Read Online Another Country by Kate Hewitt - Free Book Online

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Ian and everything seemed so strange, so new, so... raw.
    In the next moment, she was swept up in a near
bone-crushing embrace, and she shrieked in surprise.
    “Ian! You nearly scared the life out of me!”
    Ian laughed and set her down. “I’m glad to see you,
is all. It’s been eleven years since I’ve looked on my own kin,
Eleanor.”
    Eleanor searched his face, all boyishness gone from
the lean planes of his cheeks and angular jaw. His hair was still
thick and auburn, his eyes as sparkling as the sea that lapped at
their feet. He wore the dress of a prosperous businessman, a fine
overcoat and fawn colored breeches.
    “You look well,” she said with a shaky laugh.
    “As do you.” Ian surveyed her in silent
appreciation. “You’ve grown into a woman. I scarcely recognised
you!”
    “Well enough to sweep me into an embrace,” Eleanor
retorted. “What if you’d been mistaken?”
    “But I wasn’t.” Ian grinned, and
then paused as he noticed Caroline hovering at Eleanor’s elbow.
“But who’s this?” He sketched a bow. “Ian Campbell, madam, at your
service.”
    Caroline blushed prettily and curtseyed.
    “This is Caroline Reid,” Eleanor made the
introductions. She saw Caroline glance furtively around for her
uncle’s carriage, clearly absent. “We’d be happy to take you to
your residence, Caroline,” she said, “in Ian’s carriage. That
is...” she darted a look at her brother. “If he has a carriage!
There is much I do not yet know about your life, Ian.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t have my own--yet--but I’ve hired
one for this glad errand. And of course I’d be more than happy to
escort Miss Reid to her destination.”
    Eleanor smiled inwardly at this gallant speech, for
she could see interest and appreciation shining in Ian’s hazel eyes
as he took in Caroline’s trim figure, her neat coil of dark blonde
hair, and the fetching dimples in her porcelain-pale cheeks.
Clearly he was not immune to the girl’s charms.
    Caroline looked surprisingly vulnerable for a
moment, her china-blue eyes shadowed, and then she lifted her chin
and gave a quick, brisk nod. “That would be very kind of you
indeed. I’m afraid my uncle must have had more pressing matters to
attend to.”
    More pressing than fetching his niece just arrived
from Glasgow, Eleanor wondered silently. She did not envy Eleanor
that relationship, at any rate.
    Within a few minutes Ian had negotiated their trunks
onto the carriage, and they were safely inside, away from the
jostling crowds of the city’s dockside.
    “There’s Quincy Market... you can see the State
House on the hill if you look.” Ian pointed out some of the city’s
landmarks as they travelled.
    “It’s all so... new ,” Caroline exclaimed. Ian smiled
indulgently.
    “America is a new country,” he answered with a touch
of pride. “And a growing one.”
    “I’ve heard all the men carry rifles,” Caroline
said. “Are you much afraid, to walk alone?”
    Eleanor watched, bemused, as she lay one gloved hand
on Ian’s arm.
    “No, of course not. Not in the better places,
anyway. Besides, carrying firearms is often a necessity in this
wild country.”
    Caroline widened her eyes in a way Eleanor suspected
she was much practiced in. “Do you carry a rifle?”
    Ian chuckled, a faint blush tinging his cheeks. “No,
I don’t. The carrying of firearms is not, perhaps, as necessary in
a city like Boston.”
    “You sound positively American,” Caroline said, and
made it sound like a compliment despite her snide remarks about the
‘rude colonials’ while they were on board ship. Eleanor did not
know whether to be amused or annoyed. She was a bit of both.
    “Perhaps I am,” Ian answered. “It’s home to me
now.”
    Caroline had her uncle’s address, and in a short
time they’d reached an elegant brick house on Beacon Hill.
    “Shall we see you in?” Ian asked as a matter of
form, although he’d already started to alight from