Page 46 of Every Day of My Life

She would have reached out to touch one, but her hands were already shaking too badly.

“Mairead.”

She looked at him. “Aye?”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he reminded her. “And I suspect you’ll be very good at this, so you’ll likely keep my friends safe from my wrath. These are called pencils.”

“But the colors,” she managed.

“I’m guessing that it’s nothing more than charcoal that’s been dyed, but it could also be wax. I have no idea, really. What color do you like best?”

“Purple,” she said without hesitation. She looked at him then. “’Tis the color of heather, you know.”

“I know,” he said with a smile. He selected one of the marvels in that silver box fit for holy relics, then held it out. “Why don’t you try it? We’ll see who draws a better rendering of our heather here.”

She hardly dared put anything on that parchment that was so precious, but Oliver seemed to think nothing of it. She considered, then decided perhaps she could at least offer him that much aid in satisfying his mates.

She drew little clusters of heather, then frowned as she realized if she were going to do it properly, she would need other colors.

Oliver held out his precious box. “Take what you need.”

She chose brown and green, then imagined there wasn’t any point in not putting a bit of mountain behind her plants as well as a hint of sky. She realized only as she’d filled the page with heather and a bit of forest and the sky visible in front of her that Oliver wasn’t as busy. She looked at him to find him watching her with an expression of astonishment on his very braw visage.

“I’m turning over this task to you,” he said promptly. “Don’t tell the lads.”

She would have attempted a snort, but couldn’t dredge up enough enthusiasm for it. She also realized that Oliver had been busily cutting away the wood from the colored charcoal, which she suspected had been for her benefit only. She considered, then held out her sheaf.

“I can draw other things on yours, if you like.”

He took her page, then handed her his. “Please.”

She considered, then drew things from memory, finding that having so many colors to use was an unexpected pleasure.

“How do you know so much about plants?”

“How else would I know what to use for dyeing yarn and cloth?”

“Fair enough,” he agreed. He waited until she’d finished, then handed her another sheaf. “Could you draw some things in black, then let me color them in?”

“Will that satisfy them?”

“If not, I have a sword.”

She smiled in spite of herself, then drew for him several flowers she thought he might manage. She handed him the sheaf, then watched him as he drew colors inside her renderings. He looked a great deal like a monk, bent over his page with a frown marring his perfect brow. That seemed a better choice than a demon, to be sure.

And surely no creature from Hell could possibly have had such a beautiful visage. He was braw, true, but she realized sitting perhaps a bit closer to him than her father might have found acceptable, that he had a mark or two—perhaps a case of the pox in childhood—and a scar through one of his eyebrows. His eyes, however, were a beautiful shade of pale blue, full of a quiet merriment that increased slightly when he smiled.

“You’re supposed to be drawing flowers,” he said, not looking up.

“I drew flowers,” she said, feeling her cheeks grow uncomfortably hot. “And more for you.”

“Well, if you draw me now and give me a tail and horns, I’ll howl.”

She smiled. “Will you?”

“It depends on how ugly you make me.”

“You’re braw enough,” she said, which was yet another unholy bit of understatement. She cast about for something else todiscuss, but found herself coming back to simply sitting with a man who left her feeling an unaccustomed sense of being safe. “Will your friends find this enough?”