Andrew drew closer, a spring in his step despite the sling on his arm. “Of all the delightful surprises,” he declared, his face nearly split by his grin. “If I thought and thought and thought…”
He stopped, holding up one elegant forefinger, the universal sign, Billie realized, to ask for a moment’s pause. Then he tipped his head as if getting back into the swing of things, and said, “and thought —”
“Oh, for the love of Christ,” George growled.
“All that thinking for years…” Andrew chortled. “I still couldn’t have come up with —”
“Just get us off the bloody roof,” George snapped.
Billie rather sympathized with his tone.
“I’ve always thought the two of you would make a splendid pair,” Andrew said slyly.
“Andrew,” Billie growled.
He rewarded her with a purse-lipped smile. “Truly, you needn’t have gone to such extremes for a moment of privacy. The rest of us would have been more than happy to oblige.”
“Stop it,” Billie ordered.
Andrew looked up, laughing even as he affected a frown. “Do you really want to take that tone, Billie-goat? I am the one on terra firma.”
“Please, Andrew,” she said, trying her very best to be civil and reasonable. “We would very much appreciate your help.”
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Andrew murmured.
“I’m going to kill him,” she said under her breath.
“I’m going to break his other arm,” George muttered.
Billie choked down a laugh. There was no way that Andrew could have heard them, but she looked down at him, anyway, and that was when she realized he was frowning, his good hand on his hip.
“What is it now?” George demanded.
Andrew stared down at the ladder, his mouth twisting into a curious frown. “I’m not sure if it has occurred to either of you, but this isn’t the sort of thing that’s easy to do one-handed.”
“Take it out of the sling,” George said, but his last words were drowned out by Billie’s shriek of “Don’t take it out of the sling!”
“Do you really want to stay on the roof?” George hissed.
“And have him reinjure his arm?” she returned. They might have joked about breaking Andrew’s good arm, but really. The man was a sailor in the navy. It was essential that his bone healed properly.
“You’d marry me for the sake of his arm?”
“I’m not going to marry you,” she shot back. “Andrew knows where we are. He can go get help if we need it.”
“By the time he gets back with an able-bodied man, we’ll have been up here alone for several hours.”
“And I suppose you’ve such a high opinion of your male prowess that you think people will believe you managed to compromise me on a roof.”
“Believe me,” George hissed, “any man with sense would know you are thoroughly uncompromisable.”
Billie’s brows came together for a second of confusion. Was he complimenting her moral rectitude? But then —
Oh!
“You are despicable,” she seethed. Since that was her only choice of reply. Somehow she didn’t think – You have no idea how many men would like to compromise me would earn her any points for dignity and wit.
Or honesty.
“Andrew,” George called down, in that haughty I-am-the-eldest-son voice of his, “I will pay you one hundred pounds to take off that sling and fix the ladder into place.”
One hundred pounds?
Billie turned on him with wild disbelief. “Are you insane?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew mused. “It might actually be worth one hundred pounds to watch the two of you kill each other.”
“Don’t be an ass,” George said, flicking a furious look at him.
“You wouldn’t even inherit,” Billie pointed out, not that Andrew had ever wished to succeed his father as Earl of Manston. He was far too enamored of his footloose life for that sort of responsibility.
“Ah, yes, Edward,” Andrew said with an exaggerated sigh, referring to the second Rokesby son, who was two years his senior. “That does throw a fly in the ointment. It’d look deuced suspicious if both of you perish in curious circumstances.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as they all realized that Andrew had, perhaps, made light of something far too heavy for offhand quips. Edward Rokesby had taken the proudest route of second sons and was a captain in His Majesty’s 54th Regiment of Foot. He’d been sent to the American colonies over a year earlier and had served bravely in the Battle of Quaker Hill. He’d remained in Rhode Island for several months before being transferred to British Headquarters in New York Town. News of his health and welfare came far too infrequently for anyone’s comfort.
“If Edward perishes,” George said stiffly, “I do not believe that the circumstances would ever be described as ‘curious’.”
“Oh, come now,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes at his older brother, “stop being so bloody serious all the time.”
“Your brother risks his life for King and Country,” George said, and truly, Billie thought, his voice was clipped and tense, even for him.