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urged her to abandon her gift for her protection.
    And she had. Reviving the accusations was hurtful. She had tried to forget her past.
    “Perhaps you believe yourself a saint,” Mother Agnes remarked acidly.
    “No more than you,” Michaelmas said angrily. “I thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.” She whirled and walked away, trembling.
    The tall Highlander stood in the outer doorway as she approached. His height and breadth, his sheer powerful presence, blocked her exit. But she kept on advancing.
    Her gaze rose to meet his eyes. They were the color of storm clouds. His glance pierced and held hers. Then he merely angled in the doorway to allow her passage.
    She pushed past him silently, her shoulder brushing solid chest. His smelled of maleness and woodsmoke, of fresh air; it was a robust blend of strength, comfort, and, oh God, freedom.
    Michaelmas stalked into the courtyard, black wool flapping around her as she moved rapidly across the yard. Fisting her hands, she headed into the wind, feeling as if it gave way.
    “She’s overbold for a nun,” Mungo remarked after the woman glided past them.
    “She’s no nun. Her brother said she was a widow.”
    “Widows take vows. Well, go speak to her. We have a long ride home.” Mungo tapped a foot impatiently. “Though she looks a fearsome little wench. She makes me quake. I would be afraid to ask her the way to Perth, much less would she come to Dunsheen with us.”
    “She is just angry—they are not treating her well here,” Diarmid said as he watched Lady Michael cross the yard, her clothing flapping with the fury of her retreat. She shoved at some bedsheets hanging on ropes and disappeared behind them.
    He recalled, eleven years earlier, a slip of a girl kneeling in the mud and chaos of a battlefield. He hardly saw that child in the outspoken, temperamental woman out in the yard. But he would have known her eyes, blue and deep as a summer loch, and he knew the hair under her veil would be pale as moonlight.
    “Go on, man,” Mungo urged. “I’ll wait here.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall.
    Diarmid strode through the courtyard toward the flapping laundry.
    Michaelmas yanked another clean, dry sheet off of the rope and folded it. She fumed as she grabbed, and thought of what she should have said to the prioress and the priest in her defense.
    “I was a fool to come here,” she muttered. But she had believed that the English master physician and the hospital corporation of priests and surgeons would respect her knowledge and her education. However, outside of Italy, she might never be viewed as a physicus . Unlike in England and France, women in Italy were allowed to study in universities and were awarded status as full physicians. But they were not regarded as equally anywhere else.
    She kicked the basket and stretched for another sheet. Somehow—perhaps through a letter to the clergy in Bologna—Father Anselm had learned about the trial, so long ago in Italy. She breathed hard against those ugly memories. Ibrahim had assured her it would never happen again. But Ibrahim was not here to protect her this time.
    She folded the sheet vigorously, fighting tears. Fine, she would go live with Gavin and her mother and relinquish her dream of practicing the learned arts in Scotland. The hospital corporation and physicians guild had denied her a license, offering membership as a sister of the barber-surgeons’ guild instead. She would pull teeth, stitch cuts, and let blood.
    She missed dear Ibrahim. She could not do this alone. She no longer had the protection of his name and reputation. Her husband had provided, in their sunny apartments in Bologna, a haven of books and stimulating discussions between a student and a teacher, and later the equal respect of a professional colleague, and of an affectionate husband. He had never told her that she would not find that kind of peace and freedom elsewhere.
    Nor had he told her that he was ill enough to