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“Since I came here,” she said quickly, but she knew that wasn’t true. She had memories of living and working in his house for much longer than just the two weeks since she’d sat in Madame Zoya’s sunroom. That seemed like a hundred years ago.
“Now you can relax. I am here with you and we can see if anyone approaches. I am safe.”
Amy couldn’t help looking at the trees around her. For about six feet up their trunks were thick shrubs, but she could see spaces between them. Someone with determination could make a way through to him.
“Amy, please,” he said. “I am safe. I think your dream is just that, a dream and nothing more. It is something you think could happen, certainly not what will happen.”
She couldn’t tell him that she’d read of his death in a book in the twenty-first century. All it said was that Tristan had been stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in 1797. There were no details. When Amy wished to return to the past she’d said she wanted to go back “three weeks before Tristan was killed.” She’d thought that would give her time to find out who wanted him dead. But so far, she’d found no one who even disliked him.
She drank more of the wine. That and the warm day, the bees buzzing about them, the beautiful lake before them, and most of all, Tristan near her, were making her relax.
“Come to me,” he said, and held out his arms to her.
Amy did the best she could to stiffen her back. She had made it this far in turning down his advances; she couldn’t let fear and exhaustion weaken her.
“I will not make advances toward you,” he said. “But put your head on my lap and close your eyes. In your dream, you did not see yourself with me, did you? No? Then I am safe when I am with you. Perhaps you should stay with me every second.”
She couldn’t help smiling, and when he kept his arms extended, she went to him. She put her head on his lap and closed her eyes. Within minutes she was asleep.
When she awoke, she was lying on the blanket with another one over her. It was near sunset and Tristan was nowhere to be seen. Immediately she sat up, fear in her throat.
“Ssssh,” he said as he came into view. “I am here.”
She rubbed her eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Hours. You needed it. Amy, if you’d—”
She gave him a hard look that made him laugh.
“I was about to say that if you stayed in your bed at night you would not need so much sleep in the daytime.”
“When I know you are safe, then I will sleep.”
“And when will that be, Amy?” He sat down by her.
“I don’t know,” she said, but even to her ears, she sounded as though she were lying. When he was safe she’d be taken away from here, away from him.
“I do not understand any of this,” he said.
It was warm outside and his coat lay on the edge of the blanket. He had on tight black trousers and a big white shirt. Amy was afraid to look at him. Between the setting and the beauty of the man, she was having trouble concentrating on her being in this time for a reason. The smell of flowers, the setting sun on a blue lake, and warm breezes, did not help her to remember another time and place, another man.
“Your friends are enjoying themselves,” Tristan said in his deep, beautiful voice. “They have lives here. Your friend Faith has set up an apothecary shop in the old orangery. She tends to a dozen people a day and they have nothing but good to say about her. And Beth has started to spend part of each day with her.”
He looked at the lake. “And your Zoë…”
“Don’t tell me,” Amy said. “I hear the whispers in the kitchen. Two of the youngest women want to pull Zoë’s hair out. They wanted Russell for themselves.”
“Your friend and my painter work together,” Tristan said in a faraway voice. “How I envy them. He was to work on Beth’s portrait, but he has set it aside. I do not have the heart to tell him to get back to work.” He leaned back on his arm, just a few feet from where Amy was sitting upright.
“Do you know what I did?”
“What?” she asked, turning toward him, then was intrigued by his half smile.
“I sneaked into his room to see what he has been doing.”
“And what did you find out?”
Tristan drank some wine, then lay back on the blanket, his arms behind his head. “He has been drawing the workmen.”
