Alyssa abruptly jerked her hand back and broke contact.
Opening her eyes, Beth saw that this time the woman looked pale and shaken.
“You were flying through the air,” she whispered.
Robert and Dillon regarded Beth with wide eyes.
“I wasn’t flying,” she corrected. “The plane was. Airplanes are like automobiles, except they can fly through the air and travel at much greater speeds. People frequently use them to cover long distances in the briefest amount of time possible. I’d have to look it up to be sure, but you could probably fly from London to Paris in just a couple of hours.”
All three simply stared at her.
Alyssa turned to her husband. “She truly is from the future. ’Tis miraculous, all that she has shown me.”
His face unreadable, Dillon brushed the hair back from Alyssa’s pale face, then resumed his scrutiny of Beth.
Beginning to feel uncomfortable, Beth turned to Robert, who studied her with astonishment.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she griped. “Don’t you start looking at me funny. You already knew all of this.”
Robert forced a smile and draped his arm across her shoulders. Encouraging her to lean into him, he kissed her temple, then turned to Alyssa. “Can you tell us if Sir Geoffrey was the man who came to her and carried her through time?”
Beth looked to Alyssa for her response.
“I have never known Geoffrey to accomplish such a feat. He would have told me if he could do so.”
Dillon stroked her arm. “When you acquired your new gifts, they unsettled you so much that you would not admit you possessed them and only spoke of them when I forced you to.”
Beth would love to hear more of that story. Alyssa had acquired more gifts? How? And when?
“Mayhap Geoffrey has done the same,” Dillon suggested. “Mayhap he has acquired a new gift and is too unsettled by it to speak of it.”
The notion clearly disturbed Alyssa, who extended her hand to Beth. “Show me what happened that day.”
Her stomach turning over, Beth clasped the woman’s hand once more.
“Robert,” Alyssa said, “you will either have to quiet your thoughts or cease touching her.”
Beth glanced at Robert.
His eyebrows rose. “You can hear my thoughts?”
Alyssa nodded. “Quite clearly. ’Tis a bit like listening to two people speak at once.”
Beth eyed him curiously. “You didn’t know it could work that way?”
Frowning, he shook his head.
Alyssa nodded suddenly. “Better. When you are ready, Beth.”
Beth replayed the day she had traveled back through time. She tried to leave the gory parts out, but didn’t succeed. Whenever she thought of that day, she remembered it all. Hearing gunshots. Racing forward. Finding Josh cornered. Watching three bullets slam into him. Getting shot twice herself. Lying there, choking on her own blood.
Then the man in black kneeling beside her.
“’Tis not Geoffrey,” Alyssa murmured just before Beth heard the stranger’s words.
I have come for you, Bethany.
She opened her eyes.
Alyssa released her and stared, unseeing, at the hearth. “’Tis not Geoffrey,” she repeated softly.
“Was the man a gifted one?” Robert asked.
Slowly, she nodded and met his gaze. “I could not glimpse his face clearly, but recognized his voice. ’Twas the giant. When the gifted ones came to Westcott to help me birth Ian, he spoke to me.”
Beth frowned. “The giant?”
Alyssa nodded. “There are two gifted ones we know not. Both are men. One is so tall he dwarfs Dillon.”
Beth glanced at Dillon, who stood a few inches above six feet.
“Though he calls himself Seth,” Alyssa resumed, “my husband refers to him as the giant.”
“I can see why,” Beth murmured.
“This Seth is the most powerful of us all,” Alyssa continued. “Far more powerful than I. And his voice was that of the man who came to you.”
“Can you call him to us?” Robert asked her.
“I will try.”
“On the morrow, after you have rested,” Dillon insisted.
Smiling, she touched his cheek. “As you will.”
Dillon met Robert’s gaze. “What of the wedding? Now that Bethany has a means of returning to her own time, will it still take place?”
The churning in Beth’s stomach graduated to an intense burning, as though someone had poured something highly acidic down her throat.
“Dillon,” Alyssa remonstrated, “’tis not our concern.”
“’Tis my concern,” he protested. “I do not wish to see my brother hurt.”
“We know not that Seth can return her to her time. We…”
Their voices faded away, drowned out by Beth’s heartbeat pounding in her ears. Her time with Robert could very well end soon, if Seth arrived and said he could take her back, said he would take her back.