“Pah.” Tommy waved this aside. “I had to pretend I’m the new Baron Vanderbean to overcome my nerves. Bean was never nervous. His heir would not embarrass him.”
“‘Horace’ acquitted himself nicely?”
“Horaceflirted. A shameful rake, that new heir. Choosy, too. Eyes only for Miss York. Who, I might add, ended our Hyde Park tête-à-tête with, ‘I’ll be here tomorrow.’”
“Ooh,” Graham said appreciatively. “Sheenjoyedyour flirting, Horace, you old rascal.”
Tommy beamed at him.
“Just think,” her brother said. “You could have done this last July instead of spending an entire year in a cowardly puddle of nerves.”
“Don’t ruin this for me,” Tommy warned. “I am quite pleased with myself at the moment.”
“As you should be.” Jacob strode into the room with a mouse peeking from his jacket pocket. “Marjorie and I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I knew she did,” Marjorie protested loudly as she entered the room. “I had a side bet with Elizabeth.”
Tommy’s jaw dropped. “Youwageredon whether I’d speak to Philippa?”
“I stopped wagering with them months ago,” Graham muttered. “You cost mesomany quid.”
Marjorie and Jacob took their usual seats, though it didn’t look right. The family always sat in the same order as their cherished family portrait—an oil painting of Puck and six fellow imps cavorting about a fire in a magical wood—just as they had done for nineteen years.
The canvas had been their first purchase as a family. For many of the siblings, their first purchase at all. It was more than art. It symbolized the team they had become, and the long future of togetherness that awaited them.
Their happy tradition of arranging themselves like the painting had ceased last summer, when Bean had died. It had become even less familiar once Chloe left home to live with Faircliffe. There were blank spaces now. In the parlor, in their home, and in Tommy’s heart.
“Wait.” She turned to Graham. “I cost you money?”
“Forty-six quid,” he said morosely.
Elizabeth stepped into the parlor and jangled a heavy coin purse. “Ah, the sweet, sweet sound of victory.”
Tommy stood next to Graham and whirled on the others. “You betagainstme, you knaves!”
“And won.” Elizabeth jangled her coin purse. “Time and again.”
“Not today,” Marjorie informed her. “She did it. Er, Baron Vanderbean, that is.”
Elizabeth dropped her mouth open and widened her eyes. “Horace Wynchester, you sly dog. Never have I been happier to lose a wager in my life. I mean it.”
“Congratulations, Tommy.” Marjorie reached for the bell pull. “I’ll ring for cakes and champagne.”
“New bet,” said Jacob. “How long until she tells Philippa she’s not actually a baron?”
“No bets,” Tommy said firmly. “I’ll never tell her.”
Elizabeth shook her sword stick. “Didn’t youjustprove that the world wouldn’t end if you tried for what you want?”
“It won’t end for the Horace Wynchesters of the world,” Tommy corrected. “I have proven repeatedly that I will expire on the spot before I am able to approach Philippa as myself.”
“But don’t you want her to know who you are?” Jacob’s pocket wiggled. The little mouse…was abat. “Wouldn’t it be even nicer if the person she hoped to see tomorrow was Tommy Wynchester?”
Tommydidwant that. Bean had loved her for herself, and so did her siblings. But no one else would.
Bean was gone. Chloe had also gone. It hurt too much to lose someone she cared about. It would sting to be rejected by someone who didn’t know her well at all. And it would hurt even more to be rejected by someone whodidknow the real Tommy. It wasn’t worth it.
She might not feel like a woman, but she was one, physically. Which meant she didn’t have the same freedom to flirt and fail like would-be rakehells did at society balls. Not with someone like Philippa. Tommy wouldn’t want to be Horace Wynchester permanently any more than she wished to live her life as a lady, but indulging her masculine side afforded her the freedom to court Philippa openly.
