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morrow.”
    Allan nodded gruffly, his face still settled into a frown. Harriet knew how hard this was for him. He had lost too many family members already; his brother Archie had died on the mail packet nearly twenty years ago, and his mother Betty here on the island, just last summer. Rupert was far away, serving as a marshal in the western territories of the United States, and with Margaret in Boston, Allan was the only MacDougall left on PEI.
    He looked up, and Harriet was glad to see a small smile lighten his features. “Maggie, cridhe ,” he called, “I know you’re listening.”
    Sheepishly Maggie peeked her head out of the back bedroom. “Thank you, Da,” she said, and Harriet saw how her eyes sparkled like stars. Allan shook a finger at her even as he smiled.
    “It’s just a letter, mind,” he warned. “That’s all.”
    Maggie nodded quickly, but from the high flush on her cheeks Harriet knew she was imagining herself in Boston already.

    Hartford, Connecticut, 1838
    Ian Campbell was used to the bumpy rumble of the stagecoach from Boston to Hartford. He had travelled it over a dozen times in the last few years in his continuing attempt to experiment with ether and its use as an anesthetic. Usually he was filled with a blazing excitement as he made the journey, his optimism for a future of medical innovation and pain-free procedures buoying his soul. Today that anticipation was tempered by the cool distance he had lately felt between him and his wife.
    In the five years since he had wed Caroline, they’d certainly argued. They both possessed passionate tempers, and Ian privately thought they both enjoyed, to a certain measure, the blazing rows that often ended rather delightfully with Caroline throwing herself into his arm and him kissing her thoroughly.
    This time it was different. Caroline was different, and although she remained dutiful and attentive, Ian could feel the difference, the coolness and reserve she emanated like an icy shield. On several occasions he’d caught Caroline gazing at him, her eyes shadowed with what he feared was disappointment. By refusing to use the inheritance Caroline had received from her uncle to fund his experiments with ether, Ian knew he had disappointed, and even worse, hurt his wife. He saw it in her eyes, and he felt it in the silent chasm that had opened up between them—a chasm he did not know how to bridge. Not without relinquishing his position, and he wasn’t willing to do that.
    Restlessly he shifted in the uncomfortable coach seat. Across the coach an elderly matron gave him a sternly disapproving look. A tabby cat crouched in a covered basket at her feet, and it yowled as if agreeing with its mistress. Ian ducked his head in apology.
    He did not know how to make amends with Caroline. He did not know if he could. The thought of accepting James Riddell’s money for his own purposes made his stomach churn and his body burn with a righteous anger he’d thought he’d surrendered long ago. It was nearly twenty years since Riddell had cheated Ian of his family farm back on the Isle of Mull, and as an adult Ian could now see his own foolish part in the sorry tale. He’d been proud and naïve and worse, careless, but Riddell had taken advantage of the fifteen-year-old boy he’d been, so desperate to prove himself to his family, and especially to his father, that he’d signed a contract without reading all the terms. He had signed away his family’s farm and legacy for a fraction of its value—and Riddell had set him up to do so.
    How could he forgive that? How could he forget it? He couldn’t take Riddell’s money, even though he was fair enough to suppose it was reasonable for Caroline to expect him to use the funds she had inherited. Even so the suggestion alone had set a new fury pulsing through him, followed by a deep, wounding regret. And I thought I was yours . Caroline’s sorrowful voice echoed through his mind and heart. He wished she could