“I’m sure he isn’t,” Lady Manston returned with a laugh.

“Nicholas wouldn’t —” Georgiana started to say.

But Billie’s voice came out on top. “It’s difficult to imagine anyone getting sent down more often than Andrew.”

Andrew held up a hand. “I hold the record.”

Georgiana’s eyes grew wide. “Among Rokesbys?”

“Among everyone.”

“That cannot be true,” Billie scoffed.

“I assure you, it is. There’s a reason I left early, you know. I reckon if I showed up for a visit, they would not let me back through the gate.”

Billie gratefully accepted the glass of wine the footman finally brought over and then lifted it toward Andrew in a skeptical salute. “That only shows that the headmaster should be applauded for his great good sense.”

“Andrew, stop your exaggerations,” Lady Manston said. She rolled her eyes as she turned back to Lady Bridgerton. “He did get sent down from Eton more than once, but I assure you, he has not been banished.”

“Not for want of trying,” Billie quipped.

George let out a long breath and turned back to the window, peering out into the inky night. Perhaps he was an insufferable prig – an insufferable prig who, as it happened, had never been sent down from Eton or Cambridge – but he really didn’t feel like listening to Andrew and Billie’s endless banter.

It never changed. Billie would be deliciously clever, and then Andrew would play the rogue, and then Billie would say something utterly deflating, and then Andrew would laugh and twinkle, and then everyone would laugh and twinkle, and it was always, always the same damned thing.

He was just so bored of it all.

George glanced briefly at Georgiana, sitting morosely in what was, in his opinion, the least comfortable chair in the house. How was it possible that no one noticed she’d been left out of the conversation? Billie and Andrew were lighting up the room with their wit and vivacity, and poor Georgiana couldn’t get a word in. Not that she appeared to be trying, but at fourteen, how could she hope to compete?

Abruptly, he crossed the room to the younger girl’s side and leaned down. “I saw the cat,” he said, his words disappearing into her gingery hair. “It dashed off into the woods.”

It hadn’t, of course. He had no idea what had become of the cat. Something involving brimstone and the wrath of the devil, if there was any justice in the world.

Georgiana started, then turned to him with a wide smile that was disconcertingly like her sister’s. “Did you? Oh, thank you for letting me know.”

George glanced over at Billie as he straightened. She was regarding him with a keen eye, silently admonishing him for lying. He returned the expression with equal insolence, his quirked brow almost daring her to call him out on it.

But she didn’t. Instead she dismissed him with a one-shouldered shrug so tiny no one could possibly have noticed it but him. Then she turned back to Andrew with her usual sparkle and charm. George returned his attention to Georgiana, who was clearly a cleverer girl than he’d ever realized, because she was watching the scene with slow-rising curiosity, her eyes moving back and forth between all of them, as if they were players on a field.

He shrugged. Good for her. He was glad she had a brain in her head. She was going to need it with her family.

He took another sip of his brandy, losing himself in his thoughts until the conversation around him descended into a low hum. He felt restless tonight, unusually so. Here he was, surrounded by people he’d known and loved his entire life, and all he wanted…

He stared toward the window, searching for an answer. All he wanted was to…

He didn’t know.

There was the problem. Right there. He didn’t know what he wanted, just that it wasn’t here.

His life, he realized, had reached a new depth of banality.

“George? George?”

He blinked. His mother was calling his name.

“Lady Frederica Fortescue-Endicott has become betrothed to the Earl of Northwick,” she said to him. “Had you heard?”

Ah. So this was to be tonight’s conversation. He finished his drink. “I had not.”

“The Duke of Westborough’s eldest daughter,” his mother said to Lady Bridgerton. “Such a charming young lady.”

“Oh, of course, lovely girl. Dark hair, yes?”

“And such beautiful blue eyes. Sings like a bird.”

George stifled a sigh.

His father slapped him on the back. “The duke set her up with a good dowry,” he said, coming straight to the point. “Twenty thousand and a piece of property.”

“As I’ve missed my chance,” George said with a diplomatically impassive smile, “there can be no benefit to the catalogue of her many attributes.”

“Of course not,” his mother said. “It’s far too late for that. But if you had listened to me last spring —”

The supper gong sounded – thank God – and his mother must have decided that there was no use in further pressing her matchmaking points because the next words out of her mouth had to do with the evening’s menu, and the apparent lack of good fish this week at market.

George made his way back to Billie’s side. “Shall I?” he murmured, holding out his arms.

“Oh,” she exclaimed lightly, although for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why she’d be surprised. Nothing had changed in the past quarter of an hour; who else was going to carry her into the dining room?