Page 66 of And Then There Was the One
“Come on—bring the plate and follow me,” she said, leading him toward the kitchen staircase. Originally intended for the servants the Radcliffes could no longer afford, now used by the family, the kitchen staircase allowed one to ascend its narrow, rough-hewn steps to the top floor without passing through the main rooms of the house. Once they emergedon the top floor, they walked down the hallway to Georgie’s room, where they were greeted by Egg, who raised her head from her tartan cushion, spotted Sebastian, and immediately commenced the sort of mournful howl masquerading as a bark that only the floppiest-eared of dogs can manage.
“Egg, for heaven’s sake.”
Sebastian wasted no time in sinking to a crouch, which Egg took as the invitation it was; fortunately, she was so eagerly trying to butt her head beneath his chin that she ceased her barking. Georgie pressed her ear to the door for a moment, listening intently, but did not hear the sound of any other doors opening, or footsteps on the stairs; she didn’t fancy being interrupted at the moment, because she had Important Murder Business to discuss with Sebastian.
She turned back to find him still in a crouch, stroking Egg’s ears and watching her with a far more guarded expression than she normally saw on his face. She suddenly realized the intimacy of their situation in a rush—in her bedroom, late at night, alone. In an attempt to dispel her own discomfort, she crossed to her desk and clicked on the electric lamp that sat there, then switched on the lamp on her bedside table as well. In the warm incandescent glow, the room lost a bit of its air of moonlit romance, though the fact still remained that they were in a literalturret, of all things. Georgie walked to the casement windows and eased one open, allowing cool night air to waft into the room. She stood for a moment, staring at the green hills, dark and shadowy under the night sky, which seemed to be clearing of its earlier cloud cover, a few bright stars popping into view.
She turned in time to catch Sebastian watching her, his expression unreadable, his hand on Egg’s head having stilled.
“What is it?” she asked, a bit uncertain. She felt suddenly oddly conscious of her own body, in a pair of worn wool trousers and one of her oldest jumpers, her hair no doubt in disarray.
“I like watching you think,” he said simply, his eyes steady on hers.
“Trying to work out how to do it yourself?” she asked, but there was no acid to it, and he smiled slowly; it was akin to watching the sun edge its way above the horizon. He climbed to his feet after one last loving pat for Egg, then walked toward her, his steps deliberate.
“What’s the rest of your theory?” he asked, coming to a halt with scant inches left between them.
“My… theory?” Her voice was the slightest bit breathless.
He reached out for her hand and ran a thumb down her palm. She felt it like a brand on her skin.
“About Penbaker.” He held her hand loosely in his. “If Mrs. Penbaker killed him, why would she have done it?”
His proximity was making it difficult to think. This was an alarming new development, since they were in the business, for two more days, of solving mysteries together, and that did require both proximity and, ideally, the ability to think clearly.
“Unless,” he said thoughtfully, “Penbaker’s death itself truly wasn’t suspicious. He may really have died of a heart attack. After all, if he was masterminding the murders in the village, then it doesn’t stand to reason that there’s a separate killer out there who would wish him dead.”
“I suppose,” Georgie agreed reluctantly, her gaze moving restlessly around the room, landing on one of the books in a haphazard stack on her bedside table.A Dictionary of Poisons.There was a copy of it on display at the murder exhibition, Georgie had noticed.
The murder exhibition that Mrs. Penbaker was responsible for. The murder exhibition that featured a poison garden, no less—with ample opportunity for her to clip something from it. There were any number of poisons that could induce cardiac arrest like the council chairman had suffered, of course… but that got back to Sebastian’s question: Why would Mrs. Penbaker have poisoned her husband?
Unless…
Georgie looked at Sebastian, her heart pounding in her chest.
“Unless,” she said, her mind racing, still trying to consider the possible options in her head, “it was, in fact, Mr. Penbaker behind all the murders—butwithouthis wife’s knowledge. What if she worked it out somehow and decided to put a stop to it?”
He stared at her for a long moment, a smile spreading across his face. “I cannotwaitto witness this particular conversation,” he said, and then he leaned down and kissed her.
And Georgie, without a moment’s hesitation, reached her arms up to wind around his neck, and kissed him back.
“You’re extremely attractive when you’re being clever,” he murmured against her mouth some indeterminate amount of time later. His hand had strayed to the waistband of her trousers and slipped beneath the hem of her jumper, resting onthe bare skin of her stomach, causing gooseflesh to rise on her arms.
“You’reextremely attractive when you’re not pretendingnotto be clever,” she shot back, and he smiled before leaning down to kiss her throat, pulling her tighter against him. Georgie hooked a leg around his hip, keeping him pressed to her.
“If you want me to leave,” he said against the skin of her neck, “we should probably stop now.”
Georgie paused for a moment, her pulse pounding in her chest and between her legs, so distracted by the feeling of one of his hands straying down her back to cup her bottom that she could scarcely think straight. “And what if,” she said, pulling back for a moment, just enough that he could look up to meet her eyes directly, “I don’t want you to leave?”
He smiled at her—a dangerous, tempting smile.
And then his mouth was on hers once again, giving her a deep, drugging kiss before moving to trail a series of kisses down her jaw, and his hands were everywhere, somehow—tugging her jumper over her head; undoing the buttons of her blouse and helping her pull it off; and then skimming over the bare skin of her stomach, her pulse jumping beneath his touch in places that she personally thought a pulse had no business taking up residence.
She stepped back and jerked her chin at him. “It’s your turn,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, the air of the room cool on her skin as she stood there in her bra and trousers. He wasted no time in reaching for the hem of his own jumper, revealing nothing but an undershirt beneath. This, too, was gone a moment later, and Georgie didn’t even botherattempting not to stare at the golden skin and firm muscles of his chest and abdomen.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered, feeling vaguely feverish, and took three quick steps toward him, pulling his head down to hers for a kiss rather than continue trying to resist the urge to begin mentally cataloguing his abdominal muscles. She had to preservesomedignity, after all.
Thoughts of dignity rapidly faded, however, under the relentless onslaught of sensation—the warmth of his hand at the base of her neck, anchoring her in place; the heat of his mouth and the taste of him, shortbread and whisky, sweet and heady; the feeling of his tongue tangling with hers; the pounding of her pulse at her core; the insistent hardness of him against her stomach, evident through his trousers, causing her to act on some wordless instinct and cant her hips at just the right angle to create some desired friction. A moan broke the silence of the room, and it took her a moment to realize that it was hers.
