Page 27

She cut herself off. Swallowed. She’d just done exactly what she’d told herself not to do.
Argue her point.
Defend herself.
Act like a child.
She shoveled as much of her breakfast into her mouth as she could manage in thirty seconds, then stood and grabbed her crutches, which were leaning against the table. “I will be in the library if anyone needs me.” To Georgiana she added, “Let me know when the ground is dry enough to spread a blanket.”
Georgiana nodded.
“Mother,” Billie said to Lady Bridgerton with a nod to replace the normal bob of a curtsy she gave when she took her leave. Yet another thing one couldn’t manage on crutches.
“Billie,” her mother said, her voice conciliatory. And perhaps a little frustrated. “I wish you wouldn’t…”
Billie waited for her to finish her sentence, but her mother just shook her head.
“Never mind,” she said.
Billie nodded again, pressing a crutch into the ground for balance as she pivoted on her good foot. She thunked the crutches on the ground, then swung her body between them, her shoulders held tight and straight as she repeated the motion all the way to the door.
It was bloody hard to make a dignified exit on crutches.
George still wasn’t sure how Andrew had talked him into accompanying him to Aubrey Hall for a late morning visit, but here he was, standing in the grand entry as he handed his hat to Thamesly, butler to the Bridgertons since before he was born.
“You’re doing a good deed, old man,” Andrew said, slapping George’s shoulder with surely more force than was necessary.
“Don’t call me old man.” God, he hated that.
But this only made Andrew laugh. Of course. “Whomever you might be, you’re still doing a good deed. Billie will be out of her mind with boredom.”
“She could use a little boredom in her life,” George muttered.
“True enough,” Andrew conceded, “but my concern was for her family. God only knows what madness she’ll inflict upon them if no one shows up to entertain her.”
“You talk as if she’s a child.”
“A child?” Andrew turned to look at him, his face taking on an enigmatic serenity that George knew well enough to find suspicious in the extreme. “Not at all.”
“Miss Bridgerton is in the library,” Thamesly informed them. “If you will wait in the drawing room, I will alert her to your presence.”
“No need,” Andrew said cheerily. “We will join her in the library. The last thing we want is to force Miss Bridgerton to hobble about more than is necessary.”
“Very kind of you, sir,” Thamesly murmured.
“Is she in a great deal of pain?” George inquired.
“I would not know,” the butler said diplomatically, “but it may be worth noting that the weather is very fine, and Miss Bridgerton is in the library.”
“So she’s miserable, then.”
“Very much so, my lord.”
George supposed this was why he’d allowed Andrew to drag him away from his weekly meeting with their father’s steward. He’d known Billie’s ankle could not have been much improved. It had been grotesquely swollen the night before, no matter how festively she’d wrapped it with that ridiculous pink ribbon. Injuries like that did not resolve themselves overnight.
And while he and Billie had never been friends, precisely, he felt a strange responsibility for her well-being, at least as pertained to her current situation. What was that old Chinese proverb? If you saved a life, you were responsible for it forever? He certainly had not saved Billie’s life, but he had been stuck up on a roof with her, and…
And bloody hell, he had no idea what any of this meant, just that he thought he ought to make sure she was feeling at least somewhat better. Even though she was the most exasperating female, and she bloody well set his teeth on edge half the time.
It was still the right thing to do. That was all.
“Oh, Billie…” Andrew called as they made their way to the back of the house. “We’ve come to rescue you…”
George shook his head. How his brother survived in the navy he would never know. Andrew had not a serious bone in his body.
“Billie…” he called again, his voice warbling into a ridiculous singsong. “Where aaaaaarrrrrre you?”
“In the library,” George reminded him.
“Well, of course she is,” Andrew said with a blinding grin, “but isn’t this more fun?”
Naturally, he did not wait for an answer.
“Billie!” he called again. “Oh, Billiebilliebilliebill —”
“For heaven’s sake!” Billie’s head popped out of the doorway to the library. Her chestnut hair had been pulled back into the loose coiffure of a lady with no plans to socialize. “You’re loud enough to wake the dead. What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
“I saw you last night.”
“So you did.” Andrew leaned down and dropped a brotherly kiss on her cheek. “But you had to go without for so very long. You need to stock up.”
“On your company?” Billie asked dubiously.
Andrew patted her arm. “We are so fortunate that you have this opportunity.”
George leaned to the right so that he could see her from behind his brother. “Shall I strangle him or will you?”
She rewarded him with a devious smile. “Oh, it must be a joint endeavor, don’t you think?”