Montgomery didn’t speak, move, or urge her to confess. Instead, he stood silent and patient.
“She didn’t steal from me,” she said finally. “I paid her to leave me alone.”
“Paid her?”
She glanced up. Montgomery was frowning, the expression more than a little disconcerting. Her family was still at the Hall, and if she didn’t couch the words just right, she’d no doubt Montgomery would search Uncle Bertrand out again.
“I think she was concerned about my shaming the family,” she said. “She was always reporting me to Aunt Lilly or Uncle Bertrand. I didn’t finish this chore. I was bad at a task. I was acting oddly. She was a burr in my shoe, and it was easier to pay her to be silent.”
“Is she behind our reception the night of the Mercaii meeting?”
She nodded.
“Why did you go, knowing there was every possibility you might be discovered?”
His frown had disappeared and, in its place, was a look she’d seen more than once. As if he were regarding her with curiosity laced with incredulity.
“Because I wanted to know more than I feared being found out,” she said.
“About your Gift?”
Perhaps it was time she was honest about that, as well.
“Not just that,” she said, twisting her hands in front of her. “I wanted to know if it was possible to talk to the dead.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. When he spoke, however, it wasn’t to criticize her. Instead, his comment surprised her.
“I didn’t like your cousin from the day we wed,” he said.
“Everyone likes Amanda.”
“Label me a contrarian, then. She flirted with me.”
“Amanda flirts with every man,” she said.
“I thought it was inappropriate for her to do so with a groom on the day of his wedding.”
“She did it just to annoy me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Amanda is sly, selfish, and spoiled. She doesn’t care about anyone else except for what they might give her in the way of attention or gifts. If she sees something she wants, she gets it.”
“Evidently, even if it means stealing it.”
She nodded.
“Why her antipathy toward you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you ever met someone who took an instant dislike to you for no reason? Or for no reason you can determine?” She glanced up. “Or has everyone been charmed by you from the first moment they met you?”
“Hardly,” he said. “My brothers were the charming ones. I was the wayward brother.”
“I’d ask you about them, but you’ll get that look on your face.”
“What look?” he asked, frowning at her.
“That one,” she said. “The look that says you aren’t ever going to talk about your past. That Virginia is a closed topic I should never bring up or be curious about.”
