Billie knew that her younger brother would one day inherit Aubrey Hall and all its lands, but Edmund was still a child, eight years her junior. Most of the time he was away at school. Their father wasn’t getting any younger, and someone had to learn how to properly manage such a large estate. Besides, Billie was a natural at it; everyone said so.

She’d been an only child for so many years; there had been two babies between her and Edmund’s births, but neither had lived past infancy. During those years of prayers and hopes and wishing for an heir, Billie had become something of a mascot to the tenants, a living, smiling symbol of Aubrey Hall’s future.

Unlike most highborn daughters, Billie had always accompanied her parents on their duties around the estate. When her mother brought baskets of food to the needy, she was right there with apples for the children. When her father was out surveying the land, she could more often than not be found at his feet, digging up worms as she explained why she thought rye would be a much better choice than barley in such a sun-starved field.

At first she’d been a source of amusement—the energetic little five-year-old who insisted upon measuring grain when the rents were collected. But eventually she became a fixture, and now it was expected that she would see to the needs of the estate. If a cottage roof was leaking, she was the one who made sure it was mended. If a harvest was lean, she went out and tried to figure out why.

She was, for all intents and purposes, her father’s eldest son.

Other young ladies might read romantic poetry and Shakespearean tragedies. Billie read treatises on agricultural management. And she loved them. Honestly. They were ripping good reads.

It was difficult to imagine a life that might suit her better, but it had to be said: it was all much easier to conduct without a corset.

Much as it pained her mother.

“I was out seeing to the irrigation,” Billie explained. “It would have been impractical in a frock.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Lady Bridgerton said, even though they all knew she’d been thinking it.

“Not to mention difficult to climb that tree,” Andrew put in.

That did get her mother’s attention. “She was climbing a tree?”

“Saving a cat,” Andrew confirmed.

“One might assume,” George said, his voice purring with authority, “that had she been wearing a frock, she would not have attempted the tree.”

“What happened to the cat?” Georgiana asked.

Billie looked to her sister. She’d almost forgotten she was there. And she had definitely forgotten the cat. “I don’t know.”

Georgiana leaned forward, her blue eyes impatient. “Well, did you save it?”

“If so,” Billie said, “it was entirely against its wishes.”

“It was a most ungrateful feline,” George said.

Billie’s father chuckled at the description and gave him a manly slap on the back. “George, m’boy, we must get you a drink. You’ll need it after your trials.”