“No. I think that God gave you talents in the fields of science and cartography and art and writing, and he doesn’t want you to bury them simply because you’re a woman. If he wanted a man to have those talents, he would have given them to someone like Heath or Richard, but he gave them to you. So the question is, how can you be faithful to God with the skills you have?”
He gestured toward the journal hidden inside her parka. “It’s not settling for a profession that doesn’t suit you or marrying a horrendous man because he has access to scientific research. And it’s probably not hiding your name from the world when you want to publish your own work.”
She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, something he was starting to recognize she did whenever she felt uncomfortable.
“Promise me you’ll look at the publishing contracts as soon as you get back to Washington, DC, and if there’s a problem with any of them—if there’s something you don’t understand or you think that Richard is doing wrong—then write me. My sister invested the talents God gave her and used them to become a lawyer even though it’s a profession dominated by men. And she specifically goes out of her way to help women who’ve been mistreated.”
Bryony stared at him for a moment, and he could see the battle waging within her—the desire to believe him, and the fear that doing so might upend her life. “What if the contracts aren’t set up as they should be? What if I signed something that gave Richard full control over the books and the money? What do I do then?”
He could see that scenario playing out all too clearly. Could see Richard giving her the last page of each publishing contract to sign without showing her the page that said she was allowing him to get full royalties for her work, or possibly even giving him full rights altogether.
He wanted to promise that her fear wasn’t true, that even if she hadn’t understood everything she’d signed, Richard wouldn’t have taken advantage of her that way. But he couldn’t. “Let’s start with figuring out what the contracts say. Then we’ll go from there.”
She swallowed, the muscles of her throat working as she hugged the journal to her chest beneath her parka. “I don’t know if things will work out as easily as you say once we get back to Sitka, but thank you for helping.”
He reached down and tucked a wet strand of hair into the hood of her coat. “I’m happy to help. Truly. If you ever need anything from me, either here in the woods or once you return home, you only need to ask, do you understand?”
She nodded as though she did, but as she turned and headed back to the camp, he couldn’t help but wonder if she even knew what true help felt like, or if the men around her had taken advantage of her for so long, she couldn’t recognize when someone truly cared for her well-being without wanting anything in return.
16
Bryony woke to the quiet dimness of dawn, her body curled into her bedroll. Mikhail had insisted she sleep tucked against the wall of the rocky overhang so she’d be close to the fire and stay dry, and she had.
Something hard pressed against her side, reminding her that she’d slept with her journal. She hadn’t trusted Richard not to take it in the night, and once he had it, she’d never get it back.
The notion that she had to guard her belongings from the man who claimed to be her fiancé caused a sour sensation to form in her stomach.
God gave you talents and skill in the fields of science and cartography, and he doesn’t want you to bury them simply because you’re a woman.Mikhail’s words from last night echoed in her head, and the sour sensation disappeared.
He made it sound as though she could pursue whatever she wanted, even being a scientist.
As though God himself wanted her to pursue being a scientist.
Could such a thing be possible? Did God want her to spend her life assisting men like her father?
Would she be able to get a job in a lab if her father was against the idea? He had deep connections in the scientific world, and if he allowed her to be a research assistant in his own lab, her work just might be accepted. But he’d told her countless times that she had no place in his lab as a woman, so what were the chances she’d be able to get another scientist to hire her?
Even if she moved to Boston or New York City, two other cities where important research was being done, she didn’t think she’d get hired as a lab assistant—or be able to earn a science degree from a university—without a letter of recommendation from her father.
Or get a science degree from a university.
So where did that leave her? Going to school to become a scientist instead of a teacher meant a longer period of study—something she didn’t have money to pay for. And even if she came up with the money, she might not be able to get a job after she earned a degree.
Mikhail Amos might make it sound as though she could make her own choices, but she couldn’t. Not as a woman in the world of science.
Was this how each of his sisters felt when they’d decided to enter male professions in law and medicine? Had they decided they didn’t care what the men in their professions had to say about it, that they were going to school anyway?
Where had they gotten the money? Who had paid for them to live while attending law school and medical school?
What male doctor and lawyer had been willing to hire them after they graduated?
The quiet sound of rustling fabric filtered through the camp, and Bryony looked over to find Mikhail climbing from his bedroll. He stood to his full height, which wasn’t overly tall, but he had a way of moving that made him look sleek and strong. His hair fell in honey-brown waves to his shoulders, and the faint growth of stubble along his jaw made him look rugged, almost as though he’d been carved from the mountains themselves.
She watched as he stirred the fire from last night, kicking away the wet pieces of wood he’d laid atop it to slowly burn and preserve the flame. The wood underneath the first layer was dry, and he poked it and blew until flames licked at the fresh wood; then he laid some moss atop it to get the blaze burning hotter.
She should probably get up and offer to make coffee or warm some of the biscuits and rabbit from last night. But she didn’t want to move just yet. If anything, she wanted to reach for her pencil and sketch him quietly moving about, with the misty mountains rising behind him.
So she watched as he started the coffee, then set a pan containing leftovers from the night before beside the fire to warm. She tried to commit every last detail to memory, hoping she’d be able to sketch him before bed that night.
