by Julia Quinn
Men like George loved to think themselves manly and strong.
She watched him as he planted his hands on his hips. Very well, he was manly and strong. But he was like the rest of them; he’d want a woman who flirted over a fan. God forbid he married someone capable.
“This is a disaster,” he spat.
Billie only somewhat resisted the urge to snarl. “You’re just realizing this now?”
His response was an equally immature scowl.
“Why couldn’t you be nice?” Billie blurted out.
“Nice?” he echoed.
Oh, God, why had she said that? Now she was going to have to explain. “Like the rest of your family,” she clarified.
“Nice,” he said again. He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe her gall. “Nice.”
“I’m nice,” she said. Then she regretted that, because she wasn’t nice. At least not all the time, and she had a feeling she wasn’t being particularly nice right now. But surely she could be excused, because this was George Rokesby, and she couldn’t help herself.
And neither, it seemed, could he.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” he said, in a voice that was positively bathed with a lack of niceness, “that I am nice to everyone but you?”
It hurt. It shouldn’t have, because they’d never liked each other, and damn it, it shouldn’t have hurt because she didn’t want it to.
But she would never let it show.
“I think you were trying to insult me,” she said, picking disdainfully through her words.
He stared at her, waiting for further comment.
She shrugged.
“But . . . ?” he prodded.
She shrugged again, pretending to look at her fingernails. Which of course meant that she did look at her fingernails, which were revoltingly filthy.
One more thing she didn’t have in common with the future Lady Kennard.
She counted silently to five, waiting for him to demand an explanation in that cutting way he’d perfected before he’d been old enough to shave. But he didn’t say a word, and finally she was the one to lose whatever asinine contest was simmering between them, and she lifted her head.
He wasn’t even looking at her.
Damn him.
And damn her, because she just couldn’t help herself. She knew that anyone with an ounce of restraint would have known when to hold her tongue, but no, she had to open her stupid, stupid mouth and say, “If you can’t muster the—”
“Don’t say it,” he warned.
“—generosity of spirit to—”
“I’m warning you, Billie.”
“Are you?” she shot back, “I rather think you’re threatening me.”
“I will do,” he nearly spat, “if you don’t shut—” He cut himself off with a muffled curse, snapping his head in the other direction.
Billie picked at a loose thread on her stocking, her mouth pressed into an angry, trembling pout. She shouldn’t have said anything. She’d known that even as she spoke, because as pompous and annoying as George Rokesby was, it was entirely her fault that he was stuck up on the roof, and she’d had no call to be so provoking.
But there was something about him—some special talent that only he possessed—that stripped her of years of experience and maturity and made her act like a bloody six-year-old. If he were anyone else—anyone else—she’d be lauded as the most reasonable and helpful female in the history of Christendom. Tales would be spread—once they’d got off the roof—of her bravery and wit. Billie Bridgerton . . . so resourceful, so reasonable . . . It’s what everyone said. It’s what everyone had reason to say, because she was resourceful, and she was reasonable.
Just not with George Rokesby.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
His head turned slowly, as if even his muscles could not believe what they’d heard.
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated, louder this time. It felt like an antidote, but it was the right thing to do. But God help him if he made her say it again, because there was only so much of her pride she could swallow before she choked on it. And he ought to know that.
Because he was just the same.
His eyes met hers, and then they both looked down, and then after a few moments George said, “We are neither of us at our best just now.”
Billie swallowed. She thought maybe she ought to say something more, but her judgment had not done her any favors thus far, so instead she nodded, vowing that she was going to keep her mouth shut until—
“Andrew?” George whispered.
Billie snapped to attention.
“Andrew!” George all but bellowed.
Billie’s eyes did a frantic scan of the trees at the far end of the field, and sure enough . . . “Andrew!” she screamed, reflexively starting to rise before remembering her ankle.
“Ow!” she yelped, plunking back down on her bottom.
George did not spare her so much as a glance. He was too busy over by the edge of the roof, waving his arms through the air in wide, vigorous swoops.
There was no way Andrew could miss them, hollering like a pair of deranged banshees, but if he picked up his pace, Billie couldn’t see it. But that was Andrew. She should probably be glad he hadn’t fallen over with laughter at their predicament.
This was not something he was going to let either of them forget.
“Ahoy there!” Andrew called out, once he’d halved the distance between them.
Billie glanced over at George. She could only see him in profile, but he looked visibly relieved at his brother’s appearance. Also, oddly grim. No not odd at all, she realized. Whatever ribbing she was going to get from Andrew, George would suffer it a hundredfold.
Andrew drew closer, a spring in his step despite the sling on his arm. “Of all the delightful surprises,” he declared, his face nearly split by his grin. “If I thought and thought and thought . . .”
He stopped, holding up one elegant forefinger, the universal sign, Billie realized, to ask for a moment’s pause. Then he tipped his head as if getting back into the swing of things, and said, “and thought—”
“Oh, for the love of Christ,” George growled.
“All that thinking for years . . .” Andrew chortled. “I still couldn’t have come up with—”
“Just get us off the bloody roof,” George snapped.
Billie rather sympathized with his tone.
“I’ve always thought the two of you would make a splendid pair,” Andrew said slyly.
“Andrew,” Billie growled.
He rewarded her with a purse-lipped smile. “Truly, you needn’t have gone to such extremes for a moment of privacy. The rest of us would have been more than happy to oblige.”
“Stop it,” Billie ordered.
Andrew looked up, laughing even as he affected a frown. “Do you really want to take that tone, Billie-goat? I am the one on terra firma.”
“Please, Andrew,” she said, trying her very best to be civil and reasonable. “We would very much appreciate your help.”
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Andrew murmured.
“I’m going to kill him,” she said under her breath.
“I’m going to break his other arm,” George muttered.
Billie choked down a laugh. There was no way that Andrew could have heard them, but she looked down at him, anyway, and that was when she realized he was frowning, his good hand on his hip.
“What is it now?” George demanded.
Andrew stared down at the ladder, his mouth twisting into a curious frown. “I’m not sure if it has occurred to either of you, but this isn’t the sort of thing that’s easy to do one-handed.”
“Take it out of the sling,” George said, but his last words were drowned out by Billie’s shriek of “Don’t take it out of the sling!”
“Do you really want to stay on the roof?” George hissed.
“And have him reinjure his arm?” she returned. They might have joked about
breaking Andrew’s good arm, but really. The man was a sailor in the navy. It was essential that his bone healed properly.
“You’d marry me for the sake of his arm?”
“I’m not going to marry you,” she shot back. “Andrew knows where we are. He can go get help if we need it.”
“By the time he gets back with an able-bodied man, we’ll have been up here alone for several hours.”
“And I suppose you’ve such a high opinion of your male prowess that you think people will believe you managed to compromise me on a roof.”
“Believe me,” George hissed, “any man with sense would know you are thoroughly uncompromisable.”
Billie’s brows came together for a second of confusion. Was he complimenting her moral rectitude? But then—
Oh!
“You are despicable,” she seethed. Since that was her only choice of reply. Somehow she didn’t think—You have no idea how many men would like to compromise me would earn her any points for dignity and wit.
Or honesty.
“Andrew,” George called down, in that haughty I-am-the-eldest-son voice of his, “I will pay you one hundred pounds to take off that sling and fix the ladder into place.”
One hundred pounds?
Billie turned on him with wild disbelief. “Are you insane?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew mused. “It might actually be worth one hundred pounds to watch the two of you kill each other.”
“Don’t be an ass,” George said, flicking a furious look at him.
“You wouldn’t even inherit,” Billie pointed out, not that Andrew had ever wished to succeed his father as Earl of Manston. He was far too enamored of his footloose life for that sort of responsibility.
“Ah, yes, Edward,” Andrew said with an exaggerated sigh, referring to the second Rokesby son, who was two years his senior. “That does throw a fly in the ointment. It’d look deuced suspicious if both of you perish in curious circumstances.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as they all realized that Andrew had, perhaps, made light of something far too heavy for offhand quips. Edward Rokesby had taken the proudest route of second sons and was a captain in His Majesty’s 54th Regiment of Foot. He’d been sent to the American colonies over a year earlier and had served bravely in the Battle of Quaker Hill. He’d remained in Rhode Island for several months before being transferred to British Headquarters in New York Town. News of his health and welfare came far too infrequently for anyone’s comfort.
“If Edward perishes,” George said stiffly, “I do not believe that the circumstances would ever be described as ‘curious’.”
“Oh, come now,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes at his older brother, “stop being so bloody serious all the time.”
“Your brother risks his life for King and Country,” George said, and truly, Billie thought, his voice was clipped and tense, even for him.
“As do I,” Andrew said with a cool smile. He tipped his injured arm up toward the roof, his bent and bound limb hinging at the shoulder. “Or at least a bone or two.”
Billie swallowed and looked hesitantly over at George, trying to gauge his reaction. As was common for third sons, Andrew had skipped university and gone straight into the Royal Navy as a midshipman. He had been raised to the rank of lieutenant a year earlier. Andrew didn’t find himself in harm’s way nearly so often as Edward, but still, he wore his uniform proudly.
George, on the other hand, had not been permitted to take a commission; as the heir to the earldom, he had been deemed far too valuable to throw himself in front of American musket balls. And Billie wondered . . . did that bother him? That his brothers served their country and he did not? Had he even wanted to fight?
Then she wondered . . . why had she never wondered about this? True, she did not devote much thought to George Rokesby unless he was standing in front of her, but the lives of the Rokesbys and Bridgertons were thoroughly intertwined. It seemed odd that she did not know this.
Her eyes moved slowly from brother to brother. They had not spoken for several moments. Andrew was still staring up with a measure of challenge in his icy blue eyes, and George was looking right back down with . . . well, it wasn’t anger exactly. At least not any longer. But nor was it regret. Or pride. Or anything she could identify.
There was far more to this conversation than rose to the surface.
“Well, I have risked life and limb for an unappreciative feline,” she declared, eager to direct the conversation back to less controversial topics. Namely, her rescue.
“Is that what happened?” Andrew murmured, bending over the ladder. “I thought you didn’t like cats.”
George turned to her with an expression that went somewhere beyond exasperation. “You don’t even like cats?”
“Everyone likes cats,” Billie said quickly.
George’s eyes narrowed, and she knew there was no way he believed that her bland smile was anything but a placation, but thankfully Andrew chose that moment to let out a muffled curse, causing both of them to return their attention to his struggles with the ladder.
“Are you all right?” Billie called out.
“Splinter,” Andrew bit off. He sucked on the side of his little finger. “Bloody hell.”
“It’s not going to kill you,” George snapped.
Andrew took a moment to fix his brother with a livid glare.
George rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of God.”
“Don’t provoke him,” Billie hissed.
George made an odd, growly sound, but he remained silent, crossing his arms as he stared down at his younger brother.
Billie scooted a tiny bit closer to the end for a better view of Andrew as he wedged one of his feet against the bottom of the rail and then bent over to grasp a rung. He grunted audibly as he pulled the ladder upright. The physics of the maneuver were all wrong, but there was only so much a one-armed man could do.
But at least he was a strong one-armed man, and with great exertion and not a little inappropriate language, he managed to set the ladder into place against the side of the building.
“Thank you,” George breathed, although from his tone Billie wasn’t sure if he was thanking his brother or the Almighty.
With Andrew to brace the ladder—and no cats underfoot—the descent was considerably simpler than their first attempt. But it hurt. By God, the pain in her ankle stole the very breath from her body. And there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t very well hop down the rungs, so with each step she had to put some weight on her injured ankle. By the time she reached the third-to-last rung, it was all she could do to keep her tears silent.
Strong hands settled at her waist. “I’ve got you,” George said quietly, and she let herself collapse.
Chapter 4
George had had a feeling that Billie was in more pain than she’d let on, but he didn’t realize how much until they finally made their way down the ladder. He briefly considered taking her down on his back, but it seemed safer to have her follow him instead. He moved down three rungs before she set her good foot onto the ladder, then he watched as she gingerly followed with its injured companion. For a moment she stood still, probably trying to decide how best to proceed to the next rung.
“I’d lead with the good one,” he said quietly, “and grip the rails hard to absorb some of your weight.”
She gave a tense nod of acknowledgment and followed his instructions, her breath escaping with an agonized hiss when her good foot was solid and secure, and she was able to lift the injured one from the upper rung.
She’d been holding her breath. He didn’t blame her.
He waited as she composed herself, well aware that he needed to remain only a few rungs ahead; if she fell—and she might; he could see that her ankle was very weak—he had to be close enough to stop her from tumbling all the way to the ground.
“Maybe if I try it the other way . . .” she said, breathing hard through her pain.
“I
wouldn’t,” he replied, keeping his voice purposefully even and humble. Billie had never taken well to being told what to do. He supposed he understood this better than anyone. “You don’t want your lower foot to be the weak one,” he said. “Your leg could buckle—”
“Of course,” she said tightly. Not angrily, just tightly. He knew that tone. It was the tone of one who had conceded a point and really didn’t want any further elucidation on the matter.
It was one he himself used quite often.
Well, as often as he deigned to concede points.
“You can do this,” he said. “I know it hurts.”
“It really does,” she admitted.
He smiled a little. He wasn’t sure why, but he was glad she couldn’t see his face. “I won’t let you fall.”
“Everything all right up there?” Andrew called out.
“Tell him to shut up,” Billie ground out.
George laughed despite himself. “Miss Bridgerton requests that you shut the hell up,” he called down.
Andrew let out a bark of laughter. “It’s all good, then.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Billie grumbled, gasping her way through another step.
“You’re almost halfway there,” George said encouragingly.
“You’re lying, but I do appreciate the show of support.”
He smiled, and this time he did know why. Billie might be a right pain in the ass most of the time, but she’d always had a good sense of humor. “You’re halfway to halfway, then,” he said.
“Such an optimist,” she muttered.
She made it down another rung without incident, and George realized that their conversation was proving an able distraction. “You can do this, Billie,” he said.
“You said that already.”
“It bears repeating.”
“I think—” She hissed, then sucked in her breath as she moved down another rung.
He waited while she collected herself, her body quivering as she balanced for a moment on her good foot.
“I think,” she said again, her voice more carefully modulated, as if she were determined to get the sentence out in an orderly manner, “that this might be the most amiable you have ever behaved in my presence.”