Mary laughed and linked her arm through Billie’s. “Let us go inside and catch up. Oh, you’re limping!”
“A silly accident,” Billie said with a wave of her hand. “It’s nearly healed.”
“Well, you must have loads to tell me.”
“Actually, I don’t,” Billie said as they ascended the portico stairs. “Nothing has changed around here. Not really.”
Mary gave her a curious look. “Nothing?”
“Other than Andrew being home, it’s all just as it ever was.” Billie shrugged, wondering if she ought to be disappointed in all the sameness. She supposed she had been spending a little more time with George, but that hardly counted as an event.
“Your mother’s not trying to marry you off to the new vicar?” Mary teased.
“We don’t have a new vicar, and I believe she’s trying to marry me off to Felix’s brother.” She tipped her head. “Or one of the Berbrookes.”
“Henry is practically engaged,” Mary said authoritatively, “and you do not want to marry one of the Berbrookes. Trust me.”
Billie gave her a sideways glance. “Do tell.”
“Stop that,” Mary admonished. “It’s nothing salacious. Or even interesting. They’re lovely, both of them, but they’re dull as sticks.”
“Here, let’s go up to my room,” Billie said, steering them toward the main staircase. “And you know,” she added, mostly to be contrary, “some sticks are actually quite pointy.”
“Not the Berbrookes.”
“Why did you offer to bring them, then?”
“Your mother begged! She sent me a three-page letter.”
“My mother?” Billie echoed.
“Yes. With an addendum from mine.”
Billie winced. The collective might of the Ladies Rokesby and Bridgerton was not easily ignored.
“She needed more gentlemen,” Mary continued. “I don’t think she was anticipating that the Duchess of Westborough would bring both of her daughters and her niece. And anyway, Niall and Ned are both very good-natured. They will make lovely husbands for someone.” She gave Billie a pointed look. “But not for you.”
Billie decided there was no point taking affront. “You don’t see me marrying someone good-natured?”
“I don’t see you marrying someone who can barely read his name.”
“Oh, come now.”
“Fine. I exaggerate. But this is important.” Mary stopped in the middle of the upstairs hall, forcing Billie to a halt beside her. “You know I know you better than anyone.”
Billie waited while Mary fixed her with a serious stare. Mary liked to dispense advice. Billie didn’t ordinarily like to receive it, but it had been so long since she’d had the company of her closest friend. Just this once she could be patient. Placid, even.
“Billie, listen to me,” Mary said with an odd urgency. “You cannot treat your future so flippantly. Eventually you are going to have to choose a husband, and you will go mad if you do not marry a man of at least equal intelligence to yourself.”
“That presupposes that I marry anyone.” Or, Billie did not add, that she might actually have a choice of husbands.
Mary drew back. “Don’t say such a thing! Of course you will get married. You need only to find the right gentleman.”
Billie rolled her eyes. Mary had long since succumbed to that sickness that seemed to afflict all recently married individuals: the fever to see everyone else blissful and wed. “I’ll probably just marry Andrew,” Billie said with a shrug. “Or Edward.”
Mary stared at her.
“What?” Billie finally asked.
“If you can say it like that,” Mary said with hot disbelief, “like you don’t care which Rokesby you meet at the altar, you have no business marrying either one of them.”
“Well, I don’t care. I love them both.”
“As brothers. Goodness, if you’re going to take that view of it, you might as well marry George.”
Billie stopped short. “Don’t be daft.”
She, marry George? It was ludicrous.
“Honestly, Mary,” she said with a stern little hiss to her voice. “That’s not even something to joke about.”
“You said that one Rokesby brother would be as good as another.”
“No, you said that. I said either Edward or Andrew would do.” Really, she did not understand why Mary was so upset. Marriage to either brother would have the same effect. Billie would become a Rokesby, and she and Mary would be sisters in truth. Billie thought it sounded rather lovely.
Mary clapped her hand to her forehead and groaned. “You are so unromantic.”
“I don’t necessarily see that as a flaw.”
“No,” Mary grumbled, “you wouldn’t.”
She’d meant it as criticism, but Billie just laughed. “Some of us need to view the world with practicality and sense.”
“But not at the price of your happiness.”