Or teaching her to ride and hunt. With Billie as their mother, his daughters would surely insist upon learning all the same skills as their brothers. And while he’d spent his childhood thoroughly annoyed by Billie’s insistence upon keeping up with the boys, when it came to his daughters . . .

If they wanted to hunt and fish and shoot a pistol like a marksman . . .

They would hit the bull’s-eye every time.

Although he might draw the line at jumping hedges at the age of six. Surely even Billie would now accept that that had been absurd.

Billie would be the best mother, he thought as he walked down the hall to the small dining room. Her children would not be trotted out once a day for her inspection. She would love them the way her own mother loved her, and she would laugh and tease and teach and scold, and they would be happy.

They would all be happy.

George grinned. He was already happy. And it was only going to get better.

His mother was already at the breakfast table when he entered the room, glancing at a recently ironed newspaper as she buttered her toast.

“Good morning, George.”

He leaned down and kissed her proffered cheek. “Mother.”

She looked at him over the rim of her teacup, one of her elegant brows set into a perfect arch. “You seem in an exceptional mood this morning.”

He gave her a questioning glance.

“You were smiling when you entered the room,” she explained.

“Oh.” He shrugged, trying quell the bubbles of joy that had had him nearly hopping down the stairs. “Can’t explain, I’m afraid.”

Which was the truth. He certainly couldn’t explain it to her.

She regarded him for a moment. “I don’t suppose it would have something to do with your untimely departure last evening.”

George paused briefly in the act of spooning eggs onto his plate. He had forgotten that his mother would surely require an explanation for his disappearance. His presence at the Wintour Ball was the one thing she’d asked of him . . .

“Your presence at the Wintour Ball was the one thing I asked of you,” she said, her voice sharpening with each word.

“I beg your forgiveness, Mother,” he said. He was in far too good a mood to spoil it by quibbling. “It won’t happen again.”

“It is not my forgiveness you must obtain.”

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I would like to have it.”

“Well,” she said, momentarily flustered by his unexpected contrition, “it is up to Billie. I insist that you apologize to her.”

“Already done,” George said unthinkingly.

She looked up sharply. “When?”

Damn.

He took a breath, then returned to fixing his plate. “I saw her last night.”

“Last night?”

He shrugged, feigning disinterest. “She was up when I came in.”

“And when, pray tell, did you come in?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” George said, subtracting a few hours. “Midnight?”

“We did not get home until one.”