He stared down at the Bible on the bed beside him, wishing Kate were here so she could read it to him. But it was Thanksgiving, and he didn’t expect anyone from his family to leave their fancy meal and traipse up Castle Hill to the jail.
Any time he tried to pick up the Bible and read about Jeremiah for himself, the words just moved around on him, and he ended up thinking of Bryony.
Had she really snuck out of the Caldwells’ mansion and tromped all the way up Castle Hill last night—just so she could visit him?
He knew the charges against him weren’t her doing, but he hadn’t expected her to make enemies of her family over him either. That seemed wrong somehow. The Wetherbys might not treat Bryony well, but they were still the only family she had.
And yet, she’d said she didn’t want to go back there, that she’d rather stay in a boarding house than the Caldwells’ fine mansion. And she’d told him that right before she proclaimed she loved him.
Just the thought of those words coming from her mouth made him itchy. They had to be some kind of mistake. She couldn’t have truly fallen in love with him. Maybe it was just an infatuation, some kind of flirtation she imagined herself a part of while they were stuck together in the wilderness, and nothing more.
The door to the jailhouse opened with a creak, and once again he could tell who entered just by the clipped sound of Alexei’s footsteps.
Mikhail pushed himself off the thin mattress in the corner and approached the cell bars. He didn’t want to think about how he’d look to his brother. The dankness of the cellar clung to him. It didn’t help that prisoners were provided buckets to take care of their bodily needs. The buckets were emptied once a day, and the guards hadn’t been by to collect them yet today.
Alexei stopped in front of his cell, looking far too polished and fancy in a three-piece suit and shiny shoes.
“What are you doing here?” Mikhail frowned at him. “It’s Thanksgiving. I know Evelina is at home preparing a feast, and you’re not dressed to visit this place.”
“Sneaking you a bit of pie.” Alexei took his hand from beneath his coat and slid a small wooden box through the bars of his cell.
He pulled off the box top and looked down to see a small plate holding two squished pieces of pumpkin pie. His favorite.
Alexei slid him a fork next. “That sweet woman you sent home with us last night? She’s in love with you.”
And just like that, any hope of enjoying his pie drained away. “She isn’t. It’s a mistake. She might think she loves me, but I’m sure once she?—”
“There’s no thinking about it. She is fully in love with you, so don’t try telling me it’s some type of infatuation. She deserves more from you than that.”
Mikhail blew out a breath, his fork still hovering over the untouched pie. “What a mess.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, her family’s furious about her feelings for you too, so it looks like you have company. They came to the house this morning and demanded she leave with them.”
He snapped his gaze back to his brother. “Did you force her to go?”
Alexei leaned a shoulder against the bars and crossed one foot over the other, his pose just a little too relaxed. “I didn’t force her to do anything. Told the lout on my porch that women get to make their own choices in my house.”
“And then? Did she decide to go back with them anyway?” It was for the best. Sometime in the night she probably realized how big of a mistake she’d made siding with him in the situation and?—
“No. She told them the last thing she wanted was to go anywhere with them. Then she said she wanted nothing to do with how they were acting toward you, and that she wasn’t going to return to Washington, DC, but was staying in Alaska for good.”
He nearly dropped his fork onto the packed dirt of the jail floor. “She what?”
Alexei smirked. “That got your attention, I see.”
“It better not be a lie.”
“It’s all true, every last bit. Even the part about her announcing to the entire room that she plans to stay in Alaska.”
Alaska. She was planning to stay. Here. Did she expect it to be with him? “I suppose it makes sense. Her family isn’t kind. When I think about how they’ve treated her...” His throat closed, and he shoved a bite of pie into his mouth. “No one should treat their daughter or sister like that.”
“Probably not. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of everything, but it’s obvious she’s not sure what to do with us.” Something about Alexei’s stance softened. Gone was the severe thirty-two-year-old man with the stiff shoulders, and in his place was the vulnerable twenty-one-year-old who’d found himself responsible for seven younger siblings after their father’s death. “I’m not sure she’s ever been in a place surrounded by so much love—or teasing.”
Mikhail pressed his eyes shut, wishing he could be with her, sitting in the kitchen by the warm stove, watching as she took in Yuri’s antics and tried to answer a bevy of questions from Kate and Ilya.
“Do you love her back?” Alexei asked.
“I shouldn’t. I certainly never intended to fall in love with her. But...” He leaned his head against the bars of his cell door, letting the cool metal seep through his hair and into his skull. “I can’t do anything about it while I’m in here, and none of us knows how long I’ll be here for. If they can pin Richard’s death on me, it could be a decade.”
