by Julia Quinn
“Stop,” George said.
Andrew swung around. “What was that?”
“Leave her alone.”
Andrew stared at him for so long George could not help but wonder if he’d been speaking in tongues.
“It’s Billie,” Andrew finally said.
“I know. And you should leave her alone.”
“I can fight my own battles, George,” Billie said.
He glanced over at her. “Of course you can.”
Her lips parted, but she seemed not to know how to respond to that.
Andrew looked back and forth between the two of them before offering Billie a small bow. “My apologies.”
Billie nodded awkwardly.
“Perhaps I might help in the planning,” Andrew suggested.
“You’ll certainly be better at it than I am,” Billie said.
“Well, that goes without saying.”
She poked him in the leg with one of her crutches.
And just like that, George realized, all was back to normal.
Except it wasn’t. Not for him.
Chapter 9
Four days later
It was remarkable—no, inspirational—Billie decided, how quickly she’d weaned herself from her crutches. Clearly, it was all in the mind.
Strength. Fortitude.
Determination.
Also, the ability to ignore pain was helpful.
It didn’t hurt that much, she reasoned. Just a twinge. Or maybe something closer to a nail being hammered into her ankle at intervals corresponding to the speed at which she took her steps.
But not a very big nail. Just a little one. A pin, really.
She was made of stern stuff. Everybody said so.
At any rate, the pain in her ankle wasn’t nearly as bad as the chafing under her arms from the crutches. And she wasn’t planning to go for a five-mile hike. She just wanted to be able to get about the house on her own two feet.
Nevertheless, her pace was considerably slower than her usual stride as she headed toward the drawing room a few hours after breakfast. Andrew was waiting for her, Thamesly had informed her. This was not terribly surprising; Andrew had called upon her every day since her injury.
It was really quite sweet of him.
They’d been building card houses, a characteristically perverse choice for Andrew, whose dominant arm was still immobilized in a sling. He’d said that as long as he was coming over to keep her company, he might as well do something useful.
Billie didn’t bother pointing out that building a house of cards might very well be the definition of not useful.
As for his having only one working arm, he needed help getting the first few cards balanced, but after that, he could set up the rest just as well as she could.
Or better, really. She’d forgotten how freakishly good he was at building card houses—and how freakishly obsessed he became during the process. The day before had been the worst. As soon as they’d completed the first level he’d banned her from construction. Then he banned her from the entire area, claiming that she breathed too hard.
Which of course left her with no choice but to sneeze.
She might also have kicked the table.
There had been a fleeting moment of regret when it had all come down in a spectacular earthquake of destruction, but the look on Andrew’s face had been worth it, even if he had gone home immediately following the collapse.
But that was yesterday, and knowing Andrew, he’d want to start again, bigger and better the fifth time around. So Billie had collected another two decks on her way to the drawing room. It should be enough for him to add another story or two to his next architectural masterpiece.
“Good morning,” she said as she entered the drawing room. He was standing over by a plate of biscuits someone had left out on the table that ran behind the sofa. A maid, probably. One of the sillier ones. They were always giggling over him.
“You’ve jettisoned the crutches,” he said with an approving nod. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” She glanced about the room. Still no George. He had not visited since that first morning in the library. Not that she had expected him to. She and George were not friends.
They weren’t enemies, of course. Just not friends. They never had been. Although maybe they were a little bit . . . now.
“What’s wrong?” Andrew asked.
Billie blinked. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re scowling.”
“I’m not scowling.”
His expression turned condescending. “You can see your own face?”
“And you’re here to cheer me up,” she drawled.
“Gad no, I’m here for the shortbread.” He reached out and took some of the playing cards from her. “And maybe to build a house.”
“At last, some honesty.”
Andrew laughed and flopped down on the sofa. “I have hardly been hiding my motives.”
Billie acknowledged this with a flick of her eyes. He had eaten a prodigious amount of shortbread in the past few days.
“You’d be kinder to me,” he continued, “if you knew how horrid the food is on a ship.”
“Scale of one to ten?”
“Twelve.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said with a grimace. She knew how Andrew liked his sweets.
“I knew what I was getting into.” He paused, frowning with thought. “No, actually I don’t think I did.”
“You wouldn’t have entered the navy if you’d realized there would be no biscuits?”
Andrew sighed dramatically. “Sometimes a man must make his own biscuits.”
Several playing cards slid from her grasp. “What?”
“I believe he’s substituting biscuits for destiny,” came a voice from the door.
“George!” Billie exclaimed. With surprise? With delight? What was that in her voice? And why couldn’t she, of all people, figure it out?
“Billie,” he murmured, offering a polite bow.
She stared. “What are you doing here?”
His mouth moved into a dry expression that in all honesty could not be called a smile. “Ever the model of gentility.”
“Well”—she bent down to gather the cards she’d dropped, trying not to trip on the lace trim of her skirt—“you haven’t visited for four days.”
Now he did smile. “You’ve missed me, then.”
“No!” She glared at him, reaching out to snatch up the knave of hearts. The annoying little rascal had slid halfway under the sofa. “Don’t be ridiculous. Thamesly said nothing about your being here. He mentioned only Andrew.”
“I was seeing to the horses,” George said.
She immediately looked to Andrew, surprise coloring her features. “Did you ride?”
“Well, I tried,” he admitted.
“We went very slowly,” George confirmed. Then his eyes narrowed. “Where are your crutches?”
“Gone,” she replied, smiling proudly.
“I can see that.” His brow pulled down into a scowling vee. “Who told you you were allowed to stop using them?”
“No one,” she bristled. Who the devil did he think he was? Her father? No, definitely not her father. That was just . . .
Ugh.
“I rose from bed,” she said with exaggerated patience, “took a step, and decided for myself.”
George snorted.
She drew back. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Allow me to translate,” Andrew said from the sofa, where he was still stretched out in a boyish sprawl.
“I know what it meant,” Billie snapped.
“Oh, Billie,” Andrew sighed.
She swung around to glare at him.
“You need to get out of the house,” he said.
Please, as if she didn’t know that. She turned back to George. “Pray, excuse my impoliteness. I wasn’t expecting you.”
His brows arched, but he accepted her apology with a nod and took a seat
when she did.
“We need to feed him,” Billie said, tilting her head toward Andrew.
“Water him, too?” George murmured, as if Andrew were a horse.
“I’m right here!” Andrew protested.
George motioned to the day-old copy of the London Times, which lay freshly ironed on the table next to him. “Do you mind if I read?”
“Not at all,” Billie said. Far be it from her to expect him to entertain her. Even if that had been his implied purpose in stopping by. She leaned forward, giving Andrew a little tap on his shoulder. “Would you like me to get you started?”
“Please,” he said, “and then don’t touch it.”
Billie looked at George. The newspaper was still folded in his lap, and he was watching the two of them with amused curiosity.
“In the center of the table,” Andrew said.
Billie gave him a bit of a look. “Autocratic as always.”
“I am an artist.”
“Architect,” George said.
Andrew looked up, as if he’d forgotten his brother was there. “Yes,” he murmured. “Quite.”
Billie slid from her chair and knelt in front of the low table, adjusting her weight so as not to put pressure on her bad foot. She selected two cards from the messy pile near the table’s edge and balanced them into the shape of a T. Carefully, she released her fingers and waited to see if it was secure.
“Nicely done,” George murmured.
Billie smiled, absurdly pleased by his compliment. “Thank you.”
Andrew rolled his eyes.
“I swear, Andrew,” Billie said, using a third card to transform the T into an H, “you turn into the most annoying person when you’re doing this.”
“But I get the job done.”
Billie heard George chuckle, followed by the crinkling sound of the newspaper opening and then folding into a readable shape. She shook her head, decided that Andrew was extraordinarily fortunate she was his friend, and set a few more cards into place. “Will that be enough to get you started?” she asked Andrew.
“Yes, thank you. Mind the table when you get up.”
“Is this what you’re like at sea?” Billie asked, limping across the room to get her book before settling back down. “It’s a wonder anyone puts up with you.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes—at the card structure, not at her—and placed a card into position. “I get the job done,” he repeated.
Billie turned back to George. He was watching Andrew with a peculiar expression on his face. His brow was furrowed, but he wasn’t precisely frowning. His eyes were far too bright and curious for that. Every time he blinked, his lashes swept down like a fan, graceful and—
“Billie?”
Oh, God, he’d caught her looking at him.
Wait, why was she looking at him?
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Lost in thought.”
“I hope it was something interesting.”
She choked on her breath before answering, “Not really.” Then she felt kind of terrible, insulting him without his even knowing it.
And without her really meaning to.
“He’s like a different person,” she said, motioning to Andrew. “I find it very disconcerting.”
“You’ve never seen him like this before?”
“No, I have.” She looked from the chair to the sofa and decided on the sofa. Andrew was now on the floor, and he wasn’t likely to want his spot back anytime soon. She sat down, leaning against the arm and stretching her legs out in front of her. Without really thinking about what she was doing she reached for the blanket that lay folded over the back and spread it over her legs. “I still find it disconcerting.”
“He is unexpectedly precise,” George said.
Billie considered that. “Unexpected because . . . ?”
George shrugged and motioned to his brother. “Who would think it of him?”
Billie thought for a moment, then decided she agreed with him. “There’s an odd sort of sense to that.”
“I can still hear you, you know,” Andrew said. He’d got about a dozen more cards into place and had pulled back a few inches to examine the house from several angles.
“I don’t believe we were aiming for stealth,” George said mildly.
Billie smiled to herself and slid her finger into the correct spot in her book. It was one of those volumes that came with an attached ribbon to use as a bookmark.
“Just so you are aware,” Andrew said, moving to the other side of the table, “I will kill you if you knock this down.”
“Brother,” George said with impressive gravity, “I am barely breathing.”
Billie stifled a giggle. She rarely saw this side of George, teasing and dry. Usually he was so irritated by the rest of them that he was left entirely without humor.
“Is that Prescott’s?” George asked.
Billie turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Yes.”
“You’re making good progress.”
“Despite myself, I assure you. It’s very dry.”
Andrew didn’t look up, but he did say, “You’re reading an encyclopedia of agriculture and you’re complaining that it’s dry?”
“The last volume was brilliant,” Billie protested. “I could hardly put it down.”
Even from the back of his head, it was obvious that Andrew was rolling his eyes.
Billie returned her attention to George, who, it had to be said, had not once maligned her for her reading choices. “It must be the subject matter. He seems terribly stuck on mulch this time.”
“Mulch is important,” George said, his eyes twinkling in what was an impressively somber face.
She met his gaze with equal seriousness. And perhaps just the littlest twitch of her lips. “Mulch is mulch.”
“God,” Andrew grunted, “the two of you are enough to make me want to tear my hair out.”
Billie tapped him on the shoulder. “But you love us.”
“Don’t touch me,” he warned.
She looked back over at George. “He’s very touchy.”
“Bad pun, Billie,” Andrew growled.
She let out a light laugh and returned to the book in her hands. “Back to the mulch.”
She tried to read. She really did. But Prescott’s seemed so dull this time around, and every time George moved, his newspaper crinkled and then she had to look up.
But then he would look up. And then she’d have to pretend she’d been watching Andrew. And then she really was watching Andrew, because it was bizarrely riveting to watch a one-armed man build a house of cards.
Back to Prescott’s, she admonished herself. As dull as mulch was, she had to get through it. And she did, somehow. An hour drifted by in companionable silence, she on the sofa with her book, George in his chair with the newspaper, and Andrew on the floor with his cards. She got through the straw mulch, and she got through the peat mulch, but when she got to sour mulch, she just couldn’t do it any longer.
She sighed, and not elegantly. “I am so bored.”
“Just the sort of thing one says to company,” Andrew quipped.
She gave him the side eye. “You don’t count as company.”
“Does George?”
George looked up from his newspaper.
She shrugged. “I suppose not.”
“I count,” he said.
Billie blinked. She had not realized he’d even been listening.
“I count,” he said again, and if Billie hadn’t been looking at him she would have missed it. She would have missed the blaze of fire in his eyes, hot and intense, burning for less than a second before he banked it and returned his attention to his newspaper.
“You treat Andrew like a brother,” he said, turning a page with slow, deliberate movements.
“And I treat you . . .”
He looked at her. “Not like a brother.”
Billie’s lips parted. She couldn’t look away. And then she had to look away, because she felt very
strange, and it was suddenly imperative that she get back to the sour mulch.
But then George made a noise, or maybe he just breathed, and she couldn’t stop herself, she was looking at him again.
He had nice hair, she decided. She was glad he didn’t powder it, at least not for everyday. It was thick, with just a hint of a wave, and it looked like it would curl if he grew it long. She gave a little snort. Wouldn’t her maid love hair like that? Billie usually just tied her hair back in a queue, but sometimes she had to fancify herself. They had tried everything with her hair—hot tongs, wet ribbons—but it just wouldn’t take a curl.
She liked the color of George’s hair, too. It was like caramel, rich and sweet, tipped with strands of gold. She would wager he sometimes forgot to wear his hat in the sun. She was the same way.
It was interesting how all the Rokesbys had the exact same color eyes, but their hair ran the gamut of browns. No one was blond, and no one ginger, but even though they were all brunet, no one had quite the same coloring.
“Billie?” George asked, his voice somewhere between confused and amused.
Oh, bloody hell, he’d caught her looking at him again. She winced out a smile. “I was just thinking how you and Andrew resemble each other,” she said. It was sort of the truth.
Andrew glanced up at that. “Do you really think so?”
No, she thought, but she said, “Well, you both have blue eyes.”
“As does half of England,” Andrew said dryly. He shrugged and got back to work, his tongue catching between his teeth as he pondered his next move.
“My mother has always said that we have the same ears,” George commented.
“Ears?” Billie’s jaw fell about an inch. “I’ve never heard of anyone comparing ears.”
“As far as I know, no one does, aside from my mother.”
“Dangling lobes,” Andrew put in. He didn’t look at her, but he did use his good hand to tweak his lobe. “Hers are attached.”
Billie touched her own earlobe. There was no way not to, now. “I didn’t even realize there was more than one kind.”
“Yours are also attached,” Andrew said without looking up.
“You know this?”
“I notice ears,” he said unapologetically. “I can’t help it now.”
“Nor can I,” George admitted. “I blame Mother.”
Billie blinked a few times, still pinching her lobe between her fingers. “I just don’t . . .” She frowned and swung her legs off the sofa.