“He’s dead then?”
“Aye!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” she asked defensively. “Honestly, Robert, how much do you know about events that took place on another continent eight hundred years ago?”
His lips tightened. “Then you maintain this fantasy that you have come to me from the future?”
“It isn’t fantasy. It’s fact.”
His expression said, I’m not buying it.
She groaned. “I know, I know. It sounds insane. It can’t be true. Well, I have news for you. Time travel is no more possible in the twenty-first century than it is now, even with all of the technology we have. And, Robert, you would not believe the technological advances we have made.”
“I know not what technology means, but if mankind will truly accomplish whatever future advances you have imagined they will by the twenty-first century, why think you that time travel will not be possible?”
“Because,” she told him earnestly, “if time travel were possible in my century, the world would be even more screwed up than it already is. All it takes is one brief look at the past to know that the dumb-butts powerful enough to control the research and development it would take to make time travel possible would then abuse the ability to travel through time to change things for their own gain and say to hell with everyone else. And I am not imagining the technological advances of my time. I don’t even know how to begin to explain all that the term technology comprises, but it’s real. If I were a resident of your time, I would never even conceive of the things I see on a daily basis at home.”
“Why is that?”
“Because compared to us—and by us, I mean inhabitants of the twenty-first century—the average person of your time doesn’t know diddly squat about science and medicine.”
Robert folded his arms across his chest and raised one eyebrow in what she took as a cold challenge. “Then by all means, enlighten me with an example or two and we shall see how difficult it is for my poor backward brain to conceive of it.”
Groaning again, she resumed her pacing. “Robert, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… for Pete’s sake! You guys probably still think the Earth is flat and that—”
“The Earth is not flat. It is round,” he interrupted.
“Really? You knew that?”
“Scholars have known that for some time now, though the church continues to insist it is flat.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Teachers should really stop teaching that everyone-was-afraid-Columbus-would-sail-off-the-edge-of-the-Earth crap in school then.”
He blinked.
“Right. Too far off topic.” She resumed her pacing. “Okay. So you know the Earth is round. But you probably think that the sun—and pretty much everything else in the universe—revolves around the Earth. And you probably know little to nothing about solar systems or galaxies or just how big this universe really is. We do. All of those stars up there,” she said, motioning to the ceiling, “are suns just like our own with their own little groups of planets that revolve around them or circle them just like the Earth does our sun. And we’re pretty damned sure that there’s life on at least a few of them.”
She paused to take a breath, then dove back in. “And Earth isn’t the only planet that revolves around our sun. There are eight planets and three dwarf planets. Although, honestly, I still think of Pluto as a planet, not a dwarf planet. And with our technology, we’ve taken close-up pictures of some of these planets, and taken soil samples of at least one, and even studied their weather patterns. We’ve sent men to the moon, Robert. In the twentieth century, men actually walked on the moon. We’ve built a station up in space, where astronauts live for months at a time with great big rockets that take them to it. If I were born in your time, would any of that have occurred to me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Well, would it?”
The silence stretched.
Had she tossed too many modern words in there for him to get the gist of it?
She studied him. No. Something she had said had gotten to him. Some fragment of her ramblings had actually reached him.
His face lost quite a bit of color. He gripped the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles whitened. He looked positively shell-shocked.
“Robert?”
Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees again and clasped his hands between them.
“What is it?” she asked.
“’Tis naught,” he answered, his face full of unease.
“I don’t think so,” she protested, watching him. “Something I said unsettled you.”
He stared down at his hands for a moment and seemed to weigh his words very carefully. Either that or he debated the wisdom of speaking them aloud. “You do not believe the sun revolves around the Earth?” he asked finally.
That wasn’t what she had expected. “No. Nay, the Earth, along with the other planets in our solar system, all revolve around the sun. But Europe didn’t—or rather won’t—figure that out until…” She frowned. When had they figured that out? “I’m not sure. Maybe the 16th century. I think Copernicus came up with a model somewhere around then.” She had a vague recollection of writing an essay on it in middle school.
Robert looked none too pleased.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that,” she murmured. Sure, he hadn’t been thrown by the Earth being round thing. But the Earth revolving around the sun instead of vice versa must have come as a shock.
As she studied Robert, she frowned, then narrowed her eyes.
Or had it?
Shouldn’t he be shouting denials or accusing her of madness or witchcraft or heresy or laughing it all off as a joke by now? Because he wasn’t doing any of that. He was just sitting there, staring at her. Almost as if he were wondering how the hell she had known.
Her eyes widened. “You knew!” she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him with a combination of accusation and triumph. “You knew the Earth revolves around the sun and now you’re trying to figure out how I knew it!”
“How did you know it?” he asked softly.
“We’re taught that and a lot more, beginning at a very early age in school. If I didn’t have such a hard time remembering numbers, I could probably tell you the Earth’s dimensions, too.”
“As could I.”
She blinked. “What?”
He quirked one supercilious eyebrow.
“Seriously?”
The eyebrow’s twin rose, as did the corners of his lips as he leaned back in his chair.
“No freaking way!” Beth hurried across the room and reclaimed her seat. “How is that possible? You’re not supposed to know about that stuff yet.”
“You must first vow you will not repeat what I tell you,” he cautioned.
“Done. Now give it up.”
He grinned. “You have the most peculiar way of issuing demands.”
“I know. Just tell me.”
“Very well. My brother’s wife is a wisewoman, as were her mother and grandmother before her and so on. I know not how far back it goes, only that members of her family have more often than not been born with certain gifts that have driven some to travel the world in search of knowledge and to escape persecution as witches.”
“What kind of gifts?”
“I shall disclose those later.”
“Now I’m really curious.”
He smiled. “I know.”
“Wait a minute. Your brother’s wife? You mean Alyssa?” If he started waxing poetic over the woman’s beauty and many virtues again, Beth was going to hit him over the head with something.
“Aye.” His teeth gleamed in a grin. “Your eyes are lovely when they sparkle with jealousy.”
“Oh, shut up and kee
p explaining.” Damn it. He was right. Even after his earlier assurances, she burned with jealousy whenever he mentioned the other woman’s name.
“Alyssa has in her possession numerous tomes and scrolls so old that the language written upon some is no longer spoken.”
“Can she read them?”
“Many of them, aye. Her grandmother taught her and she in turn has shared with me the knowledge she gleaned from them whenever I pestered her with questions.”
The image of him bending over dusty old manuscripts with some gorgeous babe made her want to strangle him.
“And my brother,” he added, clearly amused. “Did I mention that my brother is often present during our discussions? I am certain Dillon knows far more than I do.”
“Good save.” Forcing her jealousy aside, she pondered the probability of books or scrolls containing that kind of information actually existing at this point in time. “You said they’re really old?”
“Ancient in some cases. Alyssa will not let me touch them for fear I will crumble the pages in my clumsiness.”
“You aren’t clumsy,” she declared, a little offended on his behalf. Robert was the least clumsy man she had ever met.
“My thanks for your defense.”
“You know, I saw a documentary once that said the great pyramids of Giza are exactly proportional to the radius and diameter of the Earth, which—contrary to popular belief—isn’t perfectly round. So exactly proportional, in fact, that it couldn’t have been a coincidence. Those pyramids were built at least as early as 2500 B.C., although some now argue they were built much earlier than that. And clearly astronomy played a huge role in the alignment of their structures, their calendar, and more. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Egyptians were hip to the heliocentric model early on. Did any of Alyssa’s scrolls, or whatever, by chance come from Africa? And, just in case you don’t call it Africa yet, Africa is sometimes called the Dark Continent and is the one located south of the Mediterranean. You might refer to Africans as Moors.”
All cockiness left him, along with the color that had managed to creep back into his features. His blue eyes widened. “Those scrolls and their origins have been very carefully guarded. How is it you know of them and of the place they originated?”
How did she know? She was as shocked by his knowledge as he was by hers. Though she couldn’t help but be delighted.
No wonder he was more open-minded and seemed more progressive than his peers.
Beth leaned forward and gave his knee a gentle pat. “I told you. Everyone who goes to school or watches the History Channel knows that in my time.”
Beth could almost see the thoughts racing through his mind as he scrambled for an explanation for her knowledge that would prove easier to digest than time travel.
What more could she say to convince him? What more could she do? She needed proof. Tangible proof.
She clapped a palm to her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. My things!” Grabbing his hand, she jumped up and drew him over to the tapestry that hid the secret door.
Robert remained silent, still reeling from Beth’s revelations.
He held the tapestry aside for her as she passed through the doorway and into the narrow corridor that lay between his chamber and hers.
Dusty and ornamented with the wispy lace of countless cobwebs, the corridor was part of a maze of hidden passageways that afforded the lord’s family several possible exits should an enemy take the keep by force.
“What’s down there?” Beth pointed along the dark passageway.
Robert grimaced, thinking of the oubliette he had discovered down one of the lower passages. Wooden spikes—their points facing the ceiling—lined its floor in such numbers that anyone tossed inside from the trapdoor above would have no hopes of avoiding them. Skeletons of those who had been impaled upon them in the past now littered the floor like chalk. “You do not wish to know.”
“Enough said.”
Robert stared down at the top of Beth’s head with disbelief. “You will issue no protests nor insist that I show you?”
She smiled up at him over her shoulder. “No. I trust you.” Pushing the next tapestry aside, she entered her chamber.
The tapestry almost hit Robert in the face, so stunned was he. Catching it at the last moment, he stepped through, closed the door and let the heavy material settle back into place.
His heart began to thud heavily in his chest as he watched Beth hurry over to the trunk that contained Alyssa’s clothing and various belongings. Her simple declaration of trust awoke feelings within him that had long lain dormant. He did not think he had experienced such an intense rush of affection since before he had lost Eleanor and Gabriel.
Emptiness had plagued him since their deaths. For years, he had done what was expected of him, performed his duties, and feigned good cheer around his brother, all with a heavy heart.
Until Beth had stumbled in front of his horse and aimed her peculiar weapon at him.
Her rare smiles and laughter had warmed him, forcing out the cold. Her boldness and lack of concern regarding propriety amused and entertained him. Her touch and her kisses enflamed him. Bringing her happiness made him happy. Her worry and anxiety became his own.
He was falling in love with her.
What a hell of a time to realize it.
Beth dropped to her knees and began pawing through Alyssa’s clothing.
Eight hundred years. Beth thought she was from a time eight hundred years in the future.
’Twas mad. ’Twas unthinkable.
But she was Bethany. His Bethany. His Beth.
And she had known the Earth traveled around the sun.
Aside from himself, Dillon, Alyssa and the other gifted ones, he did not think anyone else in all of England knew that. Nor would they believe him if he told them.
He had been reluctant to believe it himself at first. Had anyone other than Alyssa suggested the sun did not travel around the Earth like the moon, he would have dismissed it outright. As would Dillon have. But Alyssa possessed extraordinary wisdom and abilities. How could one argue with her, having witnessed both firsthand?
Robert had not thought he would ever have reason or opportunity to discuss such with someone outside the family. Then Beth had blurted out the information as confidently as if she were stating that grass was green and the sky blue.
As if such were common knowledge.
Beth rose, lifting her strange pack out of the trunk. “I hid it here so the servants wouldn’t see any stuff from my time and freak out.” Her gaze made a quick foray about the room, then settled on the bed. “Over here.”
Robert followed her to the bed, still shaken by both her revelation and his realization that he was falling in love with her.
Clambering up onto the mattress, she knelt, then sat on her feet and patted the covers in front of her. “Come on. Sit with me.”
He settled himself cross-legged, facing her, as she upended her sack full of wonders between them and began to sort through it all. “Beth, there is something that puzzles me,” he broached.
She glanced up. “Just one thing?”
He smiled. “One thing to begin with,” he clarified.
Grinning, she went back to rummaging through the pile. “What’s on your mind?”
“’Tis something you said earlier. You told me that traveling through time is no more possible in the twenty-first century than it is here in the thirteenth. Yet you seem to be trying very hard to convince me that you have indeed accomplished this feat.”
She paused. Her forehead crinkled as her eyes met his. “That’s right. I did say that. It doesn’t really make sense, does it?” Releasing a frustrated sigh, she shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Robert. I’m as puzzled as you are. I honestly do
n’t think a working method of time travel has been invented in my time. Scientists don’t either. And, if mankind had accomplished time travel and the scholars just didn’t know about it, everything would be totally screwed up.”
Screwed up was one of the first of her odd terms that he had learned to translate. “How so?”
She pondered it for a moment. “Well, I’m guessing women wouldn’t be as powerful as they are now, both in politics and society.”
Robert stared. How powerful were they?
“In fact, the whole Women’s Liberation Movement would probably have been quashed before it even began. With all of the bitching and moaning that’s been going on in my time over women gaining power, running for president and getting elected in some countries… Yeah. That would’ve been nipped in the bud really fast. The Civil Rights Movement probably would have been stopped, too. And since greed seems to motivate everything, the richest men on the planet—the ones wealthy enough to fund the research and development needed to create time travel—would gain an even larger percentage of the planet’s wealth than they have now. I mean, they’d have years of Wall Street numbers they could capitalize on and use to get richer. Not to mention lotto numbers. And I’m sure they’d manipulate things so they could have more power. I hate to even think what would happen war-wise. Preemptive strikes to head off World War I and World War II? Preemptive invasions that would just make things worse? Biological weapons and atom bombs implemented sooner than they were?” She shook her head. “Yeah. Time travel has definitely not been invented in my time.” Her frown deepened. “And yet, here I am. I seem to have done the impossible, and I have absolutely no idea how I did it. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Robert frowned. Could one travel through time without knowing it? Would not something momentous, if not frightening, take place during such an unnatural feat?
“I know it makes no sense,” she said, “but don’t give up on me yet. I may not be able to tell you how I came back in time, but I can prove to you that I did. I really can.”
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