“Oh, I imagine you’ll think of something.”

“I imagine I will.”

“Ah, I see my wife over there,” Lord Arbuthnot said. “She’s doing that thing with her head that either means she needs my assistance or she’s about to die.”

“You must go to her, then,” George said. “Clearly.”

“I suppose she’ll need my assistance either way,” Arbuthnot said with a shrug. “Godspeed to you, son. I hope your evening proves fruitful.”

George watched as Lord Arbuthnot made his way across the room, then turned to carry out his mission.

It seemed it was time to dance with Sally Weatherby.

Chapter 22

Mr. Coventry was an accomplished dancer, but Billie could give him no more than a fraction of her attention as he led her through the intricate steps of a cotillion. George had finished talking with the older gentleman, and now he was bowing before a lady of such staggering beauty it was a wonder all the people around her didn’t need to shade their eyes from her miraculous glow.

Something seething and green churned within her, and the evening, once so magical, soured.

Billie knew that she shouldn’t have asked Mr. Coventry to dance. Lady Manston would have had an apoplexy if she’d been there. She probably still would, once the gossip reached her. And it would. Billie might have avoided London for years, but she knew enough to realize that this would be all over the ballroom within minutes.

And all over town by the next morning.

She would be branded as overly forward. They would say she was chasing Mr. Coventry, that she was desperate for reasons no one quite knew, but she must have a wicked secret because why else would she throw over centuries of convention and ask a gentleman to dance?

And then someone would remember that unfortunate incident at court a few years earlier. Dreadful thing, really, they’d all cluck. Miss Philomena Wren’s dress had caught on fire of all things, and by the time anyone knew what was happening, there was a pile of young ladies moored helplessly on the floor, unable to move against the awkward weight of their wide-hipped skirts. Wasn’t Miss Bridgerton there? Hadn’t she been on top of Miss Wren?

Billie had to clench her jaw just to keep from growling. If she had been on top of Philomena Wren, it had only been to put out the fire, but no one would ever mention that.

That Billie had also been the cause of the fire was still a closely held secret, thank heavens. But honestly, how could a lady be expected to move in full court dress? Court protocol demanded gowns with panniers far wider than anything women wore in day-to-day life. Billie normally had a wonderful sense of where her body stood in space—she was the least clumsy person she knew. But who wouldn’t have had difficult maneuvering in a contraption that had her hips jutting out nearly three feet in either direction? And more to the point, what idiot had thought it a good idea to leave a lit candle in a room populated with misshapen ladies?