George looked at her with some indulgence. “Oh we will, will we?”
“Lord Kennard,” she said through clenched teeth, “will you be so kind as to help me set out the wickets?”
He glanced down at her injured ankle. “What, you mean because you cannot walk?”
She gave him an over-sweet smile. “Because I delight in your company.”
He almost laughed.
“Andrew can’t do it,” she went on, “and no one else knows where they go.”
“If we played in the shape of a cross,” Lady Alexandra said to Mr. Berbrooke, “any one of us could set the wickets out.”
Mr. Berbrooke nodded.
“We would start at the nave,” Lady Alexandra instructed, “then move on to the transept and then the altar.”
Mr. Berbrooke looked down at his mallet and frowned. “Doesn’t seem like a very churchy game.”
“It could be,” Lady Alexandra replied.
“But we don’t want it to be,” Billie said sharply.
George grabbed her arm. “The wickets,” he said, pulling her away before the two ladies came to blows.
“I really don’t like that woman,” she grumbled once they were out of earshot.
“Really?” George murmured. “I would never have known.”
“Just help me with the wickets,” she said, turning toward a large oak at the edge of the clearing. “Follow me.”
He watched her for a few steps. She was still limping, but it was different somehow. More awkward. “Did you hurt yourself again?”
“Hmmm? Oh, that.” She let out an irritated snort. “It was the sidesaddle.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She shrugged. “I can’t put my bad foot in a stirrup. So I had to ride sidesaddle.”
“And you needed to ride because…”
She looked at him as if he were an idiot. Which he was fairly certain he was not.
“Billie,” he said, grabbing her by the wrist so they were both yanked to a halt, “what was so important that you had to ride with an injured ankle?”
“The barley,” she said plainly.
He must have misheard. “What?”
“Someone had to make sure it was being planted properly,” she said, deftly pulling her hand free.
He was going to kill her. Or rather he would, except that she would probably end up doing it herself first. He took a breath, then asked, as patiently as he could, “Isn’t that the job of your steward?”
Her brows pulled together. “I don’t know what you think I do all day when I’m not flitting away at house parties, but I am an extremely busy person.” Something changed in her expression; something George could not quite name, and then she said, “I am a useful person.”
“I can’t imagine anyone would think otherwise,” George said, although he had a feeling he’d thought otherwise, and not too long ago.
“What the devil are you two doing over there?” Andrew bellowed.
“I am going to massacre him,” Billie seethed.
“The wickets,” George said. “Just tell me where you want them.”
Billie separated one from the bunch and held it out. “Over there. Under the tree. But over the root. Make sure you put it over the root. Otherwise it will be too easy.”
George very nearly saluted her.
When he returned from his task, she was already a ways down the field, jamming another wicket into place. She’d left the rest in a pile, so he leaned down and scooped them up.
She looked up as she secured the wicket. “What have you against Sir Reginald?”
George grit his teeth. He should have known he wouldn’t get off so easily. “Nothing,” he lied. “I simply did not think he would enjoy the game.”
She stood. “You can’t know that.”
“He spent the entire archery competition lounging on a lawn chair and complaining of the heat.”
“You didn’t get up.”
“I was enjoying the sun.” It hadn’t been sunny, but he wasn’t about to tell her the real reason he’d been stuck in his chair.
“Very well,” Billie acceded, “Sir Reggie is probably not the best candidate for Pall Mall. But I still maintain that we could have done better than Lady Alexandra.”
“I agree.”
“She —” She blinked. “You do?”
“Of course. I had to spend all last night talking with her, as you so eloquently pointed out.”
Billie looked about ready to throw her arms up in frustration. “Then why didn’t you say something when Georgiana suggested her?”
“She’s not evil, merely annoying.”
Billie muttered something under her breath.
George could not stem the amused smile that spread across his face. “You really don’t like her, do you?”
“I really don’t.”
He chuckled.
“Stop that.”
“Laughing, you mean?”
She jammed a wicket into the ground. “You’re just as bad as I am. One would think Sir Reggie had committed treason with the way you were carrying on.”
Carrying on? George planted his hands on his hips. “That’s entirely different.”
She glanced up from her work. “How is that?”
“He is a buffoon.”