“Not for want of trying,” Billie quipped.

George let out a long breath and turned back to the window, peering out into the inky night. Perhaps he was an insufferable prig—an insufferable prig who, as it happened, had never been sent down from Eton or Cambridge—but he really didn’t feel like listening to Andrew and Billie’s endless banter.

It never changed. Billie would be deliciously clever, and then Andrew would play the rogue, and then Billie would say something utterly deflating, and then Andrew would laugh and twinkle, and then everyone would laugh and twinkle, and it was always, always the same damned thing.

He was just so bored of it all.

George glanced briefly at Georgiana, sitting morosely in what was, in his opinion, the least comfortable chair in the house. How was it possible that no one noticed she’d been left out of the conversation? Billie and Andrew were lighting up the room with their wit and vivacity, and poor Georgiana couldn’t get a word in. Not that she appeared to be trying, but at fourteen, how could she hope to compete?

Abruptly, he crossed the room to the younger girl’s side and leaned down. “I saw the cat,” he said, his words disappearing into her gingery hair. “It dashed off into the woods.”

It hadn’t, of course. He had no idea what had become of the cat. Something involving brimstone and the wrath of the devil, if there was any justice in the world.

Georgiana started, then turned to him with a wide smile that was disconcertingly like her sister’s. “Did you? Oh, thank you for letting me know.”

George glanced over at Billie as he straightened. She was regarding him with a keen eye, silently admonishing him for lying. He returned the expression with equal insolence, his quirked brow almost daring her to call him out on it.

But she didn’t. Instead she dismissed him with a one-shouldered shrug so tiny no one could possibly have noticed it but him. Then she turned back to Andrew with her usual sparkle and charm. George returned his attention to Georgiana, who was clearly a cleverer girl than he’d ever realized, because she was watching the scene with slow-rising curiosity, her eyes moving back and forth between all of them, as if they were players on a field.

He shrugged. Good for her. He was glad she had a brain in her head. She was going to need it with her family.

He took another sip of his brandy, losing himself in his thoughts until the conversation around him descended into a low hum. He felt restless tonight, unusually so. Here he was, surrounded by people he’d known and loved his entire life, and all he wanted . . .

He stared toward the window, searching for an answer. All he wanted was to . . .

He didn’t know.

There was the problem. Right there. He didn’t know what he wanted, just that it wasn’t here.

His life, he realized, had reached a new depth of banality.