Page 35 of And Then There Was the One
“Two,” Sebastian said, revoltingly, as Georgie said, “One, please.” She was tempted to ask for none, just to make a point, but, since she didn’t actually enjoy unsweetened tea, thought that might be cutting off her nose to spite her face.
Miss Lettercross handed the two cups of tea to them. She and Sebastian sat for some minutes, sipping, making idle chitchat, and casting significant looks at each other. Georgie realized that they hadn’t worked out a way to make their escape without appearing suspicious.
“How long do you expect Mr. Lettercross to be out?” Sebastian asked Miss Lettercross after about a quarter of an hour; she was seated behind her desk, sharpening one of her pencils, and glanced up at him.
“He didn’t say—did you need to be going?” She sounded extremely disappointed.
“It’s just that if Miss Radcliffe isn’t feeling well, I wonder if perhaps I ought to take her home, and we can return another day,” Sebastian explained, his voice soothing and very reasonable. Georgie thought, wildly, that he was likely quite good at calming animals.
She took another sip of tea and stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. “That might be for the best….”
“I don’t want you to overtax yourself,” Sebastian said, turning to her with wide, concerned eyes. He yawned, too. “It’s been an exhausting few days, dear Georgie.”
“I’m not your dear anything,” Georgie muttered, the wordscoming strangely slowly. She felt rather as though, in attempting to speak, she was swimming against a current, feeling sluggish and unwieldy.
“So you say,” he agreed amiably, stifling another yawn, and dimly, as if at the very corner of her brain, Georgie began to register a feeling of vague alarm.
She glanced over at Miss Lettercross, who was watching them closely. Her mind flicked back to the contents of that stack of papers—or what she’d managed to absorb of them in the scant time she’d had to look through them—and her eyes narrowed as they met Miss Lettercross’s gaze.
“Miss Lettercross,” she began, and Miss Lettercross was now rising from her seat and walking toward her, her expression concerned.
Sebastian, who had reached for the tin of biscuits, was now helplessly stifling another enormous yawn, frowning faintly. “Georgie,” he said, “do you know, I think there’s something odd afoot here?”
But by this point, Georgie felt as though she were at the bottom of a deep well, calling up to him—and then, shortly thereafter, she was aware of nothing at all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Georgie opened her eyes, she was disturbed to find that she was being cradled. The thread count of the cotton against her cheek left no doubt as to who was doing the cradling, despite the currently fuzzy state of her mind.
“Ugh,” she said, shutting her eyes firmly in the hopes that this would prove to be some sort of bad dream.
“I’m going to choose not to take that personally,” came Sebastian’s voice from above her, sounding amused. “I would also like to note that this is becoming a bit of a habit. Have you a particular penchant for slumping dramatically to the ground, Georgie? Do you find it adds a bit of titillation to a courtship?”
Thiswas sufficient to wake Georgie up in a hurry, though it was only much later that it would occur to her that this had perhaps been precisely his aim. She pushed at him until he helped her to an upright seated position.
“Thereisno courtship,” she reminded him icily, once shehad blown a curl out of her face. She could only imagine what state her hair was in just now, but it likely didn’t matter—wherever they were was so dimly lit that Sebastian appeared merely a shadowy outline before her.
“So you like to remind me,” he agreed mournfully, and Georgie shook her head, feeling the strangest desire to smile. She glanced around, trying to make out their surroundings in the darkness. After a moment, she realized…
“Are we in a cellar?” she asked, frowning.
“It does appear so,” he confirmed. “Beyond that, I know no more than you do—I only came to about ten minutes before you did. I don’t mind telling you that you gave me a bit of a fright, though; do you know you breathe remarkably slowly when you’re unconscious?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, rather acidly. “I’ll try to remedy that the next time I find myself unexpectedly rendered so. How did we get into a cellar?”
“I expect our lovely Miss Lettercross drugged us,” he said a bit grimly. “As I’m not in the habit of suddenly falling unconscious and then waking up next to a printing press.” He gave an uncharacteristically irritated snort. “I should have stopped drinking that tea the second I noticed it tasted a bit bitter.”
Georgie blinked. “A press?” She squinted in the darkness.
“Just behind me,” Sebastian said. “Your eyes will adjust in a minute or two.”
“Why on earth is there a printing press in… well, in whoever’s cellar this is?”
“I expect it’s the cellar of the very same council office that we were in prior to having our tea,” he said. “Since I doubt MissLettercross could be out dragging our unconscious bodies around in broad daylight without attracting a few strange looks.”
“I can’t believe she got us both down here,” Georgie said. “Even if it’s only a flight of stairs—she’s not that large.”
“Well, perhaps she’ll put in an appearance and answer that question for us,” he said, sounding a bit weary. There was an edge to his voice that Georgie had never heard before; she supposed drugging, kidnapping, and imprisonment would try even the sunniest of dispositions.
