to do with anything that Matthias was talking about. He believed his ancestor had traveled body and soul from a future they hadn’t experienced to a past that they read about in history books. “And do you believe you were successful in gaining my acceptance of the possibility?”
“No,” he replied easily. “You are still skeptical even though you’ve had an experience of a sort yourself.”
He couldn’t know about her dream coma. She hadn’t told anyone about it. “Is that so?” She would not admit to anything. Anya didn’t want anyone to think she was insane.
“Perhaps if I told you more of our history.” He folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “Open up and lay it all out for you to decipher the truth.”
“That would be refreshing,” she answered. Though Anya wasn’t sure she was capable of recognizing the difference between honesty and deceit. She was balancing over a very fine line, and she might topple over to one side easily.
“Do you recall me discussing Catherine and her gifts?”
How could she forget? It had been presumed that those gifts had allowed for them to expect Anya’s arrival. Though she didn’t quite understand the how or why to any of it. “You have yet to explain it all to me. If you recall, you distracted me with Keats.”
Matthias chuckled. “That I did. I like Keats.” Arthur had liked the poet too. That memory stung and she closed her eyes to hold back tears. After the pain eased she opend them again and did her best to keep her attention focused on Mathias.
“He’s not my favorite,” she admitted. “But he’s tolerable.”
“I know you’re fond of Tennyson, if I recall.”
She jerked back. How could he possibly know that? Anya hadn’t admitted her affection for Tennyson to him. There was only one person she’d ever told that much to. He…couldn’t know. “Perhaps you should explain these gifts to me again.”
He met her gaze. “I’ve blundered, I can tell… I’m going too fast. No going back now; I must keep moving forward if you’re to see the truth.” Matthias turned away and stared out at the ocean. “Perhaps we should sit on the blanket for this.”
“No,” she said vehemently. “I prefer to stand.” Anya was too restless to sit still. She wanted answers and much preferred having them as fast as possible. If she sat down, it would be harder to run away if she didn’t like what he had to tell her.
“In order to travel through time, a person needs to have certain gifts or travel with someone that has a gift.” The muscles in his cheek twitched. “That is an oversimplification. Traveling isn’t always that easy, at least not for all of us. As a rule, we don’t jump through time unnecessarily. In the case of my ancestor that married the duke in Regency England…that was entirely an accident. Though there were a few instances of time travel on purpose.”
“I’m failing to understand why this is important for me to have this information.”
He turned toward her and brushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “Because you, my dear, have traveled back in time. Though it was not intentional, or through normal means.”
Matthias did know about her coma dream. Did he have visions like he professed Catherine did? Could he read her mind? Was any of that even possible? She hated that he might have invaded her privacy in some way. She refused to admit he was right about any of it though. Anya would not give him that satisfaction. “You are mistaken. I’ve never left the twentieth century.” That was a true statement either way. Even in her dreams she’d still been in the same century.
His lips twitched. “I’m aware,” he conceded. “But you did go back a couple decades in the current century.”
She cursed in her mind. Anya would not give any indication that he was correct. “How did I manage that while I laid in a coma?”
Anya asked that question for a few reasons: she wanted to know how she did it, how any of it could be possible…and how did he come by the information. It had all felt real to her while she slept. She reasoned it away as nothing but a dream once she opened her eyes in the hospital. It couldn’t have been real. None of it made sense to her.
He lifted her hand and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her ring. “This made it possible.”
She stared down