Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(65)
“But he declined?”
“Aye. I know not why. And he refused to discuss it despite my prodding. I admit it troubled me.”
“Why? I think it’s admirable that he exercised a little self-restraint. Goodness knows other men don’t.”
Robert shook his head. “’Tis not a little self-restraint I speak of. My brother was nigh as chaste as a monk. Did I not know better, I would have thought he had sworn some vow of celibacy.”
“Is that so bad?”
“I thought so at the time. He lived such a solitary existence and was always so solemn. Surely he could have benefitted from a little tenderness and love play. But whenever I would encourage him to tumble one comely wench or another, he would find an excuse not to.”
Beth bit her lip. “Did you ever think that maybe he might have some trouble in that area?”
His lips curled up in that familiar, handsome smile. “Alyssa was already carrying their first child when they spoke their vows.”
“Oh.” She smiled back. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
Robert nodded, his pleasure with the outcome plain to see. “He is happy now. Far happier than I ever dreamed he could be. It gladdens my heart to hear him laugh so often.”
Yet, something didn’t quite click for Beth. “If he’s so happy, why does he treat his people badly?”
Robert looked surprised. “He does not.”
“I thought you said—”
“His circumstances differ, Beth,” he interrupted. “Dillon is one of the most feared warriors in all of England. On the continent, as well. Those who followed Lionheart and King Philip in the crusades were all witness to Dillon’s ferocity on the battlefield.”
“You’re talking about Richard Lionheart, aren’t you? As in King Richard?”
“Aye.” He perked up a bit. “You recall him now? You knew him not when last I spoke of him.”
“What can I say? History isn’t my strongest subject. All those dates and names. I’m doing good to remember American history.” She shrugged. “As far as England’s history goes, unless it was in a movie, in a novel, on the news, in a History Channel program, or mentioned by my mom and her medieval literature cronies, chances are good that I don’t know it.”
His face went slack with patent disbelief. “We speak of King Richard! He perished only four years ago!”
“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.”