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Ned spoke next. “Harry takes the ghost’s part and speaks for him or her and leaves clues around the house of the ghost’s presence. And each night we may ask one other player to reveal a card.”

“You play, too?” Octavia looked skeptical.

“Never miss it,” said Ned. At twenty-one, he was a year older than Octavia. With some university behind him and time in London, he had a confidence beyond his years.

“There are rules,” Jasper said. “No fair asking the servants what they saw.”

“And,” said Anne, “every night at tea Harriet adds another bit of the story, and we take a moment to see whether anyone wants to make a guess. You have to get all three parts right.”

“It helps to figure out why the ghost haunts us,” added Camille.

“Is there a prize for the winner?” Octavia asked.

“Oh yes,” said Pris, “there is a mystery package on the last day, and the winner gets an extra slice of Twelfth Night cake.”

Octavia looked around at the eager faces as if she thought them all a little mad. “But you have more people than you have cards, don’t you?” she asked, with a quick glance at John Jowers.

“We can pick partners,” said Pris. “You and John need someone in the house on your side, in any case.”

A bit of squabbling ensued, but in a few minutes, sides had been decided. Harriet observed Octavia’s face fall as she was paired with Jasper while John Jowers was paired with Camille. Jasper appeared oblivious, John Jowers slightly downcast.

When everyone was ready, Harriet spread the cards facedown on the table.

Octavia called to her brother, who seemed to wake from his preoccupation. He stood and came to look over Harriet’s shoulder. The dog followed and sat at his feet. Octavia had the honor of picking the three cards that would define the ghost. Harriet collected them and tucked them away in the secret drawer of the velvet box. Then, taking turns, they drew the rest of the cards until every team had a set of red, blue, and yellow cards.

While the players retreated to sofas and corners to look at their cards and plan their strategies, Harriet returned to the tea table.

“Living dangerously, Miss Swanley?” Wynford asked.

She looked up, confused.

He pointed above her head. And there was Jasper’s mistletoe, tied with a black-and-white checked ribbon to the chandelier under which she now stood.

“Oh,” she said, stepping to one side. “I think governesses are exempt from such forfeits.”

“Are they? I had not heard that rule,” Wynford said. “You misled me at the theater the other night, Miss Swanley. I thought you didn’t care for Christmas.”

Harriet laughed. “I assure you I began this game entirely in self-defense. As a new governess with too many charges, I had to invent an occupation to entertain them for the hour before bed.”

“Is there a part for me?” he asked, his tone at odds with his avowed disinterest in Christmas.

“It’s for the children,” she said lightly. Across the room, Jasper spoke earnestly to Octavia, who stared at John Jowers and Camille.

“But you play, do you not?” Wynford asked.

“My part is merely to set the ghost loose about the house.”

“Merely?” He raised a brow. “You mean you are the authoress of the haunting.”

“It’s harmless, a pretend haunting, with nothing of real loss about it.”

“Except that, if I understand it right, the ghost has lost a head or a limb.” His eyes smiled, but his tired face remained drawn.

“Or his toes,” she said, making a light reply.

Her burgundy shawl slipped from her shoulders, and he pulled it back into place with his scraped hand. “I thought you preferred a blue shawl.”

His hand did not linger, but the conversation changed, dropped into a lower, more intimate key. Harriet told herself he did not intend seduction. He was merely a man who noticed things—but oh, the pleasure of his notice was sweet, like a bit of sugar crystal on the tongue.