Page 48 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

A tiny smile appeared.

"I think we're both exceedingly bad at this."

"At investigations?"

"No." A little laugh. "At staying away from one another."

I smiled despite myself. "Abysmal."

She laughed softly.

Until that moment I had not understood how desperately I wanted to hear that sound.

"You cannot keep me out of this investigation," she said.

"I know. But you must be sensible, Rosalynd."

"I'll try."

I wanted to shake her. "For once in your life you have to be. Promise. Or I'll shut you out."

She stepped closer. So close that the gold flecks in her eyes were plain. "I don't want to be apart from you. I can't sleep from wanting you."

I brushed my fingers across the softness of her cheek.

She leaned into it. A small, trusting movement. Enough to ruin me entirely.

"Neither do I." It was the last truth I had left.

She smiled. A soft, radiant smile.

I bent my head. She met me halfway.

Her lips found mine with a certainty that unraveled the last of my resolve. The kiss began gently, almost cautiously, as though we were both relearning something we had spent too many weeks denying ourselves. Then her fingers tightened against my shoulders, and I drew her nearer, no longer able to pretend restraint came easily.

She tasted faintly of chocolate and ratafia, and of the warm summer afternoon she had carried in from Grosvenor Square. For one impossible, precious moment there was no masked man, no Queen's bargain standing between us. There was only Rosalynd.

When at last we parted, neither of us had gone very far. My forehead rested lightly against hers. I felt her breath catch before she smiled—a small, unguarded smile meant for no one but me. A long moment later she rested her head against my chest. Beneath my hands, the last of the afternoon's fury had gone out of her shoulders.

"We're hopeless," she murmured.

"Completely."

"What are we going to tell the Queen?"

The question was so entirely, perfectly her—the kiss barely concluded and the logistics already marshaling—that the laugh arrived before I could dress it in dignity.

"I haven't the foggiest." And then I kissed her again.

Chapter

Seventeen

A Council of Five

The study had not improved in our absence. The cheese was gone, and the bread, and most of the cold beef. Finch presided over the wreckage with the contentment of a general who has carried the field. Inspector Graves stood at the window with a glass he did not appear to have troubled.

Both men turned as we came in. They looked at my hand, which lay in the crook of Steele's arm, and they both smiled.