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  Faith ran to him. “Are you all right?” Her hands were running over his chest, down his legs. “Did she hurt you?”

  “I am fine,” he said, looking a bit dazed. “I fell asleep. The sun and…” He waved his hand about the beautiful room, then looked at his uncle. “What is wrong with her? She looks mad.”

  Faith stood up and looked at the girl William was holding, his face white from the exertion. She took the knife out of the girl’s hand.

  “I think someone has fed her a mushroom that’s made her temporarily crazy,” she said as she pulled the girl out of William’s arms.

  “But why?” Tristan asked.

  “My guess is sex,” Faith said. “Someone found out about a certain mushroom’s ability to get rid of a girl’s inhibitions.”

  William and Tristan were looking at her in puzzlement. “You know,” Faith said, “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker?”

  That made the men nod in understanding. Faith led the girl to the door and called to Thomas to come and get her.

  “Take her into the house and keep her in a room until her reason returns,” she told him. “Don’t hurt her and don’t let her hurt herself.”

  In the next minute Amy came up on Tristan’s big black horse, jumped to the ground, and pushed past Faith to get to Tristan. As soon as she saw him as he had been in her dream, wearing the same clothes, on the same bed, with the windows behind him, she burst into loud tears.

  “I knew it all. It was all in my head,” she said, crying copiously and holding on to Tristan’s hands as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t put it together. In the dream I saw you and I saw the men around you. I even saw Beth. This place is so different from my dream that I thought you’d be safe. And you were so well guarded. You—”

  “Amy,” Tristan said as he pulled her up from the floor.

  William put his arm around Faith’s shoulders and led her outside. “How did you know?”

  “The mushrooms,” Faith said. “I saw them by the tower, but in my vanity I thought no one but I knew what they could do. Amy begged us to help her with Tristan, but I paid no attention to her. But if I hadn’t come back with her, and if I hadn’t taken you from that room, Tristan would have died.”

  “Sssssh,” William said and pulled her into his arms so she could cry on his shoulder. “It has worked out as it should. It is his destiny to live.”

  “Yes,” Faith said against his shoulder. “Maybe Tristan’s destiny is back on its rails again.” She smiled when William looked at her in question. “It doesn’t matter. Tristan is safe now.” Behind them, they could hear Amy and Tristan talking quietly inside the orangery.

  “What say you that we spend tonight in the house?” William said.

  “Yes,” Faith said. “I think we should. Let them have their time alone. But I’m going to send them a huge supper. Amy needs to eat.”

  William laughed. “I think you would like to feed the world. Tell me, in your time, do they still have poverty?”

  “I have no idea what you mean by ‘my time,’” she said with all the innocence she could muster. “I grew up in…”

  “Quick!” William said. “Give me the name of an English county.”

  “California,” Faith said. She looked around them and they were in the parkland that had been designed by Capability Brown. In just a very short time, she’d never again see this place, this time, or these people.

  She looked at William. He was still many pounds under what he should weigh and there were still circles under his eyes, but he was freshly shaven and his shirt was so white it sparkled.

  “Ah,” he said, “I have seen that look before, but thought never to see it again.”

  “Do stop talking,” she said.

  He put his arms around her and kissed her, then held her against him. “I might not have the strength to…”

  “That’s okay, Faith said. “I’m good on top.”

  He laughed and they walked to the house hand in hand.

  Twenty-three

  Just as they had dreaded, one moment they were in the eighteenth century and the next they were in Madame Zoya’s sunroom. Instantly, Zoë started crying.

  “I was afraid of that,” the woman said. “It often happens when people want to go far back in time.”

  “I’ll never see him again,” Zoë said. “He’s dead. Dead hundreds of years ago.”

  Madame Zoya looked at Faith and Amy. “Was it a success for you two?”

  Faith’s hands went to her hair and her face lit up. “Oh yes!” she said. “A great, overwhelming success. Nothing in my life has happened to equal what I learned and saw in these last weeks.”

  “You didn’t have to leave anyone behind,” Zoë said. She pulled two tissues out of the box on Madame Zoya’s desk and blew her nose.

  “Have you two decided when you want to go back to?”

  “I have a question,” Faith said. “When we went back in time we arrived there wearing clothes of that time. I want to know if we can go back in our own time and keep these clothes on.”

  “What does that matter?” Zoë asked, tears on her cheeks.

  “Pockets,” Amy said dully. “She wants to return with her pockets full.” She wasn’t crying, but the thought of never again seeing Tristan and Beth and the whole estate was weighing her down.

  “You want to take money back with you?” Madame Zoya asked, her tone letting them know what she thought about that. “I don’t think that—”

  “I want to take seeds,” Faith said as she ran her fingers through her hair and pulled out long, thin tubes of cloth. Her precious seeds were inside. “I want to take some very special seeds back with me.”

  “Ah,” Madame Zoya said. “Seeds. And how special are these seeds?”

  “They are from a plant that is extinct today.”

  “It’s a plant that’s in the Bible,” Amy said, pulling tubes from her hair. Faith had intertwined them in her and Zoë’s hair on their twenty-first day in the eighteenth century.

  “Interesting,” Madame Zoya said. “Would you two like to go back now or would you like twenty-four hours to recover?” She glanced at Zoë who was still crying.

  “I’d like some time to think,” Faith said as she put her hand over Zoë’s.

  “All right,” Madame Zoya said. “I will see you two tomorrow at two o’clock.”

  They left Madame Zoya’s house, went outside and walked to the main street. For several long minutes they stood there looking about them at the paved road, at the cars whizzing by, at the women wearing trousers and makeup, and the buildings with their big glass windows.

  “It’s another world,” Faith said. “I—” She didn’t know how to tell the others that she wanted to be alone. She needed some time to think about where she’d been and what she’d done. And she wanted to think about where she was going tomorrow. Did she really want to do her life over? She had some decisions to make, and she wanted to make them without hearing the opinions of others.

  “I’ll see you two back at the house at about seven,” Amy said, then she turned down the street, away from them.

  “She wants to see what the books say her lover boy did after she left,” Zoë said, as she blew her nose.

  “And wouldn’t you like to know what Russell did?” Faith asked. “Maybe you can’t have him in the flesh, but you can read about him.”

  Zoë looked at her suspiciously. “What I want to know is where you disappeared to for those last two days.”

  “Zoë, darling, I’ve heard that every generation thinks it created sex, but it’s not true. Now dry your eyes, dear, and go find out about your boyfriend.”

  With that, Faith turned and went down the street in the opposite direction of Amy.

  Faith didn’t get back to Jeanne’s summerhouse until nearly nine. She’d spent a lot of time walking and thinking about what her life had been and what she’d been through in the last three weeks. She kept thinking about what Amy had told them that Primrose had said abou