Chapter Eighteen
They decided that the wooing of Murder Tourists was best done by romantic candlelight, and so the group split up for the afternoon—Lexington and Arthur departed, presumably to do their actual jobs, while Sebastian and Georgie decided to head back to Radcliffe Hall in the hope of procuring sustenance from Mrs. Fawcett.
As they walked down the high street—which at the moment was fairly quiet, most villagers being at home for lunch—Georgie suddenly stumbled over an uneven cobblestone. Before she could so much as extend an arm to break her fall, however, Sebastian reached out to steady her with a hand on her arm.
She glanced sideways at him as she straightened. “Thank you.”
He smiled easily at her, slipping his arm through hers. “Perilous places, these small villages.”
Georgie gave him a distracted smile in return, her mind suddenly occupied by the sensation of his arm entwined with hers, the subtle pressure he was exerting to tuck her more closely against his side.
Alarmingly, she rather liked it; this close, she could see the faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and smell the soap he used to shave.
At this intimate proximity, he seemed less like his usual figure of golden-haired, athletic perfection, and more like, simply…
A man.
A very, very handsome man—but just a man nonetheless.
He glanced down at her. “Is there something on my face?” he asked slyly, and Georgie looked away, cheeks heating.
“Impossible,” she said airily. “I saw you check your reflection in a window twice as we were leaving the pub.”
He smiled at her again—even out of the corner of her eye, she caught a bit of its blinding force. And she realized, as they walked along the high street out of the village in the afternoon sunshine, arm in arm, that they looked like…
Well, like a couple.
Which was absurd, except…
Except for the fact that she could still feel the press of his mouth to hers, like a phantom.
Except for the fact that occasionally, when she glanced sideways at him, she caught him smiling at her, in a way that felt like a conversation, despite no words being spoken.
She was so occupied by all these thoughts that she was barely conscious of the silence that had fallen between them, other than vaguely noting that it felt comfortable, not like the sort of silence that anyone needed to rush to fill.
Like the silences she shared with Papa and Abigail and Arthur.
Not like silences she should be sharing with handsome playboys from town.
It was difficult to think of him in strictly those terms anymore, though.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said, not looking at her as he spoke; indeed, he was smiling flirtatiously at a pair of grannies who were passing them clutching paper bags of treats for Ernest.
Georgie glanced down at her feet to avoid looking at him; she certainly wasn’t going to tell him what was actually on her mind.
“Oh, I…” She scrambled for an answer that was at least partly true. “I was just thinking, if the Murder Tourists have indeed been up to something suspect, it will make for an excellent article for Arthur.” She tried not to sound glum as she said it.
She felt Sebastian’s eyes slide back to her and looked determinedly ahead.
“Did you not know that he was interested in leaving the village?”
“I suppose I did—I mean, it’s something he’s mentioned often enough over the years.
I just didn’t think he’d actually, truly go.
It’s the sort of thing we’ve discussed in the fanciful way we talk about things we’d never actually do—like how I’ve talked of wanting to apprentice at Regent’s Park, or study at Swanley Horticultural College. ”
“But why are those things that you’d never do?”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, just as it doesn’t seem odd to me that Crawley might want to leave the village, it doesn’t seem inconceivable that you could go to Swanley or work at a garden in London.”
Georgie waved an impatient hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you see how I’m needed here? There are all the murders, obviously, but even before that—my father is getting older—”
“And your sister lives here.”
“For now,” Georgie stressed. “But I’m hoping to send her to stay with my aunt, and if she meets someone there—or finds some sort of work she enjoys—why, she might never come back!”
“Does your sister wish to go to London?” Sebastian asked, and Georgie glanced at him, startled.
He was still gazing around at his surroundings with his usual expression of good-humored appreciation, but she was beginning to suspect that that expression was nothing more than a mask—and a rather sneaky one, at that.
“She is… coming around to the idea,” Georgie said.
“Ah,” he said, with far too much understanding for Georgie’s liking.
“She is!” she insisted.
“If she’s reluctant to go, why can’t you go in her stead?” he asked.
“Because,” she said heatedly, “in case you’ve not noticed, I’ve got my hands full with an absurd number of corpses!”
“But we are going to solve that problem,” he reminded her. “In fact, we’ve only approximately two and a half days in which to resolve our current mystery before my contractually obligated departure.”
“Don’t tease me with the promise of happier days to come.”
He grinned. “My dearest Georgie, are you flirting with me?”
“Does my professing to long for your departure count as flirting?” she asked him with a stony look.
“Coming from you? Absolutely.”
And the worst of it, Georgie realized, was that he might well be right about that.
“My point is, I cannot possibly leave the village.”
“I believe that you believe that,” he said diplomatically. She stopped in her tracks, dropping his arm and putting her hands on her hips.
“Don’t patronize me,” she said, feeling heat rise in her cheeks.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and eyed her warily. “I wasn’t patronizing you. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever known that I’d be less likely to patronize, frankly. You’re the most intelligent, competent person I’ve ever met.”
“I—you—” She found herself actually at a loss for words; everything about this conversation was infuriating. How dare he ask her uncomfortable questions, then raise points she’d rather not consider, then offer her what was possibly one of the loveliest compliments she’d ever received?
It was maddening.
It was maddening, too, that they were standing on the village high street, just outside the Sleepy Hedgehog, and that it was therefore unquestionably not the correct moment to do something as silly, as reckless, as scandalous (to the ladies of the St. Drogo’s social club, at least) as kiss him.
And yet, despite those considerations, she somehow found herself taking two quick steps forward, reaching up to place her hands on his face, and proceeding to do exactly that.
For a split second, she caught him off guard, and could sense his hesitation in the slight delay before his hands rose to rest at her waist. After another moment, however, his mind evidently caught up to the situation, and suddenly it was no longer Georgie kissing him, but something mutual—something shared.
There was no longer any hesitation in his touch, no uncertainty—no doubt that he knew exactly what he was doing.
And of course he did, because how many other women had he done this with before?
But Georgie firmly shut that thought away, not wanting to think about it, not now—not, perhaps, ever, because it suddenly struck her as slightly unfair that she judged him harshly merely because he was handsome and liked going to bed and had done it with a number of willing women.
What, truly, was the harm in that, other than the fact that she didn’t like to think of him doing that with anyone other than her?
There was little room for that thought, however—or for any others—because logical reasoning was rapidly fading from her mind in the face of the relentless onslaught of sensation:
The heat of his mouth on hers.
The firm press of his hand at her jaw, tilting her mouth up to meet his at just the angle he wanted.
The smell of his skin, all around her.
The tight grip of his arm around her waist, tugging her closer to him until she was pressed flush against him in what felt like shocking intimacy, the feeling of his heart pounding against hers.
And—best, perhaps, of all—the sound of a moan working its way up from his chest when her tongue darted out to trace the seam of his lips, deepening the kiss, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before he pulled back.
Her lips felt swollen, and she reached a hand up to touch them, unthinking, and his eyes dropped to follow the motion, darkening at the sight.
He pulled her forward, placed another lingering kiss on her mouth before finally, regretfully, releasing her.
“You shouldn’t compliment me like that,” she said at last, after a moment of silence filled only with the sound of their ragged breathing.
She became once again conscious of the fact that they were on a public road, in plain view of anyone who might have happened to be passing, but a quick glance around confirmed that they were still, mercifully, alone, and not giving the gossips of the village a story to dine out on for the next year.
(Or until the next corpse materialized, at least.)
“If that’s going to be your response, then I think I ought to do it more often,” he said, his normally smooth voice rougher at the edges than she’d ever heard it.
“I—we can’t—what are we doing?” she asked helplessly, a hand rising to touch her tingling lips. His eyes tracked the movement, gleaming with satisfaction.
“Solving crimes and kissing in the great outdoors?” he suggested, and a laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it.
A slow smile crept across his face. “I love when you do that.”
“What—laugh?”
“Laugh as if you can’t help it,” he said simply. “Laugh against your better judgment.”