He closed his eyes. Breathed out through his nose. Once again, they were in perfect agreement.

“Sometimes I think I should have been born a boy.”

“No.” His response was immediate and emphatic.

She let out a little laugh. “That’s very kind of you. I suppose you have to say that after, well, you know . . .”

He knew. But not nearly enough.

“I would love to own Aubrey,” she said wistfully. “I know every corner. I can name every crop in every field, and every name of every tenant, and half of their birthdays, too.”

He looked at her in wonderment. She was so much more than he’d ever allowed himself to see.

“I would have been an excellent Viscount Bridgerton.”

“Your brother will learn his way,” George said gently. He sat down in the chair by the desk. She wasn’t sitting down, but she wasn’t exactly standing, either, and as he was alone with her behind a closed door, he rather thought this would not be the critical breach of propriety.

“Oh, I know he will,” Billie said. “Edmund is very clever, actually, when he’s not being annoying.”

“He’s fifteen. He can’t help being annoying.”

She gave him a look. “If I recall correctly, you were already a god among men by the time you were his age.”

He lifted a lazy brow. There were so many droll rejoinders to such a statement, but he decided to let them all pass and simply enjoy the easy camaraderie of the moment.

“How do you bear it?” she asked.

“Bear what?”

“This.” She raised her hands in a gesture of defeat. “The helplessness.”

He sat up a little straighter, blinking her into focus.

“You do feel it, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure I catch your meaning,” he murmured. But he had a feeling he did.

“I know you wish you could have taken a commission. I see it in your face every time your brothers talk about it.”

Was he that obvious? He’d hoped not. But at the same time . . .

“George?”

He looked up.

“You’d gone very silent,” she said.

“I was just thinking . . .”

She smiled indulgently, allowing him to think aloud.

“I don’t wish I’d taken a commission.”

She drew back, her surprise evident in the way her chin tucked into her neck.

“My place is here,” he said.

Her eyes lit with something that might have been pride. “You sound as if you’re only just realizing it.”

“No,” he mused. “I’ve always known that.”

“You hadn’t accepted it?” she prodded.

He chuckled wryly. “No, I had definitely accepted it. I just think I hadn’t let myself . . .” He looked up, straight into her lovely brown eyes and paused for a moment as he realized what he wanted to say. “I hadn’t let myself like it.”

“And now you do?”

His nod was quick and firm. “I do. If I don’t—” He stopped, corrected himself. “If we don’t care for the land and its people, what are Edward and Andrew even fighting for?”