She looked up at him, her eyes tired but wise. "You're far too much of a gentleman to hold me to it."

George chuckled at that. She was right, he supposed, although he'd never treated Billie Bridgerton like any other female of his acquaintance. Hell, no one did.

"Will you still be able to come to dinner tonight?" Andrew asked, loping alongside George.

Billie turned to him distractedly. "What?"

"Surely you haven't forgotten," he said, laying one dramatic hand over his heart. "The Family Rokesby is welcoming the prodigal son -"

"You're not the prodigal son," George said. Good God.

"A prodigal son," Andrew corrected with good cheer. "I have been gone for months, even years."

"Not years," George said.

"Not years," Andrew agreed, "but it felt like it, didn't it?" He leaned down toward Billie, close enough to give her a little nudge. "You missed me, didn't you, Goatrix? Come now, admit it."

"Give her some room," George said irritably.

"Oh, she doesn't mind."

"Give me some room."

"An entirely different matter," Andrew said with a laugh.

George started to scowl, but then his head snapped up. "What did you just call her?"

"He frequently likens me to a goat," Billie said in the flat tone of one who has given up taking offense.

George looked at her, then looked at Andrew, then just shook his head. He'd never understood their sense of humor. Or maybe it was just that he'd never been a part of it. Growing up, he had always felt so separate from the rest of the Rokesbys and Bridgertons. Mostly by virtue of his age five years older than Edward, who was the next one down the line but also by his position. He was the eldest, the heir. He, as his father was quick to remind him, had responsibilities. He couldn't bloody well frolic about the countryside all day, climbing trees and breaking bones.

Edward, Mary, and Andrew Rokesby had been born in quick succession, separated from each other by barely a year. They, along with Billie, who was almost precisely Mary's age, had formed a tight little pack that did everything together. The Rokesby and Bridgerton homes were a mere three miles apart, and more often than not the children had met somewhere in the middle, at the brook that separated the estates, or in the treehouse Lord Bridgerton had had built at Billie's insistence in the ancient oak by the trout pond. Most of the time George wasn't sure what specific mischief they'd got up to, but his siblings had tended to come home filthy and hungry and in blooming good spirits.

He hadn't been jealous. Really, they were more annoying than anything else. The last thing he'd wanted to do when he came home from school was muck about with a pack of wild urchins whose average age didn't even scrape into the double digits.

But he had been occasionally wistful. What would it have been like if he'd had such a close cadre of companions? He'd not had a true friend his own age until he left for Eton at the age of twelve. There simply hadn't been anyone to befriend.

But it mattered little now. They were all grown, Edward in the army and Andrew in the navy and Mary married off to George's good friend Felix Maynard. Billie, too, had passed the age of majority, but she was still Billie, still romping around her father's property, still riding her too-spirited mount like her bones were forged of steel and flashing her wide smile around the village that adored her.

And as for George... He supposed he was still himself, too. Still the heir, still preparing for responsibility even as his father relinquished none of it, still doing absolutely nothing while his brothers took up their arms and fought for the Empire.

He looked down at his own arms, currently cradling Billie as he carried her home. It was quite possibly the most useful thing those arms had done in years.

"We should take you to Crake," Andrew said to Billie. "It's closer, and then you'll be able to stay for dinner."

"She's hurt," George reminded him.

"Pfft. When has that ever stopped her?"

"Well, she's not dressed properly," George said. He sounded like a prig and he knew it, but he was feeling unaccountably irritated, and he couldn't very well take it out on Billie while she was injured.

"I'm sure she can find something to wear in Mary's wardrobe," Andrew said dismissively. "She didn't take everything with her when she got married, did she?"

"No," Billie said, her voice muffled against George's chest. It was funny, that, how one could feel sound through one's body. "She left quite a bit behind."

"That settles it, then," Andrew said. "You'll come for supper, you'll spend the night, and all will be right with the world."

George gave him a slow look over his shoulder.

"I'll stay for supper," Billie agreed, moving her head so that her voice slid out into the air instead of George's body, "but then I'll go home with my family. I'd much rather sleep in my own bed, if you don't mind."

George stumbled.

"You all right?" Andrew queried.

"It's nothing," George muttered. And then, for no reason he could discern, he was compelled to add, "Just one of those things when one of your legs goes weak for a moment and bends a bit."

Andrew gave him a curious look. "Just one of those things, eh?"

"Shut up."

Which only made Andrew laugh.

"I have those," Billie said, looking up at him with a little smile. "When you're tired and you don't even realize it. And your leg surprises you."

"Exactly."

She smiled again, a smile of kinship, and it occurred to him although not, he realized with some surprise, for the first time that she was actually rather pretty.

Her eyes were lovely a deep shade of brown that was always warm and welcoming, no matter how much ire might lie in their depths. And her skin was remarkably fair for one who spent as much time out of doors as she did, although she did sport a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks. George couldn't remember if they'd been there when she was young. He hadn't really been paying attention to Billie Bridgerton's freckles.

He hadn't really been paying attention to her at all, or at least he'd been trying not to. She was and always had been rather difficult to avoid.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Your freckles." He saw no reason to lie.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "They're there."

Her lips pursed, and he thought that would be the end of the conversation. But then she said, somewhat abruptly, "I don't have very many of them."

His brows rose.

"Sixty-two," she said.

He almost stopped walking. "You counted?"

"I had nothing else to do. The weather was beastly, and I couldn't go outside."

George knew better than to inquire about embroidery, or watercolors, or any of a dozen other indoor pursuits commonly taken up by ladies of his acquaintance.

"Probably a few more now," Billie admitted. "It's been a prodigiously sunny spring."

"What are we talking about?" Andrew asked. He'd got a bit ahead of them and they'd only just caught up.

"My freckles," Billie said.

He blinked. "My God, you are boring."

"Or bored," Billie countered.

"Or both."

"Must be the company."

"I've always thought George was dull," Andrew said.

George rolled his eyes.

"I was talking about you," Billie said.

Andrew only grinned. "How's the foot?"

"It hurts," she said plainly.

"Better? Worse?"

Billie thought about that for a moment, then answered, "The same. No, better, I suppose, since I'm not putting weight on it." She looked back up at George. "Thank you," she said. "Again."

"You're welcome," he replied, but his voice was brusque. He didn't really have a place in their conversation. He never had.

The path forked, and George turned off to the right, toward Crake. It was closer, and with Andrew's arm in a sling, he was going to have to carry Billie the entire way.

"Am I too heavy?" she asked, sounding a touch sleepy.

"It wouldn't really matter if you were."

"Gad, George, no wonder you're starved for female companionship," Andrew groaned. "That was a clear invitation to say, 'Of course not. You are a delicate petal of womanhood.'"

"No, it wasn't," Billie said.

"It was," Andrew said firmly. "You just didn't realize it."

"I'm not starved for female companionship," George said. Because really.

"Oh, yes, of course not," Andrew said with great sarcasm. "You've got Billie in your arms."

"I think you might have just insulted me," she said.

"Not at all, m'dear. Just a statement of fact."

She scowled, her chestnut brows drawing down hard toward her eyes. "When do you go back to sea?"

Andrew gave her an arch look. "You'll miss me."

"I don't believe I will."

But they all knew she was lying.

"You'll have George, at any rate," Andrew said, reaching up and swatting a low-hanging branch. "You two make quite a pair."

"Shut up," Billie said. Which was a lot tamer than what came out of George's mouth.

Andrew chuckled, and the three of them continued on toward Crake House, walking in amiable silence as the wind whistled lightly through the newly budded tree leaves.

"You're not too heavy," George suddenly said.

Billie yawned, shifting slightly in his arms as she looked up at his face. "What did you just say?"

"You're not too heavy." He shrugged. For some reason, it had seemed important to say it.

"Oh. Well." She blinked a few times, her brown eyes equal parts puzzled and pleased. "Thank you."

Up ahead, Andrew laughed, although for the life of him, George didn't know why.

"Yes," Billie said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Yes," she said again, answering the question he didn't think he'd asked, "he's laughing at us."

"I had a feeling."

"He's an idiot," she said, sighing into George's chest. But it was an affectionate sigh; never had the words he's an idiot been imbued with more love and fondness.

"It's nice to have him home, though," George said quietly. And it was. He'd spent years being annoyed by his younger brothers, Andrew most especially, but now that they were grown and pursuing a life beyond the ordinariness of Kent and London, he missed them.

Almost as much as he envied them.

"It is nice, isn't it?" Billie gave a wistful smile, then she added, "Not that I'd ever tell him so."

"Oh no. Definitely not."

Billie chuckled at their shared joke, then let out a yawn. "Sorry," she mumbled. She couldn't very well cover her mouth with her arms around his neck. "Do you mind if I close my eyes?"

Something odd and unfamiliar lurched in George's chest. Something almost protective. "Of course not," he said.