Instant Frontier Family. Regina Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ it had just cost him room and board here. Maddie would be within her rights to toss him out on his ear for such a challenge. If she did, he’d have no recourse but to throw himself on the mercy of the church, if they even had a church yet in Seattle. He waited for her stinging rejoinder.

      She took a step back from him and snapped a nod. “Done. And thank you for telling me about the crying. I’ll be sure to watch for that. Bring up their things now, then we’ll find someplace for you to sleep.” She swept past him, lifting her skirts to climb the narrow staircase.

      Bemused, Michael could only follow.

      Upstairs, the space over the shop had been divided into four rooms—three smaller ones across the back and one larger one facing the street. The larger room held a fat-bellied stove and a tall sideboard along one wall, with a wooden table and chairs in the center. The red-and-white chintz curtains on the window and the red checkered cloth on the table brightened the space.

      “Look, Michael,” Aiden cried, gesturing toward the table. “Maddie got chairs enough for us all.”

      Maddie’s cheeks turned a pleasing shade of pink. “Sure-n but I was expecting a lady to be coming with you. I thought she’d need somewhere to sit.”

      And she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted him to take the lady’s place at the table. Michael set the children’s bag down on the floor. “And what might those rooms be, do you think?” he asked Aiden, nodding toward the three rooms across the back.

      With two of the doors open, Michael could see that each of the smaller rooms held a bed on a wooden frame and pegs along the walls for hanging clothes. Ciara and Aiden threaded their way from one room to the next, exclaiming over the colorful quilts on the beds, the framed etching of a lady in a fancy dress that graced one wall.

      Maddie stood watching, one arm hugging her waist. A moment ago, she’d been all fire; now she was as soft as smoke. She bit her lower lip as if waiting for Ciara and Aiden to find fault. He couldn’t ignore the urge to assure her.

      “You’ve done a fine job of making this a home,” he murmured to her.

      She drew in another breath as if she’d needed that affirmation, then reached up and removed the little hat to set it on the table. “So I was hoping,” she told him. “I suppose it will depend on what they think.”

      Aiden darted out of the last room. “Who else boards here?” he asked.

      “No one,” Maddie said with a smile. “One of the rooms is for you, and the other is for Ciara. The last is mine.”

      Aiden stared at her a moment, then let out a whoop and dived into the nearest room. “This one’s mine!”

      “That one has a pink-and-white quilt,” Ciara told him, following at a more stately pace. “It’s clearly my room.”

      Aiden drew himself up. Michael readied himself to settle the squabble, but Maddie stepped between them. “Sure-n but they’re all the same size. We can change the quilts and move the picture to another room, if you like.”

      Aiden made a face, backing away. “Nah. She can have her girlie room. I’ll take the other.” He dashed out the door.

      Ciara perched on the bed and gave it a halfhearted bounce. She glanced up at Maddie. “Is this really to be mine?”

      “All yours, me darling girl,” Maddie assured her with a smile.

      Ciara rose. “Good. Then you can leave.”

      Maddie blinked. “What?”

      Ciara stood with her eyes narrowed. “You said it was mine. I can do with it as I please. I want to be alone. Now.”

      There went Her Highness, Queen Ciara again. For once, even her sister seemed at a loss for words. Michael knew he should allow Maddie to deal with the situation as she’d just demanded. But Ciara couldn’t know how her attitude affected her sister, and he didn’t like seeing either of them hurt.

      So he dropped his bag outside the doors to the children’s rooms and sketched a bow. “At once, Your Royal Highness. Just as soon as you remember your lowly servants here.”

      Though she raised her little chin, Ciara’s cheeks were turning pink. “I never said you were servants.”

      Michael raised his brows. “Oh, didn’t you? You seem to have forgotten that your sister paid for you to come here and gave you all this. There’s such a thing as being grateful.”

      Ciara wrinkled her nose, which was nearly as pert as her sister’s. “Why should I be grateful for having to come all this way, leaving all my friends behind? She ought to be grateful I’ll even have anything to do with her.”

      Maddie sucked in a breath as if her sister’s words had stung. Michael took a step back, waved at the door.

      “Well, then, perhaps you should be the one to leave, you being such a put-upon lass. The captain said he was heading back to New York. Perhaps you can work your way home by clearing slops out of the kitchen and hosing out the head.”

      Ciara turned green. “You wouldn’t do that.”

      Michael shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’m here to work off my passage. You don’t seem to want to.”

      “You’re not my father. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” She turned to Maddie. “You won’t make me leave, will you, Maddie?”

      Maddie glanced at Michael through the corners of her eyes. “I won’t make you leave, me darling girl, but I can’t be liking how you’re treating me. This is to be your new home.”

      Ciara’s mouth worked as if she was chewing on the idea. “All right,” she said. “You can come in. But you have to knock first.” She raised her voice. “And that goes for you too, Aiden O’Rourke.”

      From the other side of the wall came a rude noise. “Like I’d want to go in your stupid room.”

      Michael gestured to the bag outside their doors. “You’ll each need to come and get your clothes and put them away. No dinner until it’s done right.”

      “Fine.” Ciara sashayed out of her room and bent over the bag. Aiden peered out his door, but wisely kept his distance until she had found her things.

      “I best be getting food from the larder for dinner,” Maddie murmured before hurrying down the stairs.

      Michael sighed. He’d slipped back into his role as guardian even after telling Maddie he expected her to take up the task. But it wasn’t easy handing her the role he’d played for as long as he could remember, first with Sylvie’s other children, and then with Ciara and Aiden.

      He hadn’t been surprised to find two more faces at his aunt’s table a few days after Christmas last year. Aunt Sylvie never could resist a call for help. In the crowded tenements that surrounded Five Points, someone was always dying of disease or disability, leaving children alone and frightened. Whenever possible, aunts and uncles and cousins distant and close stepped in, but sometimes no family or friends could be found.

      So Sylvie took those children in, raised them as her own, scrubbed floors and sewed to make ends meet and accepted СКАЧАТЬ