“Is what you just said to Richard true?” she snapped, her eyes boring holes into her brother. “Did you intentionally strand us in that valley?”
Mikhail took a few steps closer, his arms still holding the firewood, but neither of the siblings noticed him.
Instead, Heath sat back on his haunches and wiped his palms on his trousers. “You weren’t stranded. And don’t look at me like that. Richard and I needed time to work.”
“Work on what?”
“What do you think?” Heath picked up his mallet and went back to tapping the final stake into the ground. “The Department of the Interior didn’t exactly send us here to study the flora and fauna.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “What then? What did they send you here to study?”
Heath let out a little laugh and shook his head. “What do you think? What’s the one thing everyone wants from Alaska?”
“Gold?” The word escaped on a whisper so low, Mikhail found himself taking a few more steps forward to hear it. “You’re here to look for gold?”
Heath pushed himself off the ground and turned to face his sister. “Don’t act so shocked.”
“But...”
“But what? The expedition provided the perfect opportunity for us to search an uncharted area for gold. I’m not going to apologize for it.”
“Well, you should. You left us in that valley for weeks longer than you should have.”
She was right about that. Mikhail couldn’t be certain that Richard and Heath had intentionally put the rest of the party in danger by prospecting for so long. In fact, if he had to guess, he’d say it was a miscalculation on their part, and they’d prospected for a couple weeks longer than they should have.
But getting everyone out of the mountains on the brink of winter was bound to be more difficult now than it would have been in October.
Mikhail stepped forward to say so, bringing himself even with one of the last trees separating the forest from the clearing. But the siblings still didn’t notice him, and before he could say anything, Miss Wetherby started talking again.
“I’ll already be arriving home too late to go to college this year. I’ll have to see if they’ll take me after Christmas now, but what if we can’t get out of here before spring? Or worse, what if we don’t make it home at all?”
Heath rolled his eyes. “We’ll make it home just fine. And don’t tell me you’re still stuck on that ridiculous college idea. I thought we settled that last spring.”
Her chin came up a notch. “It’s not stupid.”
“It is. Because if you think that as a woman you can?—”
“What are you two arguing about?” Dr. Wetherby sauntered over, adjusting his spectacles as he looked between his children. “Don’t tell me some of the specimens got damaged today.”
“Your specimens are fine.” Miss Wetherby nodded toward the trunk. “I already checked them like you asked.”
Heath shoved a hand in his sister’s direction. “She’s talking about going to Wellesley again.”
Dr. Wetherby pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not that. Good heavens, girl. How many times do I have to tell you to put that foolish idea out of your head?”
“I just want to become a teacher,” she rasped.
A teacher? Mikhail’s arms tightened around the logs. If she was going to college, he’d assumed she would study science. He’d seen enough of the journals and notes tucked inside the trunk to know the majority of them were written in a woman’s hand.
Teaching seemed like a waste of her talents. But what did he know? Perhaps she loved children, and her father forced her to come on these expeditions.
“Lots of women are teachers.” Miss Wetherby straightened her shoulders and met her father’s gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There’s no need for you to learn how to teach when you’ll be married by this time next year. Now where’s Richard?” Dr. Wetherby surveyed the campsite. “You should be helping your fiancé, not arguing with your brother.”
Mikhail froze. Her fiancé? Were Bryony and Richard Caldwell...
Mikhail looked over to find the man in question approaching the group. Richard had been looking at Miss Wetherby. But he must have sensed Mikhail’s gaze, because his eyes came up, and the man smirked.
