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“Easy to talk to.”
Ria smiled. “Very. It was a particular skill of his.”
“But not a skilled card player as I recall.”
Reluctantly she admitted, “No, not really.”
Monty in the background looked affronted.
“Perhaps because he was too busy talking.”
Monty’s frown deepened.
Ria coughed to hide her laughter. “I am sad to say that is probably true.” She cast an apologetic look in Monty’s direction. “Though some people would call his lack of that particular skill a virtue.”
“I am sure he had many virtues.”
She thought she detected a dubious note in his voice. “He had many admirable personal qualities.”
“No doubt.”
Ria frowned. She wasn’t sure why, but that sounded like an insult. “He was well respected in the neighborhood. He was also acknowledged as having a handsome countenance.”
“He looks… pleasant.”
Now that was almost certainly an insult. It wasn’t so much what was said but the tone. Her suspicions were confirmed by his next comment.
“It’s a shame about the weak chin.”
Ria knew she should feel offended at his words and probably would have been if she weren’t so entertained by Monty’s reactions. She bit her lip to try to stop herself from smiling as she saw Monty in the background touch his jaw and then rush over to a tall mirror between two gallery windows to look at his chin. He stood before the mirror, frowning and turning his head from side to side.
“And the thin gray hair.”
Monty was now looking at his hair—parting his thick, snowy white locks, then patting them back into place.
Who knew ghosts could be so vain?
Nervousness replaced Ria’s amusement at the look Monty turned upon the earl. Her nervousness increased when he disappeared.
Not a good sign.
Deciding it was best the earl leave immediately, she ruthlessly severed the remaining thread from which her manners dangled. “Why, it’s three o’clock. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
Taking his arm, Ria turned him toward the stairs. “If you don’t leave soon, you will be riding home in the dark.” And without giving him a chance to respond, she led him from the gallery.
As they left, she looked around for Monty. She drew in a breath as, from the corner of her eye, she saw a pale green urn slowly rise from the pedestal it rested upon and float toward the earl’s back.
Adroitly she stepped back, turned, and snatched it from unseen hands and gently deposited it back on the cupboard. She frowned and shook her head in the direction she believed the now invisible Monty was standing.
The aunts had only just reached the top of the stairs. Both aunts looked at Ria and her companion in dismay, and Aunt Charity said, “Surely you have not seen all the paintings?”
As Ria passed them she said, “Lord Arden needs to leave before it gets dark.”
Flowerday was waiting in the entrance hall by the front doors. As they walked past a rosewood table, the butler’s eyes widened and he stepped toward them.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the vase of flowers that had been on the table flying through the air toward the earl’s back. She was too slow this time to catch it, but Luc, perhaps warned by the look of shock on her butler’s face, turned sideways just enough to miss being hit directly. But his dark blue superfine coat was still showered with pink petals and glistening beads of water.
Flowerday’s hand trembled as he brushed a blossom from the Earl’s arm.
