Another Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

Boston, like
all of America, was a strapping adolescent, its body growing and
changing all too quickly as it learned to accommodate those
changes.
    Perhaps that was why he loved America, he thought,
so different from his homeland of Scotland, the tiny island of
Mull, where he had spent his childhood. Mull had been narrow,
restrictive. A man there was born into his trade, and he rarely
left it.
    America, however, was a place where
a man could choose what he wanted to do, to be. The country
expanded to allow everyone freedom and comfort, if they were
prepared to work hard for it. And Ian was.
    Arabella Moore met Ian in the foyer of her gracious
home, after the butler had taken his top coat and hat.
    It had been his fortune, Ian knew,
when signing onto The
Allegiance , that the ship's master, Henry
Moore, had taken him under his wing. He'd relieved Ian of his
ship's boy duties and made him mate to the surgeon. At the side of
a man who had been reduced to ship's surgeon because of his shaky
hands, Ian had found his calling... medicine.
    When Henry discovered Ian's relationship to his
betrothed, Margaret MacDougall, he'd considered him as good as a
brother. The Moores had sheltered him then, treated him like
family, and they still did. Ian was grateful for their friendship
and patronage, even if at times he wondered if it possessed hidden
strings.
    “Ian, my dear," Arabella said,
"it’s so lovely to see you. Isobel is in the music room--she has a
piece she’s been hoping to play for you. A Mozart.” Arabella’s
smile was sweetly expectant, and Ian felt a twinge of unease. It
wasn’t the first time he’d felt such a twinge when Isobel was
mentioned. He cast it aside, however, for the moment. He enjoyed
the Moores’ company too much to worry about possible expectations.
There would be time for that later.
    He moved into the music room, a dark-paneled room
with a piano in one corner. Isobel was seated at the instrument, in
a modest white dress, her dark hair dressed up with a cluster of
curls at each temple.
    She turned to Ian with a radiant smile, stretching
her hand out to clasp his.
    “Ian! It’s so lovely to see you.”
    “As always, dear Isobel.” Ian had known Isobel for
over ten years, since he started boarding with the Moores. Her
thoughtful words had helped him in many respects to put the past
behind him and begin anew at the medical school.
    Since that time, he’d come to depend on her calming
presence, her listening ear. There was something innately
comforting about Isobel’s unobtrusiveness, her lack of demand, and
Ian knew it was selfish of him to expect her to revolve around his
own world. The fact that Isobel seemed to content to do so was no
balm, especially as of late he’d begun to wonder what she hoped to
have happen out of their simple friendship.
    Now, however, she smiled sweetly, and began to play.
Ian stood by the instrument, allowing the music to wash over
him.
    “You look so tired.”
    Ian looked down, startled, and saw Isobel smiling up
at him with gentle uncertainty, her hands resting lightly on the
keys. The music, he realized, had stopped.
    “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said with an apologetic
grimace. “It’s been a long day, and my mind wandered, lulled as it
was by your soothing music.”
    Isobel smiled wryly. “You have a
way with words, Ian Campbell. I know I’m not that
talented.”
    “But you are,” he said, somewhat in surprise, for
Isobel was really quite skilled at the pianoforte.
    Isobel stood up, shrugging lightly as she moved away
from the instrument. “There are better uses of my time, I suppose.
I’m twenty-two, you know.” She did not look at him as she added,
“most women my age are married, and have put such childish pursuits
aside.”
    Ian saw that a faint blush was stealing across her
cheeks, tinting her porcelain complexion a lovely rose.
    He swallowed, shoving his hands in the pockets of
his trousers. “Time passes so quickly,” he said after a moment,