Page 15 of Darach

“Don’t do that.” Charlotte touched the raised patch of red skin slanting beneath his eye with her fingertips. “You’re not ugly, you know. You’re simply different.”

“If my face pleases you, then I shallnae complain.” He smiled, and his marked eye caught a flicker of light and flashed red-gold. “My thanks for your kind words.”

Although she should have told him she wasn’t being kind, Charlotte became distracted by his mouth. Like the rest of his face it had flawless contours, and her fingers itched to trace the sensual fullness of his lips. No, if she were being honest with herself, she wanted to kiss him, this stranger she had met only a few hours ago.

Pushing aside the inappropriate urge, she asked, “People with visible birthmarks deal with a lot of trouble in this time, don’t they?”

“In some places, aye,” he admitted. “The superstitious see such marks as curses on the màthair or the bairn. Some zealots call them witchmark, and claim they prove someone evil by nature.”

“That’s so ridiculous.” She shook her head. “It’s just an unusual coloration of your skin. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“All MacRoss have such birthing marks,” Darach told her. “Ameron, one of the guards, has one much the same on his neck. Luthias’s, ’tis twice the size of mine, but stretches across the top of his back.”

“Families sometimes share physical traits like that.” Charlotte showed him the two moles on her left wrist. “My father had these in the exact same place.”

He rubbed his thumb over the marks. “I’d trade you mine for these, but I wouldnae mar such a lovely face as yours.”

“I wish you could see yourself the way I do.” She recalled the dozen paintings she’d made of the Rose Knight, and how blissfully absorbed she’d been while creating them. Perhaps that was why Darach made her experience that same consuming, dreamy fascination. “You do look almost exactly like my illustrations from that book. Seeing you like this, it’s as if my own art has come alive.”

“You must tell me more of the book on the morrow.” He tugged the blanket up over her. “Now you should rest, my lady.”

Darach rose from the bed and went back to the hearth, where he sat down and watched the flames. The last thing Charlotte wanted to do was sleep, but her body ached with exhaustion. She closed her eyes and gradually drifted off into a light doze. All the fear and anger left her as she remembered the first time she had sketched the Rose Knight. It had been the day she’d signed the contract to illustrate Seona Kerrich’s book.

Charlotte caught sight of herself in the mirrored walls as she walked into her publisher’s building. She had worn black and white, as she always did for work, and twisted her hair into a sleek, gleaming chignon to add a little sophistication. Zoey had always dressed in wild colors and hair styles, claiming artists needed to be as colorful as their work. Charlotte strived for the opposite impression, as the publishers she worked for expected a professional appearance.

As she stood waiting in front of the elevator she caught a glimpse of Zoey running down the hall, pursued by a man wearing black sweats and a hoodie. The two figures then vanished into thin air.

Zoey wasn’t there that day. This is a dream.

As soon as Charlotte stepped into the elevator time jumped to the moment when she stepped out of it again, and walked down to her publisher’s office. There a secretary escorted her into a little conference room, where her editor and the author were having tea.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kerrich,” Charlotte said, shaking her hand after the editor introduced them. “I attended some of your lectures about indigenous people when I was at U of T.”

“Then you’re probably wondering why I’m publishing a children’s series,” Seona Kerrich said, smiling as they sat down. “I don’t have any kids of my own, but I’m godmother to my best friend’s daughter. She’s six years old, and loves fairy tales.”

With her black hair, big blue eyes, red lips and fair skin the author looked a little like Snow White, Charlotte thought as she accepted the manuscript from Seona and skimmed through it. On each page the historian had clipped notes about the particular illustrations she wanted.

“A fierce knight protecting flowers from frost demons.” She smiled a little as she read the description of the main character. “He sounds very exotic.”

“According to legend, he was,” the author said. “I’ve based all the characters on actual members of two ancient Scottish highland clans. My ancestors happened to work for one of them.”

As they discussed the project Charlotte took out her tablet and began sketching with her electronic stylus. Since Seona had mentioned the Middle Ages as the story’s time period she drew a tall, broad-shouldered man and dressed him in medieval-style garments, and then began detailing the figure.

“I don’t know the name of the chieftain on whom I modeled the character, but accounts by an alchemist associated with his clan mention his face being damaged here,” Seona told her, and moved her hand over her left eye and brow. “I think he may have been disfigured by burn scars, or perhaps smallpox. Can you turn that detail into something less frightening for my young readers?”

“You could just make him handsome,” the editor put in. “It’s not like it has to be strictly accurate.”

“You have flowers in the story, and kids love color,” Charlotte said, and sketched a blooming rose over the knight’s cheek before showing the historian her tablet. “What about something like this?”

“Can you draw that over his eye?” Seona watched as she modified the sketch. “Yes, perfect. In fact, let’s tattoo flowers all over him. I’ll change the story to better suit the character.”

Charlotte looked down as a drop of red plopped onto the tablet screen. “Ms. Kerrich, you’re bleeding.”

“We all will.” A scarlet dribble seeped down from Seona’s full lips as they curved, and three bloody symbols appeared on her brow. Her face shifted into that of Zoey’s as it had been when Charlotte had found her body. “That’s why he’s going to hunt you like an animal, Blondie. Because he doesn’t want you to see. He has to stop you, or you’ll see everything.”

The tablet shattered in Charlotte’s hands, and then someone was rubbing her arms, and she opened her eyes to see Darach. She was also standing right in front of the windows with the coverlet wrapped around her, and he had his hands on her arms as if he’d turned her around to face him. Her knees wobbled for a moment, and her heart pounded in her chest as if she’d just run a mile as fast as she could.

“Didnae you hear me call your name?” he asked.