“You have your own mysteries too, I suspect,” he said, then quoted one of his letters, “The quiet soul holds a storm within, but love holds strong. It navigates through.”
“Have you always been such a poet? You want to know when I read that one?” I asked. “It was the anniversary of my parent’s death, and it brought me a lot of comfort.”
“You mentioned it at school a year ago, so I knew the date. You were so melancholy, it broke my heart.” His expression softened. “I’m sorry I did nothing to help you then. I think you were dating Liam Sharp at the time, and I didn’t want to interfere. Plus, I’m not fae. Can’t you only date fae?”
“Liam’s high fae, but that was a coincidence. I can date whomever I please.” I shrugged, wondering what I had ever seen in Liam and why I hadn’t considered Henry. Perhaps it was because Henry showed no interest in me. "Liam and I were never serious, we just hung out a bit. And he turned out to be unsupportive. It was never meant to be.”
“I didn’t think it would work with him either, but it wasn’t my place to say,” Henry said, briefly glancing at my lips again, which I’m sure made me blush.
“Were you ever going to confess that you’d been writing the letters?” I asked.
“I wanted you to know how I felt, but somehow I couldn’t imagine that Georgiana Valemont would ever be interested in me, or any other mere human. Just bringing a smile to your face… well, that’s pretty sappy, isn’t it?” he asked. “I didn’t… I still really don’t stand a chance with you.”
“What? That’s the sweetest thing I've ever heard. I just didn’t realize I was so intimidating.” I paused for a minute, and a strange sorrow rushed over me as I wondered what else I’d missed out on for this reason. “Maybe I was fooling myself, but I thought I was pretty ordinary.”
“You’re a combination of ordinary and extraordinary.” He took my hand, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “We both know how the world works, and a high fae princess never ends up with an ordinary guy. Do they?”
“You say that, but I might,” was all I could think of to say. I’d never before worried about whether someone I liked was fae. But facing the idea head-on made me wonder. Did I care about that? Did my familycare about it?
Of course, when Darcy found out about Wickham, he was furious. But Darcy’s anger was because of what Wickhamdid,not that hewasn’thigh fae. He didn't want Wickham taking advantage of me.I turned away from the security video feeds, stood, and opened the door.
“That’s not a no.” Henry’s grin held sorrow behind it and took the door from me, holding it open.
“It’s not. It’s anI have no idea what to think right now, but I’m really glad you’re here. Let’s take a break from detective work. We can interview the rest of the guests later. I want to bake cookies for our guests. Care to join me?” I stopped in the doorway.
“I’d love to, and I'll try not to rush into kissing you again.” He hugged me from the side, which was warm, strong, and real. I didn’t know where this would go, but it felt so natural that I wanted to linger.
“I do like you, Henry,” I said softly, then pulled away into the hall.
“Careful, you’re getting my hopes up,” he said playfully, but there was a serious undertone to his voice.
I didn’t know what to say, and I was never one for pushing things quickly, even if my instincts were screaming at me to throw caution to the wind. So I focused myattention on the task at hand.Trying to solve the murder might also give us some time to emotionally process what was happening.
“I have an idea. When we bake the cookies, we can use delivering them as a chance to chat with and question the rest of the guests. We have an advantage in that we haven’t announced the murder to everyone. So we may get more candid answers if they think we’re just being friendly,” I said, taking his hand and pulling him out into the long, carpeted hallway with me.
“Impressive. I didn’t think the fae princess had a deceptive bone in her body.” Henry closed the security room door behind him and followed my lead.
I led him through the hall with its carved and molded wooden walls, oil paintings, and stained-glass windows. Marshmallow was sleeping in one of the windowsills, but jumped down to follow us as we passed by. “Well, that’s the thing. Even though I choose honesty, I can usually manage not to offend.”
“One of your admirable qualities, Georgiana,” he said."Of which,you have many."
I was caught off guard by his voice, and nearly kissed him again in the hallway. “You’re aware of my admirable qualities?”
“It’s not like they’re hard to find.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know you were kind of the dream girl for every guy at school, right?”
“You’re flattering me. Better be careful or I may get an over-inflated opinion of myself and become utterly intolerable.” I couldn’t help but flirt a little, though I still held back. Neither of us knew where this connection would lead. “Plus, I think it was you who had the fan club at school.”
His pink cheeks grew red. “You knew about that?”
“How do you know I wasn’t a member?” I teased.
“Ugh, because they gave me a list of names of people who’d signed up. The awkwardness of walking down the hall and having to act like I knew everyone who talked to me. I’d just tell myself to smile and nod and keep going.” He looked mortified, but still very handsome. “Yes, I checked to see if your name was on the list.”
“Oh, the struggles of fame. I solemnly promise not to start a fan club.” At the end of the hall, I pulled on awall sconce, and a secret passage opened. “We’ll get to the kitchen faster this way.”
"You're kidding. Secret passages?"
Marshmallow appeared seemingly from thin air, rubbed his head against my leg and slipped inside, then I stepped into the long stone passageway. “Yes. Pemberley has a way of moving people to exactly where they need to be."
