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“But it has to be,” argued Jasper, “because four of the potential ghosts—the maid, the butler, the coachman, and the cook—might use those stairs.”

“Or you might use them to sneak a bun from the kitchen,” Pris said.

Charles had to admire the boy’s logic—and gamesmanship as well, since Octavia had revealed their cards to him, and Jasper knew that one of the ghosts he named was not in fact the ghost.

“I think Jasper has a point,” Octavia said in support of her teammate. “Though I haven’t played before. I think one should be open to new possibilities.”

“An admirable sentiment, Miss Davenham,” said Ned. “Who else has a clue?”

“I noticed something,” Camille reported. They all turned to her. “I banged my knee on Papa’s crocodile skin valise in the hall outside his door, an odd place for that old thing to be.”

“I’m confused,” said Octavia. “There’s no valise in the game, is there?”

“No, but anything out of the ordinary may tell us something about our ghost,” Anne explained. “I found a candlestick knocked over on a book on Mama’s table in the library.”

“The teacup is a better clue,” Jasper claimed. “A one-handed man could drop a teacup.”

“You dropped the teacup yourself, just to throw us off,” Pris insisted.

“Did not.” Jasper snatched up a sofa pillow and raised it over his sister’s head. Charles snagged the pillow from the boy’s grasp.

“Now, everyone.” Miss Swanley called them to attention, laughter in her gray eyes. “Prepare to hear the phantom’s words.” She retrieved a folded piece of paper from her pocket, opened it, and paused. The children, even Ned, stilled, watching her face. Her calm expression gave nothing away. If she decided to abandon being a governess, Charles thought she might do well as a spy.

“Listen as the phantom speaks. My visit is friendly. Though you do not often entertain such a guest as I, no need to make yourselves uneasy in my presence. You must forgive my clumsiness as an old injury plagues me. I come only for a kind drop of your hospitality after years in my dry tomb. Your mother has a chair that suits me well, and once I sit among you, I’ll be no trouble, if only someone will bring me what I thirst for most. Won’t you let me in this Christmas?”

As soon as she finished, everyone began talking. Jasper immediately claimed that he had been right about the broken teacup being an important clue. Miss Swanley allowed them to pass around the paper. Then she called for their questions. Several whispered consultations took place before Pris burst out with, “Which chair does the phantom like? There are dozens in Luxborough House.”

“Why does the phantom have a dry tomb?” asked Ned. “Doesn’t sound like anyplace in London.”

Charles could not help watching Miss Swanley’s face. Her countenance gave nothing away, though her eyes danced with merriment. She even had him speculating about the imaginary spirit. But he was more curious about her. He had not expected the last line of the phantom’s speech, the plea to be allowed into the feast.

Anne had a question about the phantom’s thirst. Camille and John Jowers wanted to know why the phantom might make them uneasy, and Jasper simply complained that the ghost’s clumsiness was no clue at all because all of the injuries could make the ghost awkward. Octavia shot an impatient look at her partner.

Charles interrupted. “I have a question.”

Miss Swanley’s gaze lifted to meet his, and her expression grew wary at once. She bent her head over the paper, refolding it.

With some confusion, Pris asked, “Are you playing, Lord Wynford?”

He wanted to watch Miss Swanley’s face, but with all of the children’s eyes on him, he focused on Pris. “Merely trying to understand the game. Is the phantom’s plea to be admitted to the feast a customary request or unique to this phantom?”

Ned answered. “The story always ends that way.” All of the Luxborough heads nodded in agreement.

“For that’s the ‘spirit’ of Christmas, isn’t it?” added Anne. “To bring everyone in out of cold and dark?”

“So,” said Jasper, “your question doesn’t really help us, Lord Wynford.”

Charles thought the answer explained a great deal about the woman who had invented the game ten years earlier as a mere girl who’d left her home and come to a family that held each other dear and expected her to be content to serve them. She had been younger then than all but Pris and Jasper now. Her charges valued her but did not fully know or understand her, for they, who had no lacks, no unanswered longings, did not see what she lacked.

There was a bit more whispering before it was time for the players to ask for a card from one another. Again Charles watched faces, noting degrees of satisfaction and disgust as players confirmed hunches they’d already formed or grew more confused. Octavia was one of the latter. She had confided in him the cards she and Jasper held—the cook, the eye, and the cellar key. It was another sign of the cleverness of Miss Swanley’s game that just the three elements immediately suggested a story, but it was her story he wanted to know.

Perry had had little to tell him about her except that she had refused to marry the man her brother had chosen for her. Hearing Perry’s account, Charles remembered that Dunraven had given a house party to introduce his sister to eligible men, but a combination of distaste for Dunraven and the illness of Charles’s valet meant that Charles had left the party without ever meeting Miss Swanley.

When the cards had been exchanged, the players again turned to Miss Swanley, and she asked whether anyone was ready to hazard a guess. They all looked at one another and declined. She smiled. “More clues tomorrow,” she said.

The Luxborough girls said their goodnights. Ned and his friend Jowers, who sent Octavia one last glance, headed off for some other amusement. Octavia lingered, clearly still thinking about the game, and willing to challenge Jasper. She smiled happily at Charles as she apparently won some concession from her partner before he, too, headed off to bed.

“I owe you an answer,” said Harriet Swanley at Charles’s side.