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reason we were here, eating salmon and drinking wine in this lovely restaurant, cloaking our true intentions in the mantle of polite conversation. “What comment?” I asked, although I knew exactly what he was about to say.
    He repeated my words exactly as I had said them. “ I’m the last of the Murrays. ” He was silent for a moment, allowing me the full impact of the words before he continued. “When I first saw you, I thought you reminded me of someone.” His voice was quiet and reflective with the familiar lilting cadence of a born storyteller. Intrigued, as usual, with any tidbit describing the ancient lore of Scotland, I hung on every word.
    “During the 1700s, before Culloden, Janet Douglas married George Murray. For some reason, neither the Douglases nor the Murrays approved of the union. I believe it had to do with an ancient curse. Her diary is in the family archives at Traquair House. Apparently she came back to Traquair after the Battle of Culloden Moor to collect her daughter’s belongings. She must have left it there. It was found, surprisingly intact, in a remote guest room.
    When it became obvious that Janet was pregnant, the families put aside their objections and the wedding was hastily arranged. A son was born six months after. Later, they had a daughter named Katrine. According to Janet’s diary, Katrine grew up and fell in love with an Englishman, the infamous Sir Richard Wolfe, on the eve of Culloden. She died tragically, fulfilling the prophecy. Nothing in her mother’s diary explains the nature of the curse, but apparently Katrine’s death didn’t surprise her.”
    The flickering candlelight made a circle of golden light in the bottom of my wineglass. Was it a trick of the flame or was Ian looking at me strangely? He had stopped talking long enough to refill his wineglass. “The reason I reacted so strongly to your words this afternoon,” he continued, “is because Janet used almost the same ones in her diary. She wrote that her daughter was cursed because Katrine was the last of the Murrays .”
    Reaching across the table, he lifted my chin and thoroughly scrutinized my face. “I have a portrait of Katrine Murray. It’s only an oil painting, nothing like the accuracy of a photograph, of course. She’s younger and her clothing and hair are different, but only a blind man could miss the resemblance. Gathering dust in my attic, Christina, is the picture of a woman who could be you.”

Three
    I shivered and pulled the covers up to my neck. The cozy fire crackling in the fireplace wasn’t enough to warm my entire room. Traquair had central heating, but the cost was too phenomenal to even think of turning it on in June. At least my feet weren’t cold, thanks to the warming pans Kate had insisted on slipping between the sheets.
    It was late, and I should have been tired. But I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was Katrine Murray. After dinner, I’d insisted on returning to Ian’s home to view the infamous portrait. I suppose she might have appeared differently in the glaring brightness of electric light, but the attic had no electricity.
    Softened by the flickering glow of candles, the hollows under her cheekbones deepened in purple shadow, Katrine Murray was beautiful. Her black hair was unpowdered and pulled off her face to surround her head in a cluster of curls, one lying temptingly against the swell of her white breast. Her bodice was very low and edged with lace in the fashion of the day. Wide skirts flared out from an amazingly tiny waist. Her nose was small and straight, her cheekbones pronounced, her mouth turned up in a tantalizing smile. But it was her eyes that held me. They were large and light, a clear lucid gray, framed with feathery black lashes.
    They were my eyes and they looked out from my face. Or at least it had been my face twenty years ago. This girl from the past, at the height of her beauty, knew the full extent of her power. She had not yet