Page 61 of The Bitter Heir and the Beauty

Honey glances at me before crawling through the opening. “My mother.”

There’s no way I’ll fit so I go to the hall and into the next room, the parlor. She emerges where a long, moldering side table sat until recently. The marks are still visible on the floor.

“Mama and my cousin worked closely together, and I snuck in ...”

“Why them and not you and your mother?”

“My cousin was more willing. I didn’t want anything to do with their schemes so they made me work in the shadows. The fact that I didn’t want to be noticed helped. They were both quite noticeable, beautiful, boastful, show-women who loved the spotlight.”

Honey is quietly beautiful, but not at all boastful, except when she wins at cards.

She stares out the window into the darkness. “Drunk in New Orleans like many sailors, my father wandered down the wrong street. There, he met a fortune teller. She told him he’d fall in love that night. At a bar two doors down, my mother was waiting. He was their mark after they noticed the gold watch.” She shakes her head.

“Your mother and the fortune?”

“Her sister.”

“That’s some interesting matchmaking.”

“They may have fallen ... in lust, but not love. I came along nine months later.”

“And your father?”

“He denies that I’m his. My mother wasn’t particularly honest, but I knew it was him. We have the same eyes.”

My heart does something funny and I listen for the baby monitor, but Leonie is fast asleep upstairs.

“And you ended up here?”

“At some point, Mama heard about Tickle’s Golden Tokens and joined the hunt.”

Honey sits down at the table and pulls a deck of cards out of a hidden compartment. She shuffles, then deals, while explaining, “Hogwash Holler draws treasure hunters. It was once home to roadside attractions, including the world’s smallest chicken coop ... and the largest one. A massive nest made entirely of peacock feathers collected from within our town limits, and of course the giant rotating mug of root beer.”

“And a crocogator.”

Her lips pucker with laughter as she deals.

I reveal my cards, having lost, and say, “Sounds like a lot of tall tales.”

“I’ve seen the crocogator.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Back to Tickle’s Golden Tokens ...”

“Which don’t lead to treasure. Only to people fighting to get it. The quest ruined families. The town too.” She deals again.

I look carefully over my cards, not wanting to miss a trick. “I’d like to fix that.”

“But you can’t fix people, Maddock. The women in my family were as crafty as they come. They exploited the desires of the scavenger hunters, the people seeking Tickle’s Golden Tokens. We’d clean ‘em out. When I finally turned eighteen, I got out. But it came with a price.” She goes suddenly quiet as if she’s afraid she said too much.

My brow furrows because I can see why she wants to let go of the past but not of control.

The gauzy curtains swish like ghosts trying to escape the truth. It’s eerie here at night, especially when the misty fog settles over the bayou beyond the windows. I don’t love the idea of leaving Honey here alone, but if she’s anything like the otherLes Trois Tasses, she can outwit a ghost or walk into the darkest night and challenge anything to spook her.

“You talk about them in the past tense.”

“Mama is in jail. My cousin disappeared. Probably conned some poor guy into marrying her—well, a rich guy because she wouldn’t settle for anything less.” With a smile, Honey reveals her cards. Again, she wins and starts dealing again.

“Where’d you learn to play?”

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