Billie hurriedly clambered down.
Managing the kids with Winnie was strangely seamless. I handled boundaries while she handled their curiosity. Neither of us undercut the other. It just… worked.
Ahead of us, a small crowd had gathered around CJ.
I heaved a sigh. “Oh no.”
CJ stood beside a marble sculpture of a woman holding a vase. “…and after the duke’s third wife vanished under mysterious circumstances,” he was saying gravely, “the grieving staff commissioned this monument in her honor.”
That elicited a fewoohs.
“The vase symbolizes forbidden devotion,” CJ continued. “And the flowers represent betrayal.”
The woman gasped softly.
None of what he was saying was remotely true.
I opened my mouth to intervene when Winnie murmured, “Most historians ignore the deadly argument with the beekeeper.”
She kept a perfectly straight face.
One of the tourists frowned. “There was a beekeeper?”
“Oh yes,” Winnie said solemnly. “Quite the scandalous business.”
CJ looked up at her with open admiration.
I rubbed a hand over my face while trying not to laugh. “You’re encouraging him to lie to these poor people.”
Winnie laid her hand on my arm. “Oh, he’s just telling a story. And if these people believe an eleven-year-old’s tall tales without question, that’s on them.”
“But he’s lying to retirees.”
“He’s enchanting them.”
One of the tourists turned toward another couple nearby and whispered urgently: “There was apparently a murderous beekeeper.”
Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
I should’ve stopped it, but then I noticed my son had become animated and confident because Winnie gently nudged his imagination instead of correcting it into submission.
She never made the children feel as if they were too much—too strange, emotional, or loud. She just… met them where they were.
CJ caught sight of me finally and froze. I could see the panic creeping into his eyes. But then Winnie winked at him, and it faded.
“The beekeeper was never convicted,” CJ finished gravely.
The tourists thanked him. Actually thanked him.
One elderly woman insisted he take a five-dollar bill as a tip.
As they wandered away, discussing floral aristocratic murder conspiracies, I attempted to give Winnie a stern look. “You’re a menace.”
She looked genuinely pleased with herself. “And yet you’re smiling.”
I was.
Damn it.
