“I forgot about the case,” he replied, his expression serious. “I asked you to accompany me because I wanted to spend time with you.”
She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “You couldn’t find a better option than a bluestocking?”
“That’swhyI like you.” The baron’s dark eyes didn’t leave hers. “I admire people who are unafraid to think for themselves, and I admire you in particular.”
Her breath caught. That was the single nicest thing a man had ever said to her.
“If you have any flaw that I can see,” he continued, “it is that you are not quite enough of a bluestocking. A proper bookish spinster would have spoken to my horse directly in his native Balcovian Arabic dialect, rather than impose upon a hapless human baron as middleman.”
She giggled and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.
Agiggle?Coming fromher?What was happening? Was sheflirting?
This was friendship, she told herself. She had never been friends with a man before. None had ever tried, and to be fair, neither had Philippa. She had always preferred the company of women, though try as she might, she’d never shared the compulsion to become giggly and giddy in the presence of a man.
Except shehadjust giggled in the presence of a man for the first time. What on earth was next?
“Don’t cover your mouth,” said Baron Vanderbean, his brown eyes warm and intent. “It’s one of my favorite parts of your very pretty face.”
Oh.
Hedidintend to court her.
Philippa’s dead heart hadn’t fluttered, but a giggle was a wonderful, terrible sign. ShelikedBaron Vanderbean. She might have welcomed his attentions…if he were the sort of man her parents would permit her to marry.
She could not possibly string this sweet, romantic, happy-go-lucky man along for the next three months, only to cold-bloodedly dash his hopes when she turned her back on him to marry someone “better.”
She took a deep breath. “I have a confession.”
“So do I,” he said, “though I’m likely never to make mine. You first.”
“I cannot marry you,” she blurted. “My parents have preemptively rejected any future offer. It was kind of you to invite me to the park today, but ultimately a waste of your time. I’m afraid you never had a chance.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Was it too blunt? Of course it was too blunt. Mother constantly harped that Philippa’s straightforward, logical thoughts were completely inappropriate. But wasn’t fraudulently leading on a perfectly nice man just as inappropriate?
“I knew my admiration of you would go nowhere,” he said at last. A wistful smile flitted at his lips. “Though I might have hopedBaron Vanderbeanhad a chance.”
Philippa frowned. “Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?”
“No,” Baron Vanderbean replied. “I’m Tommy Wynchester.”
11
Tommy?” Philippa repeated.
Doubt seeped into Tommy’s bones. And raw panic.
She hadn’t meant to tell the truth. But Philippa had been kind and brave enough to do so.Shehadn’t rejected Baron Vanderbean. Her parents had preemptively done so. Which implied Philippa might not have done, if the decision were up to her.
And since Tommywasn’tBaron Vanderbean, and hadn’t intended to be him for more than a few stolen moments, it was only fair to show Philippa the same courtesy.
Plus, her siblings were right. Tommy could not go to her grave without presenting herselfasherself to Philippa at least once. Yet nothing terrified her more than being rejected by the woman she’d loved from afar for so long. Especially not now, in this moment, when they were alone together for the first time, side by side in a carriage, public but private.
Somehow, she managed to nod. “Yes, I’m Tommy.”
Philippa was close enough to touch. The softness of her cheek, the silkiness of her hair, a velvet pelisse that hid voluptuous curves Tommy imagined seeing bare. Philippa’s hand wasright there. Inches from Tommy’s. Philippa’s mouth just a little farther away. Philippa’s wide blue eyes…very, very confused.
