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the left rearranged the metal body parts lying strewn across the tabletop. "And you, young lady, would be well served to repair that suit of armor you destroyed and don it. I don't doubt my tongue is as sharp as your sword at the moment."
    Spearing a look toward Flora, Gillian finished, "Your little sister has deposited wads of chewing gum beneath the sideboard in the dining room."
    "Oh, Robyn," said Flora with a long-suffering sigh. "How many times have we warned you? It will be sentences I'll have from you, lass. Twenty-five saying 'I shall not stick gum on furnishings.' "
    "Make it thirty-five," Gillian added. "This made me so angry I put the plan at risk." She gestured toward her stomach. Flora's eyes widened, then knitted in a frown.
    "What in the world have you done to yourself?"
    Wincing, Gillian reached down and tugged her "baby" back into position yet again. "This is never going to work. I make a dampt puir wicht."
    As Flora frowned, young Robyn piped up. "Let me be the ghaist, Gilly. I should be wonderful. I have been thinking of a way to string a harness from the ceiling of the portrait room. Can you not see me flying around all our ancestors?"
    "Vividly," Gillian grumbled. "Which is why I shall do all the haunting."
    Continuing to frown, Flora grabbed her twin by the arm and pulled her in front of the tall wall mirror. According to plan, the women wore identical dresses. Gazing at their reflections, Flora compared the shape of their bellies, then reached over and tugged her sister's stuffing up where it needed to be. "Gilly is right, Robyn. We would never chase you back into the schoolroom if you could fly away from us."
    The girl gave a dreamy sigh at the thought. Gillian winced and sank into a nearby chair. "The rate I am going, we will never get me off the ground."
    "What happened?" Flora asked.
    Gillian allowed her head to drop forward until her chin rested on her chest. "First he sneaked up on me in the drawing room before I'd strapped on the 'bairn.' I had to hide behind the drapery while I talked to him so he wouldn't see my lack of stomach."
    A giggle burst from Robyn's mouth, and Gillian shot her a glower before continuing her story. "Then after he went in to breakfast, I cozened him with the breadbasket-and-thread trick, tugging it just right so that the knot slipped when I needed. He was not bothered at all. The man actually talked back to the empty room, told me the haunting didn't compare with last night's."
    Robyn pursed her lips and blew a soundless stream of air. "The Headless Lady is an awfully good wile, Gilly."
    "Not the way I did it. Besides, I cannot be a one-feat ghaist. I will not convince Lord Harrington with but one apparition."
    "Do not discount playing the mischievous, invisible brownie," Flora said. "Just because Mr. Delaney is skeptical... well... we know little of the man. Perhaps he does not believe in spirits and such. If that is the case, I should think he might question your... appearances... more closely than one whose mind is open to such phenomena."
    "Aye. If he is a nonbeliever, the Texan—" Gillian broke off abruptly at the sound of a barking dog. A fast approaching barking dog.
    Mr. Delaney would not be far behind.
    Her gaze flew to Flora's panicked blue eyes. One of them needed to disappear. Fast.
    Gillian pointed toward the wall holding the muniment room's entrance to Rowanclere's hidden passage system and Robbie jumped to trip the catch as the Texan's voice drifted toward them. "Scooter, get back here."
    The small brown beastie came scooting into the room, growling and barking, as Flora, being closest to the wall, ducked into the passage. Robyn shut the door, then positioned herself between the hidden entrance and the yapping dog. "Why, sister, look at the puir wee thing. Her legs dinna work."
    "She certainly has no trouble with her mouth," Gillian muttered.
    "How does she move so fast?" asked the girl, both voice and expression filled with wonder.
    "Exuberance for life,"