Billie could well believe it. Charm was inherited, was it not? George Rokesby might be precisely the sort of stick-in-the-mud one would expect of the heir to an earldom, but his younger brother Andrew possessed the sort of devilish joie de vivre that would have endeared him to a notorious philanderer like Charles II. The other Rokesby brothers were not quite so roguish (although she supposed that Nicholas, at only fourteen, was still honing his skills), but they easily outstripped George in all contests involving charm and amiability.
George. They’d never liked each other. But Billie supposed she could not complain. George was the only available Rokesby at the moment. Edward was off in the colonies, wielding a sword or a pistol, or heaven only knew what, and Nicholas was at Eton, probably also wielding a sword or a pistol (although hopefully to considerably less effect). Andrew was here in Kent for the next few weeks, but he’d fractured his arm doing some such derring-do in the navy. He could hardly have been helpful.
No, it would have to be George, and she was going to have to be civil.
She smiled down at him. Well, she stretched her lips.
He sighed. Just a little. “I’ll see if there’s a ladder around back.”
“Thank you,” she said primly, but she didn’t think he heard her. He’d always had a fast, long-legged stride, and he’d disappeared around the corner before she could be properly polite.
A minute or so later he came back into view, his arm slung over a ladder that looked like it had last seen use during the Glorious Revolution. “What actually happened?” he called up, setting it into place. “It’s not like you to get stuck.”
It was as close to a compliment as she’d ever heard from his lips. “The cat was not as grateful for my assistance as one might have expected,” she said, every consonant a haughty ice pick directed at the monstrous little feline.
The ladder thunked into position, and Billie heard George climbing up.
“Is that going to hold?” she asked. The wood looked somewhat splintered and was emitting ominous creaking noises with every step.
The creaks paused for a moment. “It doesn’t really matter if it holds or not, does it?”
Billie swallowed. Another person might not be able to translate his words, but she’d known this man since the dawn of her memory, and if there was one fundamental truth to George Rokesby, it was that he was a gentleman. And he would never leave a lady in distress, no matter how fragile a ladder’s appearance.
She was in trouble, ergo he had no choice. He had to help, no matter how aggravating he found her.
And he did. Oh, she knew he did. He had never made any effort to disguise it. Although to be fair, neither had she.
His head popped into view, and his Rokesby-blue eyes narrowed. All the Rokesbys had blue eyes. Every last one of them.
“You’re wearing breeches,” George said with a heavy sigh. “Of course you’re wearing breeches.”
“I would hardly have attempted the tree in a dress.”
“No,” he said dryly, “you’re much too sensible for that.”
Billie decided to let this one pass. “It scratched me,” she said, jerking her head toward the cat.
“Did it?”
“We fell.”
George looked up. “That’s quite a distance.”
Billie followed his gaze. The nearest branch was five feet up, and she had not been on the nearest branch. “I hurt my ankle,” she admitted.
“I reckoned as much.”
She looked over at him in question.
“You would have just jumped to the ground, otherwise.”
Her mouth twisted as she peered past him to the packed dirt that surrounded the ruins of the farmhouse. At one point the building must have belonged to a prosperous farmer because it was two full stories high. “No,” she said, assessing the distance. “It’s too far for that.”
“Even for you?”
“I’m not an idiot, George.”
He did not agree with her nearly as fast as he should have done. Which was to say, not at all.
“Very well,” was what he did say. “Let’s get you down.”
She breathed in. Then out. Then said, “Thank you.”
He looked over at her with a strange expression. Disbelief, maybe, that she’d uttered the words thank and you in the same sentence?
“It’s going to be dark soon,” she said, her nose crinkling as she looked up at the sky. “It would have been awful to have been stuck —” She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
He acknowledged this with the briefest of nods. “Can you manage the ladder?”
“I think so.” It would hurt dreadfully, but she could do it. “Yes.”
“I could carry you.”
“On the ladder?”
“On my back.”
“I’m not getting on your back.”
“It’s not where I’d want you,” he muttered.
She looked up sharply.
“Right, well,” he continued, climbing another two rungs up. The edge of the roof was now even with his hips. “Can you stand?”
She stared at him dumbly.
“I would like to see how much weight you can put on that ankle,” he explained.
“Oh,” she mumbled. “Of course.”
She probably shouldn’t have attempted it. The slant of the roof was such that she’d need both her feet for balance, and her right was near to useless by this point. But she tried, because she hated showing weakness in front of this man, or maybe she tried just because it wasn’t in her nature not to try – anything – or maybe she just didn’t think the matter through in the first place, but she stood, and she stumbled, and she sat right back down.