“I do not.”

“You forget about her,” he amended. “It amounts to the same thing.”

“Oh, and you pay so much attention to Nicholas.”

“Nicholas is at Eton. I can hardly shower him with attention from here.”

He handed her a brandy. She noticed her glass was considerably less full than his had been.

“I don’t ignore her,” Billie muttered. She didn’t like being scolded, especially by George Rokesby. Especially when he was right.

“It’s all right,” he said, surprising her with his sudden kindness. “I’m sure it’s different when Andrew isn’t home.”

“What does Andrew have to do with anything?”

He turned to her with an expression that hovered somewhere between surprised and amused. “Really?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Maddening man.

George took a long sip, and then – without even turning toward her – he managed to give her a condescending look. “He should just marry you and be done with it.”

“What?” Her surprise was unfeigned. Not that she might marry Andrew. She’d always thought she’d one day marry him. Or Edward. She didn’t really care which; it was all the same to her. But that George was actually speaking of it in such a manner…

She didn’t like it.

“I’m sure you’re aware,” she said, quickly regaining her composure, “that Andrew and I have no understanding.”

He waved that off with a roll of his eyes. “You could do worse.”

“So could he,” she retorted.

George chuckled. “True enough.”

“I’m not going to marry Andrew,” she said. Not yet, anyway. But if he asked…

She would probably say yes. It was what everyone expected.

George took a sip of his brandy, watching her enigmatically over the rim of his glass.

“The last thing I’d want to do,” Billie said, unable to leave the silence be, “is get engaged to someone who is going to turn around and leave.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” George said with a thoughtful frown. “Many military wives follow their husbands. And you’re more adventurous than most.”

“I like it here.”

“In my father’s library?” he quipped.

“In Kent,” she said pertly. “At Aubrey Hall. I’m needed.”

He made a patronizing sound.

“I am!”

“I’m sure you are.”

Her spine stiffened. If her ankle weren’t throbbing, she’d have probably jumped to her feet. “You have no idea all I do.”

“Please don’t tell me.”

“What?”

He made a dismissive motion with his hand. “You have that look about you.”

“What loo —”

“The one that says you’re about to launch into a very long speech.”

Her lips parted with shock. Of all the condescending, supercilious… Then she saw his face. He was enjoying himself!

Of course he was. He lived to get under her skin. Like a needle. A dull, rusty needle.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Billie,” he said, leaning against a bookcase as he chuckled. “Can’t you take a ribbing? I know you help your father from time to time.”

From time to time? She ran the bloody place. Aubrey Hall would fall apart without her direction. Her father had all but ceded the ledgers to her, and the steward had long since given up protesting about having to answer to a woman. Billie had, for all intents and purposes, been raised as her father’s eldest son. Except that she couldn’t inherit anything. And eventually Edmund would grow up, take his rightful place. Her younger brother wasn’t stupid; he’d learn what to do quickly enough, and when he did… when Edmund showed all of Aubrey how capable he was, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief and say something about natural order being restored.

Billie would be superfluous.

Replaced.

The ledgers would be quietly removed from her purview. No one would ask her to inspect the cottages or settle disputes. Edmund would become lord of the manor, and she’d be his long-toothed older sister, the one people quietly pitied and mocked.

God, maybe she should marry Andrew.

“Are you sure you’re not unwell?” George asked.

“I’m fine,” she said curtly.

He shrugged. “You looked rather ill all of a sudden.”

She’d felt rather ill all of a sudden. Her future had finally danced before her, and there was nothing bright and beautiful about it.

She tossed back the rest of her brandy.

“Careful there,” George cautioned, but she was already coughing, unaccustomed to setting her throat on fire. “It’s better to sip it slowly,” he added.

“I know,” she ground out, well aware that she sounded like an idiot.

“Of course you do,” he murmured, and just like that, she felt better. George Rokesby was being a pompous ass. Everything was back to normal. Or almost normal.

Normal enough.

Chapter 8

L
ady Bridgerton began planning her assault on the social Season the very next morning. Billie hobbled into the small dining room to break her fast, fully prepared to be drafted into service, but to her relief and amazement her mother said that she did not require Billie’s assistance with the planning. All she asked was that Billie write a note of invitation to Mary and Felix. Billie nodded her grateful agreement. This she could do.