“There’s someone I want you to meet while you’re in town, if I can arrange it. She was on the expedition.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, never mind that he’d already decided not to introduce Bryony to his family.
“There was a woman on the expedition?” Kate looked up at him, swiping a strand of chestnut hair away from her face.
“Yes, she’s quite talented when it comes to both botany and cartography. She sketches plants and records notes for her father, but she’s hoping to publish her journal and perhaps find a job working for a scientist when she returns to Washington, DC. She had questions about how you knew you wanted to be a doctor and how you found work after you finished your schooling. You too, Evelina. She’s curious.”
The corner of Kate’s mouth tipped up into a rare smile. “I’d love to meet her.”
After dinner, they moved to the parlor, where Evelina and Yuri decided everyone should play a game of charades. Mikhail leaned against the mantel, arms crossed, watching as Alexei—stoic, composed Alexei—flopped onto the rug and clapped his hands like a seal. The room erupted with laughter. Something told him that if Bryony were with them, she’d love this. She’d happily throw herself into the game, mimicking a whale’s breach or a navy general’s stiff salute. He could almost see her now—her eyes bright and her wavy red hair bouncing as she exaggerated some ridiculous gesture.
Was she happy at the Caldwells? They would certainly be feeding her fancy food and showing her to a finely appointed room, but did they smile around their dining room table? Did they play games afterward?
He clenched his jaw. It didn’t matter. They were already separated. He wasn’t even sure if he could arrange a meeting between her and Kate. And if he could somehow manage to get the two of them together, it would only be for an hour or so. Then he would go his way and she would go hers.
But what if they didn’t go their separate ways. What if he found a way for the two of them to...
No. He was getting ahead of himself. He was an explorer, gone for months every summer. And Bryony was... was...
Well, he wasn’t sure what she was. Part scientist, part artist, part cartographer, part writer. All he knew was that her journal was magnificent. That under normal circumstances, she’d have no trouble getting it published and making enough money to live on for several years.
If she were a man. If she had access to a publisher.
Which he’d promised to get her.
He pushed himself away from the mantel, interrupting Kate’s attempts to be a... Well, he had no idea what she was pretending to be.
“Is something wrong?” Kate stopped acting, her hands thrust into the air at two odd angles.
“No. I... ah... just need to step outside for a minute.”
He turned and escaped the crowded room, heading to the outhouse. He stopped by it briefly, more because he didn’t want to lie to his family than because he had a need to use it.
After he emerged, he turned and headed toward the office above the warehouse. It was a short walk, but years ago their mother had planted spruce trees between the two buildings.To give the house a bit of privacy and separate work from home, she’d always said.
So he threaded his way along the path that ran through the trees, then opened the door to the office and headed up the stairs.
He wasn’t sure where his letters from that publishing house in New York City had been stashed. If anything, he vaguely remembered telling Alexei to get rid of them.
But Alexei wouldn’t have destroyed them. His oldest brother saved everything and had surely filed them somewhere. The question was, where?
He stalked to the filing cabinet against the far wall and yanked open the top drawer. The words on the papers blurred in front of him, but he forced himself to focus, forced himself to make his way through the communications in the top drawer until he was certain it didn’t hold the letters he needed.
Because this was what Bryony needed most from him.
She didn’t need another man in her life who told her what to do. She needed to make her own decisions.
But what if she’d already told him what she wanted most?
She’d said last night that she didn’t want to leave Alaska. But if he was going to ask her to stay, then he’d need to marry her. It was unfair of him to offer anything less.
And it was just as unfair to offer marriage when he intended to leave next summer on another expedition, and then again the summer after that.
Just how would a marriage proposal even go? What would he tell her? That if she stayed in Sitka and married him, he would kiss her when he was home? If he didn’t die on one of his expeditions?
No. If he married her under those circumstances, he’d be little better than her father and brother.
Two summers ago, Sacha gave up his job captaining theAurorafor Maggie and took over their family’s shipyard.
But Mikhail couldn’t do that. Alaska needed guides for all the expeditions the government wanted, and there were fewer guides than ship captains. Even fewer knew the rigors of the wilderness. If he were to take a job with the family and stay in Sitka, where would the government find another guide with his experience and skill? Would they settle for a guide like Roger Liscomb, whose poor understanding of Alaska led to all but two people on his expedition dying?
