folded her arms over her breasts and watched him uncertainly, suddenly afraid, wishing she had not let him in so quickly. But impulse and a tendency to trust too easily had always been flaws in her character.
    He moved toward her. She stepped back. “What do you want?”
    “I want you to come with me.”
    She nearly laughed, not in mirth but in frustration at his bold stubbornness. “I have already refused you. And I have decided to leave here as soon as my brother can fetch me home. I will be going to Kilglassie, not the western Highlands.”
    “I can offer you an escort.”
    She lifted her brows, intrigued. She had not thought of that. If she could leave with him, she would be home in a matter of days. “If you mean that, wait until I send word to Gavin and let him know where I am going, and with whom.”
    “I mean to leave now.”
    “In the middle of the night like a thief?”
    “Just in a hurry to be home,” he answered. He kept his hands fisted on his plaid-draped hips, his wide-spaced legs knotted with muscle in the dim light. He reached past her, grabbed her black gown, and tossed it to her. “Get dressed. I have decided to take you out of here.”
    She clasped the woolen garment to her chest. “Take yourself out of here— ach !” She glanced toward the door and saw the other Highlander peering around the edge. She glared at him. He blinked at her and at Diarmid, who growled low, and then the man closed the door hastily. “Both of you be gone from here!”
    “I heard what the prioress and priest said to you today,” he began. He tipped his head to look down at her. “There is trouble here for you. They do not care about your welfare.”
    “And you do?”
    “I do,” he said firmly. “And I offer you a chance to do as much healing as you like. Go on, get dressed.” He gestured.
    She lifted her chin defiantly. “I will not go with you.”
    He folded his arms, and let his glance travel slowly down her body and up to her face. “Will you not? Your brother would be glad to know I took you out of a situation where people mean you harm. You are not safe here.”
    “I am hardly safer with a lunatic Highland man!”
    “Well,” he drawled, “if you wish a hearing and the threat of excommunication, then certainly stay.”
    He could not know the effect those words had on her. She felt an immediate urge to run out of here with him. But she only shot him a cool, silent glare and yanked the heavy gown hastily over her head, thrusting her arms through the sleeves. He handed her the surcoat and she pulled that on too, and turned to find the golden brooch and pin it to her shoulder.