“Yes, Father.” Rosalind kept her eyes downcast as she spoke. “Can we have another ten minutes, or do you need this room?”
Mr. Caldwell flashed them a smile that Bryony decided she didn’t trust. “Take twenty minutes, darling. It’s nice to see you visiting with a friend.”
Then he turned and closed the door. Or rather, he almost closed the door, but it stayed open a crack rather than latching shut.
Bryony didn’t hear footsteps retreat down the hall either, and she could have sworn a shadow lingered in the opening as they moved their conversation on to the latest fashions in Washington, DC, and the series of operas she’d attended last spring. In fact, she could have sworn the shadow lingered until they finished their tea and rose to leave the room.
29
“So the lawsuit can’t progress until a judge arrives in Sitka?” Mikhail glanced around the table. His entire family was there—all seven of his siblings, along with the spouses of the three who were married. Maggie’s younger half brother and half sister, whom she and Sacha were raising as their own, were crowded around the table as well.
If another one of them got married, they’d have to start having meals in the dining room. But Mikhail wasn’t complaining about being stuffed in Alexi’s kitchen. This was the table he’d sat at while growing up. It was warm and cozy, with the hulking cookstove filling up one wall and the hutch his great-grandfather had built for his great-grandmother sitting against the other.
“Yes, the lawsuit is stalled until the judge arrives, hopefully in early December.” Sacha scrubbed a hand over his beard, the plate in front of him wiped nearly clean of the venison roast, beets, and potatoes that had filled it a few minutes earlier. “And even though we’ve filed a lawsuit, that snake running the RCS office still thinks nothing of searching theAurora.” He flung a hand toward the window, not that any of them could see the ship through it.
“I’ll say one thing. They sure don’t seem afraid of a legal battle,” Alexei muttered around a mouthful of beets.
“They should be.” Evelina set her fork down with a clatter. “If we win a lawsuit like this, Secretary Gray will have to take notice, especially if the Department of the Interior needs to pay us for lost revenue like I requested.”
Mikhail tapped his fingers on the table. He didn’t like this, not one bit. If he’d been home rather than traipsing around the wilderness, maybe he could have found a way to prevent the ships from getting searched. “What else happened while I was gone? Anything more I should know about?”
“You missed our announcements.” Maggie beamed at him, her smile stretching from one side of her face to the other. “We’re pregnant!”
“You and Sacha?” Mikhail found himself smiling right back at her. “Congratulations.”
“Not Sacha.” Ainsley, Maggie’s eight-year-old sister, rolled her eyes. “He’s a man. He can’t have a baby.”
“I know, but?—”
“Evelina and Kate are pregnant too.” Ilya straightened in his chair, his eyes bright. “And I’m going to be an uncle and take my nieces and nephews prospecting for gold.”
“You’re all three pregnant together?” Mikhail sat back in his chair, sweeping his eyes around the table.
“We are.” Evelina set down her water glass, a smile filling her face. “Our babies will grow up together. And Kate is the farthest along. She’s due in May. Maggie and I aren’t due until June and July.”
Mikhail’s gaze fell to Kate. “Is that true? Are you pregnant?”
She huffed. “You don’t need to sound so surprised. I’m married, and children are a natural outcome of intercourse, so?—”
“I don’t think he needs details, love.” Nathan reached out and patted her hand.
Mikhail leaned over until his shoulder bumped Kate’s beside him. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you.”
She looked up at him. “Are you really?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
She slid a hand over her stomach. “I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to practice medicine with a little one to look after.”
He gave his head a small shake. “If anyone will find a way to do it, it’s you.”
“So you don’t think I need to stop being a doctor because I’m pregnant?”
Mikhail glared at Nathan. “Did you tell her that?”
Nathan shook his head, his hand still covering Kate’s on the table. “Never. I told her we’d work it out, but some of the women in Juneau don’t feel that Kate should continue treating them after the baby comes.”
“Then treat the men or the Tlingit. It’s none of those women’s business.” First Bryony had to deal with her father telling her she couldn’t train to be a scientist, and now Kate was dealing with yet another round of opposition to her being a woman doctor. Why couldn’t the rest of the world view women as people who were just as capable of contributing to society as men?
