“I do, too,” Billie admitted.

George saw red. He’d just bloody kissed her—and he was fairly certain her eyes had been closed.

“George?” his mother inquired.

“What?” he bit off.

“You made a noise.”

“I cleared my throat,” he lied. Had Billie been thinking of Edward when she kissed him? No, she wouldn’t do that. Or would she? How would he know? And could he blame her? If she had been thinking of Edward, it wasn’t anything she’d done on purpose.

Which somehow made it even worse.

He watched as Billie spoke quietly with his mother. Was she in love with Edward? No, she couldn’t be. Because if she was, Edward would never have been so foolish as to not return the affection. And if that were the case, they’d be married by now.

Besides, Billie had said she had not been kissed. And Billie didn’t lie.

Edward was a gentleman—maybe even more of one than George, after the events of today—but if he was in love with Billie, there was no way he’d have left for America without kissing her.

“George?”

He looked up. His mother was regarding him with some concern. “You don’t look well,” she said.

“I don’t feel well,” he said curtly.

His mother drew back ever-so-slightly, the only indication of her surprise. “I don’t imagine any of us does,” she said.

“I wish I could go to London,” Billie said.

George snapped to attention. “Are you joking?” Good God, that would be a disaster. If he was worried about his mother being a distraction . . .

She drew back, visibly offended. “Why would I be joking?”

“You hate London.”

“I’ve only been the once,” she said stiffly.

“What?” Lady Manston exclaimed. “How is that possible? I know you didn’t have a Season, but it’s barely even a full day’s ride.”

Billie cleared her throat. “There was some hesitation on the part of my mother after what happened at my presentation at court.”

Lady Manston cringed a little, then made a full recovery with a brightly declared: “Well, that settles it, then. We cannot live in the past.”

George regarded his mother with a slow dose of dread. “Settles what, exactly?”

“Billie must go to London.”

Chapter 18

And so it was that less than one week later Billie found herself stripped down to her unmentionables with two seamstresses jabbering on in French while they jabbed her with pins and needles.

“I could have used one of my gowns from home,” she told Lady Manston for what was probably the fifth time.

Lady Manston did not even look up from the book of fashion plates she was perusing. “No, you couldn’t.”

Billie sighed as she stared out at the richly brocaded fabrics that draped the walls of the fancy dress shop that had become her second home here in London. It was very exclusive, she’d been told; the discreet sign hanging above the door said merely Mme. Delacroix, tailoress, but Lady Manston referred to the petite French dynamo as Crossy, and Billie had been told to do the same.