Page 71 of The Bitter Heir and the Beauty

I’m not generally one to make New Year’s resolutions, but I have a list already and it includes being a better recipient of people’s kindness. As soon as the restaurant gets out of the red, I plan on hosting a big ’ole crawfish foodie fry like the Guidrys used to do before George and Lucille started playing cards with my mother.

But first, Christmas.

Before the storm that moved Leonie and me into this house, Maddock had done a decent job ridding the chateau of dust and grime. Aside from me rescuing those boxes he was going to donate, anything moldering or covered in mildew was brought to the landfill.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I heard a suspicious sound from downstairs. With a frying pan in hand in case I needed to defend myself, I uncovered Minou clawing at the wall. Chances are we have a rodent problem rather than an intruder, but I’ll let Maddock deal with that when he gets here.

The next morning, she was still at it and had left scratch marks all over the wood baseboard. When I tried to rub them out, a strip of beveled baseboard indented like a piano key. I uncovered another secret built into this house.

After fiddling with it, pulling, pushing, and twisting, I realized it was a latch and opened a little hatch in the wall. Inside was barely a crawlspace, but reaching inside like the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, instead of bugs and creepy crawlies, I discovered a cache of Christmas decorations.

However, I still can’t figure out how to get to it because it’s so small—big enough for a cat or a bunny to crawl through. I don’t know if someone plastered over a larger opening or how they got in there, but I’ve been trying to puzzle out how to get them out without using a sledgehammer.

In Louisiana, it’s rare for houses, even chateaus, to have a basement so I can’t go under. Given my experience in the secret passages of this house, none of them lead to the Christmas treasure in that particular spot.

With Maddock on his way, I’m desperate to dig them out because the good news I was going to share with him was that I got a Christmas tree—but my decorations were destroyed in the storm. I wanted to surprise him by having the chateau decoratedfor the holidays, but with the clock ticking and my bank account barely covering the restaurant expenses this month, I can’t head over to the This & That for holiday décor, not even at a rock bottom bargain.

Especially not when I know there is a huge vintage collection buried in the wall. It’s been bothering me and short of demolition, I’m at a loss for what to do.

Yes, I’m obsessed because the clock is ticking.

During Leonie’s bath, I make up a silly song about how she’s going to see Maddock the next day. My rhymes are terrible, but I almost refer to him asDaddytwice because it kind of rhymes with happy.

I abruptly go quiet, startled by the notion while she kicks her feet and smiles. Her face turns serious in my silence. I change the word tocrawdaddy, which is even less of a rhyme.

“What is wrong with me?” I ask in nearly a whisper.

The truth settles on the surface like the bubbles in the baby tub. Part of me wishes that Maddock was Leonie’s father—that we were a family.

“Who am I and what happened to Honey?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

Leonie roars with joy and claps her hands together.

“I’m your mommy, that’s who,” I say, continuing her bath and my silly song.

After bedtime, I decide to make one last attempt at getting to the Christmas decorations. I imagine Eloise put them there, but how? If I were a well-to-do housewife in the early twentieth century with a penchant for pie and porcelain pigs, why would I hide my Christmas decorations in the wall? I learned about the pie from her cookbook and the pigs when I found some from her collection back in the day when I’d sneak around at my mother’s behest.

The answer escapes me ... unless she didn’t hide the decorations. Maybe it was Hogan.

Questions circle my mind like the sugarplums dancing in Leonie’s dreams.

There is a chance that Hogan stashed them after his wife’s passing. Maybe the decorations were a difficult reminder of losing Eloise. To a lesser degree, I know the feeling.

I keep most thoughts about Cory under lock and key. Even though we weren’t married, up until he left for military service, I thought he was the one. Maddock and I met in much the same way. Only, we didn’t damage each other’s cars. Maybe this bodes well for us ... for me to have a second chance at true love.

As I pad through the quiet house, filled with old memories and antiques and mixed with our newer belongings, I realize that I’ve been living in the past and telling myself I wasn’t hurt while fighting against the present because I’ve carried all that pain and loss with me.

Time to let go, no?

Maybe Hogan had a similar thought and the only way for him to do so was to hide it out of sight. He must’ve known every inch, secret space, and passage in this place. I catalog what I know about him and repeatedly return to gambling. But that can’t have anything to do with Christmas decorations, can it?

Given the notes in the cookbook, he had a big appetite and enjoyed Eloise’s chicken pot pie, corn fritters, and apple tart. But he liked gambling more.

I repeatedly return to this and question whether it’s stuck in my craw because of my mother or for some other reason. But what?

Awash in thought, I pad from the parlor to the dining room with the rotating shelf before arriving in the hall off the gathering room.

It’s a cool night and the chateau is drafty. Maddock’s improvements were mainly cosmetic, but if he—er, we?—plan to live here, we’ll need some insulation and new windows. The curtains move, making me think of ghosts.

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