Chapter Seven #2
“It can be like that sometimes,” he said contemplatively, popping the maraschino cherry from his drink into his mouth. “With siblings, I mean.”
Just then, Mrs. Fawcett poked her head in to announce dinner, and in the rush of draining the dregs of their cocktails and moving to the door, Georgie let her conversation with Sebastian drop.
But she couldn’t help thinking, as they walked to the dining room, that when he spoke of siblings, there had been a slightly bitter edge to his voice.
But what on earth, she wondered, could a man like this have to be bitter about?
The next morning dawned as a perfect example of an English summer day—in other words, it was wet and chilly.
Georgie cast a gloomy look out the window as she dressed in a serviceable brown wool jumper and, after a moment’s thought, a pair of tweed trousers that she usually wore only when working in the garden, or on one of her long countryside rambles to collect plant specimens; something about Sebastian’s London polish made her want to appear as grubby as possible, out of some innate contrarian streak that she was usually more successful at repressing.
She knew that she was not a great beauty like Abigail, and this fact had never bothered her one whit.
For someone who spent a considerable amount of her time outdoors and in less-than-clean surroundings, clothing had always seemed like something of an afterthought, though she was conscious of her family’s position within the village and tried to present an at least somewhat respectable figure.
However, she had never felt so acutely conscious of her own aesthetic appeal—or lack thereof—as she did with Sebastian.
Her mind kept returning to the moment the day before when he had called her pretty—whatever could he have meant by it?
Was he mocking her? For all his flaws, he didn’t seem unkind, so somehow, she didn’t think so.
But that meant that he must have merely been being polite, she decided.
Because surely he hadn’t meant it.
Shaking her head at these absurd thoughts, she finished dressing and prepared to head downstairs.
Egg, who had a keen ear for the sound of raindrops on a roof and precisely nothing else, cracked an eye open, thumped her tail politely by way of saying farewell, and immediately went back to sleep on her cushion.
Clearly Georgie would not have any canine company on today’s adventures.
Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Fawcett was stirring a pot of porridge and humming what Georgie thought was a Noel Coward song; Georgie fetched a bowl from the cabinet and helped herself to a large portion of porridge, shamelessly spooning a generous helping of honey on top.
Georgie kept hives in a corner of the kitchen garden and sold honey at the Saturday market in the village, as well as in a few of the shops on the high street.
“You’ll rot all your teeth,” Mrs. Fawcett scolded as usual, and as usual, Georgie replied with a cheerful, “And it will have been worth it.”
She carried her bowl upstairs into the dining room—which always seemed particularly absurd in terms of its scale at breakfast time—to find Sebastian attacking a bowl of porridge with great gusto while regaling Papa with the tale of that year’s Oxford-Cambridge boat race.
“… important that the Oxford crew was heavier than the Cambridge crew, on average,” Sebastian was saying as Georgie entered the room, brandishing his spoon for dramatic effect, “and by the time they passed Craven Cottage, I thought Oxford was beginning to look tired, and I turned to old Tuppy and said—far sooner than I should have, I grant you—‘I think Cambridge is going to win this,’ and, by Jove, I was right!”
“An unusual experience for you, no doubt,” Georgie said as she took her seat, and both men turned, startled, evidently not having noticed her entrance amidst Sebastian’s thrilling tale of oar-based drama.
“Morning, Georgie,” Sebastian said cheerfully, scooping up another heaping spoonful of porridge.
“I say, have you tried your lovely housekeeper’s porridge?
It’s remarkable; I told her, the best porridge I ever tasted was at the most delightful inn in Scotland, directly next door to the mill that produced the oats, and I was under the impression that there was simply something about the Scottish character that lent itself to oat-based goods, but your Mrs. Fawcett should consider donning a kilt and joining that fair nation, because this might be even better. ”
Georgie, as so often seemed to be the case when Sebastian was speaking, found herself somewhat at a loss for words, and latched onto one detail the way a drowning man might cling to a life raft. “I do not believe women wear kilts.”
He frowned. “You’re correct, dash it—though I must say that you would look remarkably fetching in one.”
She frowned back at him and ate a spoonful of porridge.
“Just staying in character as a cherished friend of the family, bestowing a compliment upon one of its daughters,” he informed her innocently, and then returned his full attention to his porridge.
Meanwhile, her father appeared to be hanging on Sebastian’s every word. “I’ve not been to the Boat Race in…” He trailed off, his brow furrowing. “Well, I can’t remember the last time. I ought to go again one of these years.”
It would have been, Georgie knew, at least twenty years ago that he’d last gone—the race had been suspended during the war, and then her mother had died, and her father had not traveled any farther than Bath since then.
Initially, it had seemed reasonable—he was grief-stricken, utterly devastated by his wife’s death, with two young daughters to care for.
And then, as the years had passed and Georgie and Abigail grew older, Georgie suspected that it had simply become something of a habit.
Papa was not entirely isolated, for they did have visitors—friends from his Cambridge years would arrive for a fortnight spent discussing minor archaeological discoveries in remote English counties while eating shortbread before the fire; Aunt Georgiana would visit occasionally, usually as one of her marriages was on the rocks and she was looking to escape London.
Mama’s parents never visited; instead, Georgie and Abigail were periodically sent to Bath to stay with them, since they felt that the civilizing influence of town—even if the town in question was merely Bath—would be good for both girls, given their somewhat helter-skelter upbringing at Radcliffe Hall with a scatterbrained father and no mother.
But Papa himself, while happy enough to entertain visitors, did not venture afield, and so it was somewhat astonishing to hear him now discussing the Boat Race as if it were something he might consider attending in the future.
It seemed almost unkind of Sebastian to bring back this glimpse of the father she recalled from her childhood, the man who had once taken her to London on the train for the day, to visit the Natural History Museum and feed the ducks in St. James’s Park and select a box of violet creams at Fortnum’s.
Occupied by these somewhat melancholy thoughts, Georgie devoured her breakfast in a hurry, and then interrupted a lengthy tangent from Sebastian about the merits of Cambridge blue as opposed to Oxford’s darker hue to say abruptly, “Mr. Fletcher-Ford, if you are finished with your Scottish-quality porridge, I was hoping we might be on our way?”
Papa and Sebastian blinked up at her.
“Georgie,” Sebastian said with a winning smile, “if we’re to convince the fine people of this adorable hamlet of our deep familial connection, don’t you think you’d better see your way back to calling me Sebastian, as you were yesterday?”
“Sebastian,” she replied, her tone so syrupy it was practically dripping, “I will be departing through the kitchen door in approximately two minutes, and I will not be waiting a second longer, so if you intend to accompany me, I’d suggest you get moving.”
“I do enjoy a woman telling me what to do,” he said with a roguish wink.
He seemed not to notice her discomposure as he rose from the table, gave Papa an affectionate pat on the shoulder, and delivered his porridge bowl to Mrs. Fawcett in the kitchen, paying her all manner of compliments as he did so.
Georgie trailed behind him mutely, trying to regain her equilibrium as she pulled on a mackintosh and a pair of muddy boots, and it was only once they were out the door and sloshing through puddles in the kitchen garden that she mustered her sangfroid once more.
Sebastian had other concerns, however. “My shoes may never recover from this,” he said, looking down at his loafers mournfully. They were a deep brown leather with stylish little tassels, and had no doubt cost a sum that would cause Georgie to have apoplexy.
“You cannot possibly have thought those were a sensible shoe choice today,” she said waspishly, opening her umbrella. Sebastian followed suit—he did, apparently, at least have sufficient common sense to have thought to carry one.
He neatly dodged a particularly large puddle at the garden gate, then opened the gate and stepped back, allowing her to pass through before him.
“Better than the alternative options,” he assured her, once again looking dejectedly down at the damp leather. They set off down the long, now somewhat muddy lane leading from Radcliffe Hall to the village high street.
“Do you not come to the countryside often?” she asked after a minute or two of silence, the raindrops tapping a gentle beat on their umbrellas.
“Not much these days,” he said, his tone slightly evasive; she glanced at him curiously, but he was still gazing around them at the surrounding fields, overflowing with buttercups and cornflowers, and his face bore its usual expression of absent-minded good humor.
Despite the dreary weather, he positively radiated good health and vigor, his skin glowing, his expensive clothes tailored to show off his lean, athletic figure to best advantage.
Even his golden hair seemed to be curling attractively in the damp.
He looked like he should be racing about an athletic field somewhere, or rowing a boat, or carrying a willing maiden home.
And yet, she could tell that he did not entirely welcome this line of conversation, despite every appearance he gave of ease and good cheer.
He hid it well, but he was also very carefully not looking at her at the moment, and her curiosity was piqued.
“Did you grow up in London, then?” she asked, something within her now determined to weasel a bit of information out of him.
How, she wondered, did one come to be a secretary to a famous detective?
Presumably his path into the world of murder investigation had not involved as many direct connections to crimes (or, at least, to their victims) as hers had.
“No, in a little village in Cambridgeshire,” he said. “Only moved to London after I left university.”
So far, so unremarkable—similar to the biographies of many a poncy and overprivileged man of his ilk. But…
“So you do not visit your home often?” she pressed.
“At Christmas, usually,” he said. “That’s sufficient time with my family to last me a full twelve months, I find.
” His tone was all bland geniality, as usual, but Georgie looked at him sharply as he spoke.
Spotting her curious gaze, he shrugged. “It’s not an interesting story, old bean. We’re just not terribly compatible.”
“Do not call me ‘old bean,’ ” she said shortly.
“All right,” he agreed, waiting another beat before adding slyly, “old sport.”
“For the love of—”
“Relax, darling Georgie,” he said soothingly. “I’m only joking.”
“I’m not your darling,” she retorted.
“Not yet,” he said, twirling his umbrella bit jauntily.
Georgie rolled her eyes heavenward as they continued their rainy walk into the village—and it was only later that she considered that maybe, just maybe, he’d provoked her deliberately, so as not to talk about his relationship with his family any longer.
It was cunningly done, if so—which was odd, because prior to that moment, “cunning” was not a word she would have ever thought to apply to Sebastian Fletcher-Ford.