“I’ve got you,” he murmured, and he felt her collapse a little, for once in her life allowing someone else to take charge of her.

“Well done,” Andrew said cheerfully, poking his head in close. “Are you all right there, Billie-goat?”

Billie nodded, but she didn’t look all right. Her jaw was still clenched, and from the way her throat worked, it was clear she was trying her damnedest not to cry.

“You little fool,” George murmured, and then he knew she wasn’t all right, because she let that pass without a word of protest. In fact, she apologized, which was so wholly unlike her as to be almost alarming.

“Time to go home,” George said.

“Let’s take a look at that foot,” Andrew said, his voice still an obnoxiously bright note in the tableau. He peeled off her stocking, let out a low whistle, and said with some admiration, “Ech, Billie, what did you do to yourself? That looks brutal.”

“Shut up,” George said.

Andrew just shrugged. “It doesn’t look broken—”

“It’s not,” Billie cut in.

“Still, you’ll be off it for a week, at least.”

“Perhaps not quite so long,” George said, even though he rather thought Andrew was correct in his assessment. Still, there was no point in debating her condition. They weren’t saying anything Billie didn’t already know. “Shall we go?” he said.

Billie closed her eyes and nodded. “We should put the ladder away,” she mumbled.

George tightened his arms around her and headed east toward Aubrey Hall, where Billie lived with her parents and three younger siblings. “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

“That covers quite a lot,” he said in a dry voice. “Are you sure you wish to be in such debt?”

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.