“Talk to Philippa fortwenty minutes?” Tommy burst out. “About what?”
“Take her a kitten,” Jacob suggested. “She likes Tiglet.”
“Tiglet is a homing kitten,” Tommy reminded him. “If she sets him down, he’ll run back to Islington.”
“Then you can give him back.” Jacob tapped her on the nose. “See? He’s a perennial conversation starter.”
“I’m not giving her Tiglet,” Tommy said firmly.
“You should hurry,” said Marjorie. “Graham said she’ll be in Hyde Park with her mother within the hour.”
“Graham’s not even here to be part of the conversation. He…” Tommy narrowed her eyes. “Did he plan this? Didyouplan this? Am I under attack?”
“You’re being manipulated into doing the thing you actually want to do,” Jacob said cheerfully. “You cannot go to your grave without having tried at least once.”
“I can’t walk up to her as Tommy Wynchester. She doesn’tknowTommy Wynchester, and besides, the daily promenade in Hyde Park is for the haut ton. Her mother wouldn’t allow me twenty seconds, even if I were Lady Thomasina. Mrs. York has been very clear that Philippa is only to fraternize with future suitors.”
Jacob shrugged. “Then be one.”
“Not a boatman,” Marjorie said quickly. “Be someone Mrs. York would allow near her daughter.”
A crafty smile spread on Jacob’s face. “Be Baron Vanderbean.”
“The new heir only exists on paper,” Tommy reminded him.
Her brother raised his brows. “If no one’s seen him, then no one can say youaren’thim, can they?”
She supposed not.
The Baron Vanderbean who had rescued them all had held a minor peerage in his native Balcovia, a small principality in the Low Countries.
Although Bean had left generous trusts to each of his adopted children, a society connection was one thing money could not purchase. Before he died, Bean had created a fictitious heir and heiress: Horace and Honoria Wynchester. By maintaining the sponsorship of the new Baron Vanderbean and the chaperonage of his highborn sister, the Wynchester orphans could still enjoy access to places and people that would have snubbed them if they had no titled connection.
Ironic that an imaginary lord held more power than a real woman.
“You want me to be Baron Vanderbean,” Tommy repeated.
Just saying the words sent gooseflesh over her skin. Baron Vanderbean wasBean.
Bean was dead.
Tommy would do anything to have her father back. She wanted nothing to do with a made-up relative. And she couldn’t imagine taking over Bean’s name. If she pretended to be his “son,” Horace Wynchester, everyone would call her Baron Vanderbean. She wasn’t certain she could handle it.
But she also didn’t want her family to see her hesitant and meek. Tommy was the one whodidthings. She could be anyone. She just wasn’t sure she could do…this.
“It’s a bad idea,” she said. There.Shewasn’t weak. Theplanwas defective.
“Why?” Jacob asked.
“For one,” she replied slowly, “if I play Baron Vanderbean, no one else can do it.”
Jacob smirked. “Who else was going to do it?”
Well, fair enough.
Marjorie and Elizabeth were horrid at playing men, and Jacob’s dark brown skin made it unlikely for him to be Bean’s son by blood. Graham’s golden bronze coloring might let him get away with it, but his temperament never would.
Tall, thin, white, curve-less Tommy was the most believable as Bean’s male heir.
