The wagon rolled down toward the valley, toward the beautiful house with its smoking chimneys and its buried secrets.
Margaret held Bridget closer and prayed.
The woman who emerged onto the porch was nothing like Margaret expected. She was perhaps 60, silver-haired, dressed in practical wool rather than fine silk. Her face was lined but kind, her eyes sharp with intelligence.
“Nathaniel.” Her voice carried across the yard. “You’re late. I was worried sick.”
“The stage was delayed. Snow on the pass.” Nate jumped down from the wagon. “Aunt Adelaide. This is Mrs. Margaret Sullivan. The bride.”
Adelaide’s eyes swept over Margaret, taking in her threadbare coat, her frostbitten cheeks, her trembling arms wrapped around a feverish child. Then Adelaide looked at the wagon, at the faces peering over the sides.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8… faces. All of them thin. All of them scared.”
“Nine,” Adelaide said softly. “You brought nine children.”
“Yes, ma’am. Where I go, they go.”
“Of course they do.”
Something flickered in Adelaide’s face. Not disapproval, not judgment. Something else. Something Margaret couldn’t read.
“The little one.” Adelaide moved closer. “She’s sick.”
“Fever. 10 days now.”
“Has she been eating?”
“Won’t keep nothing down.”
Adelaide reached out, pressed her hand to Bridget’s forehead. Her expression shifted. “Bring her inside. Now, all of you inside. Martha’s got soup on the stove and beds warming. Ma’am—”
“We’ll talk later. Right now, that baby needs tending.”
Margaret didn’t argue. She couldn’t argue. She let Adelaide guide her toward the house. Let Nate help the other children down from the wagon. Let herself be swept into the warmth of a home she didn’t understand.
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