Far Horizons by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online

will ask me to marry him.”
    David fixed her with a gimlet stare. “And you’re prepared to wait?”
    Her heart fluttered--was it with excitement or fear? “I am.”
    “It’s as lief he’ll never return,” David warned her grimly. “If he survives at all, he’ll make his fortune and find his own bride in that new land.”
    Margaret opened her mouth in angry denial, but Harriet stayed her with one firm hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps, but I trust Allan, and I’m willing to take the risk.”
    “We’re not a gambling family,” David snapped, and Harriet could have almost laughed at his sheer orneriness.
    “This is not a wager, Father,” she said, “but a trust in God and His hand upon both me and Allan.”
    They didn’t speak of it again, and David returned to the fields with a piece of cold mutton wrapped in muslin to see him to dinner. Harriet turned back to a kitchen filled with dirty dishes, a garden outside that needed weeding, and the washing to take down. A woman from Craignuire had been coming three days a week to help her with the heavy work, but she’d stopped a month ago, apparently on her father’s orders, and Harriet felt the burden now.
    Margaret returned to the kitchen, tucking an unruly tendril of hair behind one ear. “Shall we get on with it?” she said cheerfully, and Harriet, tired and overwhelmed by the happenings of the last day, suddenly felt near tears.
    “Ah, Harriet.” Margaret pulled her into a quick, fierce hug. “Dinna fash yourself. He’ll return, you know he will.”
    “It’s not that.” Harriet let out an inelegant sniff and dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “It’s everything. I almost envy him, Margaret, and the grand adventure they’ll all be having.”
    Margaret stepped back with a shiver. “I don’t. Have you not heard how wild that land is, Harriet? Endless snow and cold, and the natives--”
    “I’m sure there are tales to tell around a fire,” Harriet said, “but they’re just tales.”
    “It’s a hard place, there’s no denying,” Margaret said, and then her face suddenly fell. “But you might be there in a year’s time! I’m sorry, Harriet--”
    “And you will be as well,” Harriet reminded her with a small smile. “Your father intends to fetch both you and Rupert back within a year or two, doesn’t he?”
    “Yes,” Margaret said, but she sounded hesitant, and Harriet wondered just what had made her friend and kinswoman so eager to stay behind.
    The rest of the day went smoothly enough, with Margaret helping Harriet and Eleanor with the housework. David returned for the evening meal, but he was too weary to talk much, and the little group around the pine table was mostly silent. It was only when Harriet was alone in the kitchen, wiping down the table, that David finally spoke at all.
    “You're a good daughter to me, Harriet,” he said gruffly, and Harriet ducked her head in mute thanks. “But I wish you'd been a son.”
    Harriet smiled and said nothing. She'd heard this many times before. No matter how well she managed her father's house, having been housekeeper since she was Eleanor's age, beating rugs, churning butter, and baking bread, it would never be enough. She could never be the boy her father had wanted. She understood that, and the importance of a son, yet she still felt a helpless sense of loss at her father’s words.
    “A son to help me manage the farm,” he continued heavily, his shoulders slumping. “I'm an old man now, and I can't do it alone.”
    “You can hire help help,” Harriet suggested, and David scowled.
    “It's time Ian gave up his lessons. He'll be a man soon. His place is with me.”
    Harriet strove to keep her tone reasonable. She knew arguing with her father when he was in this mood did no one any good. “He'll take time out for lambing,” she reminded him gently. “And he’ll be learning with Rupert now. There's plenty of men to help from the village.” David hired two such men