Alyssa smiled when they reached her.
Dillon moved to stand at her side and placed a possessive hand at her back. His countenance softened slightly as he looked down at her and made the introductions.
Beth automatically held out her hand. “Robert told me about the baby. Congratulations.”
As Alyssa reached out to touch her, Beth belatedly remembered Robert’s warning and jerked her hand back at the last minute. If Alyssa touched her, she would be inundated with images from the future. That probably wouldn’t be a good idea until Beth and Robert explained everything.
Hurt flickered in Alyssa’s dark brown eyes before a veil descended over her features.
Oh, crap. “I’m sorry.” Eyes wide, Beth looked at Robert, who winced, then at Dillon, whose expression darkened as a murderous gleam entered his blue eyes. “I’m so sorry. Really. That was incredibly rude of me,” she blurted, talking fast to head off whatever violence Dillon contemplated and to reassure Alyssa. “Please do not think I meant any insult by it. I totally did not. I just remembered at the last minute… I mean, I forgot that…” Get it together, she ordered herself. “Okay, Robert told me you can read thoughts and… I didn’t think… I mean, I thought it wouldn’t be wise for you to…” Sheesh. She was really bungling this.
She looked up at Robert. “You want to help me out here?”
“Verily, she meant no insult, Alyssa,” he insisted. “’Tis only that I told her of your gifts and there are things in her past that she feared would shock you.”
Beth stared up at him in dismay. That sounded even worse than her ramblings had! She slapped him on the arm. “Robert! Don’t say it like that! You make it sound like I used to be a whore or something!”
“Were you?” Dillon asked insolently.
Beth glared at him. “You know, you are not too old to spank.”
Robert choked on a laugh.
Alyssa held up one hand to silence whatever retort Dillon planned to voice. “You did not avoid my touch because you fear I am evil?”
Beth frowned. “What? No. Nay. Why would I think you are evil?”
Now Alyssa’s brow puckered. “Because of my gifts.”
Beth shook her head. “Nay, I do not think you’re evil. I just come from a place that is very different from this one, and worried that if you saw it in my thoughts…” Well, she wasn’t sure what would happen. Robert and Michael and the others had known there was something off about her long before she had told them the truth. Alyssa would just have seen it all cold turkey, no warning.
Beth sighed and glanced up at the man she had come to love so much. “You know what? This isn’t going very well. My one shot at making a good first impression on your family has pretty much been blown all to hell, so why don’t we just spill the truth and get it over with?”
He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and stroked the nape of her neck. “Forgive me, Beth. Had I thought this through, I could have made this meeting far less awkward.” He turned to Dillon and Alyssa. “There is much we have to tell you. And more we must discuss. ’Twould be best if we do so in the privacy of the solar.”
Beth offered Alyssa a tentative smile. “Maybe we could start over? I promise—once we tell you everything—you can touch me all you want.”
All eyebrows flew up.
Beth groaned. “Wait. That didn’t come out right. That sounded sexual, didn’t it?”
Stunned silence greeted her.
Shoulders drooping, she looked up at Robert. “I must be more tired than I thought. I keep putting my foot in my mouth.”
Chuckling, he drew her up against his side and kissed her hair. “The day has been a long one, love.”
“For all of us,” Alyssa added, kindly wiping the shock from her expression. “May I congratulate you, Lady Bethany, on your victory over Robert’s men? My husband told me of your contest.”
“Thank you. And please, call me Beth.”
“Then you must call me Alyssa.” She smiled. “I wish I could have been here to see Sir Faudron’s and Sir Stephen’s expressions.”
They turned as one to look across the hall at Stephen just as Ian’s sword hit Stephen squarely in the groin. Dropping his own sword, the irascible warrior slammed his knees together, cupped himself with both hands, and—whimpering—toppled over onto the floor.
Robert and Dillon both winced.
Beth pursed her lips. “Too bad he wasn’t still wearing his armor.”
Michael and the other men in the great hall found it wildly amusing, their laughter swelling and echoing off the walls.
Alyssa narrowed her eyes at Dillon. “Do not dare laugh.”
“I would not,” he said with a grimace. “Ian has done the same to me on numerous occasions.”
Robert grunted. “I will not ask if Alyssa healed you with her hands.”
Alyssa’s cheeks flushed while Dillon donned a naughty grin.