Page 60 of And Then There Was the One
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 windowtwiceas 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 wasactuallyon 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 Crawleymight 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.”
“Fornow,” 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 sisterwishto 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’tyougo 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!”
“Butweare 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.”
