When the doorbell rang, all four of us froze for a beat. Then Billie gasped dramatically. Bianca straightened, and CJ’s smile made me suspicious.
I adjusted my shirt unnecessarily before walking toward the front door. Behind me, I could feel the children trying very hard to look normal. I opened the door and forgot every assumption I’d made in the last twenty-four hours.
The woman standing on my porch couldn’t possibly have been anyone’s elderly former nanny.
She looked to be in her late-twenties, maybe early thirties. Tall with pale skin against black clothing. A fitted black coat cinched at the waist. Black gloves. Black heeled boots. A wide black sunhat shadowed most of her face beneath the gray morning sky. A black parasol rested over one shoulder. Long red hair spilled in waves beneath the hat, vivid enough to feel unreal against all the black. And then there were the sunglasses. Large and dark, completely absurd for an overcast morning.
For one deeply disorienting second, I genuinely wondered if I’d somehow opened the door into another century.
She looked directly at me. She wasn’t at all shy, nor did she seem intimidated by the giant house, my exhausted expression, or the very real possibility that my children were currently engineering something behind me.
Her lips curved just slightly. “I’m Nanny Winifred Carrington,” she said, calm and composed. “I believe you require my services?”
“Oh my god,” Billie whispered loudly.
3
WINNIE
The man staring at me looked profoundly tired.
I recognized the exhaustion immediately. It was the kind that was built slowly over years rather than in a few sleepless nights with young kids. It settled into one’s posture and lived behind the eyes and taught a person how to fake a smile while actively drowning.
He was also handsome, which was an annoying distraction.
Tall. Broad through the shoulders. Dark hair that looked slightly unruly in a way suggesting he’d attempted to tame it recently and failed. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms as though he’d been too restless to leave them alone. There was tension in him everywhere. In the line of his mouth. The set of his jaw. Even the way he held the front door open seemed strained by effort.
Then there were the children clustered behind him.
Ah. There they were. The little revolutionaries.
The youngest gasped at me as though I’d risen directly from the underworld for her personal entertainment.
“Oh my god,” she whispered.
I liked her immediately.
Mr. Lawrence closed his eyes briefly, which told me that reaction was probably not ideal by his standards.
“Billie,” he said.
“What?” she asked. “She looks incredible.”
The boy elbowed her lightly without taking his eyes off me. Dark curls fell across his forehead, and the smile forming on his face told me this child was far too skilled at social navigation for his age. Charming children were often unpredictable. Charming,grievingchildren even more so.
The older girl beside him was still and watchful, and she clutched a book against her chest as her gaze tracked over me. My hat. My gloves. The shape of the parasol handle. The seam of my coat.
This was an analytical child, an emotional compartmentalizer. I had met many of her over the decades. They were usually the easiest to overlook and the hardest to truly fool.
Hmm. Interesting family with an interesting sadness.
I removed my sunglasses and let my eyes adjust to the dimness inside the foyer. Immediately, all three children gaped at me. The youngest leaned toward her brother and whispered with absolutely no discretion whatsoever, “Her eyes are cooler than ours.”
“Everything about her is cooler than us.”
The father already looked deeply exhausted by all of us. “I apologize,” he said quickly. “They?—”
“Are children?” I offered.
