“I’ve turned an ankle before,” he said, carrying Billie into the room.
“And I have not,” Lady Bridgerton returned, “although one would think I’d be an expert on them by now.” She looked over at Georgiana. “I think you might be the only one of my children who hasn’t broken a bone or twisted a joint yet.”
“It’s my special skill,” Georgiana said in a flat voice.
“I must say,” Lady Manston said, looking over at George and Billie with a deceptively placid smile, “the two of you make quite a pair.”
George speared his mother with a stare. No. She might want to see him married, but she was not going to try this.
“Don’t tease so,” Billie said, with exactly the right amount of affectionate admonishment in her voice to put a halt to that line of thinking. “Who else would carry me if not George?”
“Alas, my fractured limb,” Andrew murmured.
“How did you break it?” Georgiana asked.
He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling like the sea. “Wrestled with a shark.”
Billie snorted.
“No,” Georgiana said, unimpressed, “what really happened?”
Andrew shrugged. “I slipped.”
There was a little beat of silence. No one had expected anything so mundane as that.
“The shark makes for a better story,” Georgiana finally said.
“It does, doesn’t it? The truth is rarely as glamorous as we’d like.”
“I thought at the very least you’d fallen from the mast,” Billie said.
“The deck was slippery,” Andrew said in a matter-of-fact manner. And while everyone was pondering the utter banality of this, he added, “It gets that way. Water, you know.”
The footman returned with a small tufted ottoman. It was not as tall as George would have liked, but he still thought it would be better for Billie than letting her foot dangle.
“I was surprised Admiral McClellan allowed you to recuperate at home,” Lady Manston said as the footman crawled under the table to set the ottoman into place. “Not that I’m complaining. It’s delightful to have you at Crake where you belong.”
Andrew gave his mother a lopsided smile. “Not much use for a one-armed sailor.”
“Even with all those peg-legged pirates?” Billie quipped as George set her down in her seat. “I thought it was practically a requirement to be missing a limb at sea.”
Andrew tipped his head thoughtfully to the side. “Our cook is missing an ear.”
“Andrew!” his mother exclaimed.
“How gruesome,” Billie said, eyes aglow with macabre delight. “Were you there when it happened?”
“Billie!” her mother exclaimed.
Billie whipped her head around to face her mother, protesting, “You can’t expect me to hear about an earless sailor and not ask.”
“Nevertheless, it is not appropriate conversation at a family supper.”
Gatherings between the Rokesby and Bridgerton clans were always classified as family, no matter that there wasn’t a drop of shared blood between them. At least not within the last hundred years.
“I can’t imagine where it would be more appropriate,” Andrew said, “unless we all head out to the public inn.”
“Alas,” Billie said, “I’m not allowed this time of night.”
Andrew flashed her a cheeky grin. “Reason seven hundred and thirty-eight why I’m glad I was not born a female.”
Billie rolled her eyes.
“Are you allowed during the day?” Georgiana asked her.
“Of course,” Billie said, but George noticed that her mother didn’t look happy about it.
Neither did Georgiana. Her lips were pursed into a frustrated frown, and she had one hand on the table, her index finger tapping impatiently against the cloth.
“Mrs. Bucket makes the most delicious pork pie,” Billie said. “Every Thursday.”
“I’d forgotten,” Andrew said, shuddering with delicious culinary memory.
“How on earth could you? It’s heaven in a crust.”
“Agreed. We shall have to sup together. Shall we say at noo —”
“Women are bloody,” Georgiana blurted out.
Lady Bridgerton dropped her fork.
Billie turned to her sister with an expression of cautious surprise. “I’m sorry?”
“Women can be bloody, too,” Georgiana said, her tone approaching truculence.
Billie seemed not to know what to make of that. Normally George would be enjoying her discomfiture, but the conversation had taken such a sharp turn into the bizarre that he could not bring himself to feel anything but sympathy.
And relief that he wasn’t the one questioning the young girl.
“What you said earlier,” Georgiana said. “About women, and how we would wage war less frequently than men. I don’t think that’s true.”
“Oh,” Billie said, looking mightily relieved. Truth was, George was relieved, too. Because the only other explanation for women being bloody was a conversation he did not want to have at the dining table.
Or anywhere for that matter.
“What about Queen Mary?” Georgiana continued. “No one could call her a pacifist.”
“They didn’t call her Bloody Mary for nothing,” Andrew said.
“Exactly!” Georgiana agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “And Queen Elizabeth sank an entire armada.”