Ana Seymour by Father for Keeps Page A

sister both. I’d like to meet her someday.”
    “I’d like that, too,” Kate said.
    “Now I’ll leave you to finish up with your little one. And when you’re ready for breakfast, give me a call and she and I will go for a stroll.”
    “I don’t know how to thank you.”
    “Nonsense, child. I haven’t had this much fun since Harriet lost her wig at the Cotillion Ball.” She gave a low little laugh and left the room.
    “Don’t your mother and grandmother get along?” Kate asked Sean, who was looking after Nonny with amusement.
    His smile died as he turned back to her. “Mother can be…difficult sometimes.”
    She sensed that there was more behind his words. “What will she say about us? And, um, Caroline and all?”
    Sean sighed and looked up at the floral motif of the stamped tin ceiling. “I have no idea, Katie. But as soon as you finish there, we’ll go downstairs and find out.”
    When Kate and Sean went downstairs, the senior Flahertys were still at breakfast, which was an elaborate meal set out in the imposing formal dining room. She and Sean entered through sliding mahogany doors to a table that could easily have seated all the miners Jennie fed every day up at the Wesley mine. A huge sideboard along one side of the room was crowded with silver dishes containing enough food to have fed the entire mine crew.
    Kate tried not to let her awe show as she turned toward the couple sitting at the opposite end of the table. The man at the head was an older version of Sean, the black curls of his hair more than half gray. He stood immediately when they entered.
    The woman seated on his right didn’t look old enough to be Sean’s mother at first glance. Her hair was bright red. Perhaps a little too bright, Kate decided after a moment. And her face was painted, artfully, not at all like the ladies one tried not to see when visiting the rougher areas of Virginia City, but painted nevertheless.
    “Ah, there they are,” Patrick Flaherty said in a hearty voice that had only vague shadowings of Sean’s.
    “Hello, Father, Mother.” Sean nodded to each of his parents. “I’d like you to meet my wife.”
    “Where’s the child?” Harriet asked without directly acknowledging the introduction.
    “Caroline’s upstairs with Nonny,” Sean answered smoothly. “I thought you’d like to get to know Kate first.”
    “Of course we would,” his father answered. “But the poor girl’s probably starving after the trip. Get her some food, lad.” He gestured to the sideboard.
    Kate was at a loss how to enter the conversation, since she was being discussed as if she weren’t even present. But she remembered Nonny’s words about intimidation and took a deep breath. “I’m so pleased to meet you both,” she said, her voice a little louder than normal. “And to be here. You have a beautiful home.”
    Harriet squinted at her. Kate noticed that a pair of spectacles lay unused near her plate. “Let me see you, girl,” she said. Kate looked uncertainly at Sean and walked to the other end of the table, directly across from his mother. Harriet gestured for her to be seated, then looked over at Sean. “She’s pretty enough. Bring her a plate of food, Sean.”
    Kate pulled out the heavy chair and sat down, aware of Sean clattering dishes behind her. “Not too much,” she cautioned.
    “You don’t need to skimp on food here, girl,” Harriet said. “I daresay we throw away more every day than you had in a week up in the mountains where you came from.”
    “How unfortunate,” Kate murmured, but she wasn’t sure if Harriet heard the remark.
    “Sean told us you owned some sort of hotel,” Patrick said.
    “Not exactly. My sister and I opened our home to boarders after our parents died.”
    “You and your sister by yourselves?” Patrick asked.
    Kate nodded. “We had no other way to pay the bills.”
    Harriet scrunched her face in distaste, crinkling the powder at the edges of her mouth. “What kind of