For one, despite her bravado to Philippa, Tommyhadn’tever been invited to a society ball. She had attended them in various guises, such as Great-Aunt Wynchester or a liveried footman, but never as someone fashionable. She knew how to comport herself in any number of settings, but that was not the same thing as fitting in.
It was why Great-Aunt Wynchester kept her comments to the occasional ribald jest at the reading circle. Tommy wasn’t a bluestocking. She hadn’t read a hundred books. She couldn’t speak Ancient Greek or write in cipher. She could drink wine and eat oat cakes and watch the others in silence like a spectator at a play.
Tonight would be different. She would be onstage. Instead of watching the show from the audience, the audience would be watchingher. Judging her. Critiquing Baron Vanderbean. His first public outing with Miss York.
And the person she most wished to impress was…Philippa. Who wanted a real man. Unfortunately, Tommy could not become one fully enough to be an acceptable suitor. Looking the part and even feeling like a man was not sufficient. Especially if Philippa was looking for someone who could father children. But tonight was just a ball. A dance or two. Light flirtation.
Tommy straightened her hat again and fussed with her neckcloth for the tenth time before approaching the front door. Did all men feel this self-conscious when they called upon a lady? Were butlers all around Grosvenor Square peering through slits in the curtains at well-dressed but comically nervous gentlemen who had not yet banged the knocker because they could not decide the proper angle of the sharp black beaver hat upon their head?
The door swung open before Tommy had finished gathering her wits.
“My lord,” said the butler. “This way, if you please.”
He did notappearto be laughing internally at Tommy’s anxiousness. Then again, Mr. Underwood had realized Tommy would never knock on her own and had saved her the hassle.
The butler was a good man. Mr. Underwood enjoyed Mozart and waxwork exhibitions, and avoided billiards, pecans, and small children. Tommy had read Graham’s compendium on the York family so many times that the spine had broken, and Graham had been obliged to create a second copy. He kept it on a special shelf Tommy was forbidden from touching.
She didn’t mind. She kept the tattered original volume upstairs in her bedchamber.
Tommy followed Mr. Underwood toward the same blue sitting room she’d visited the day before. Nothing written in Graham’s books could compare to the rush of being invited in person.
“Pinch your cheeks,” came a loud hiss from the corridor. Mrs. York to her daughter.
Tommy tried not to smile. She had perhaps spent more time than anyone observing Philippa’s pretty face, with great care and attention to detail. Tommy could state with authority that a cold wind and a glass of wine were the only things she had ever witnessed bring a flush to Philippa’s cheeks.
Mother and daughter swept into the room.
Rather, Mrs. York bounced across the threshold, while Philippa floated into the sitting room in a sugary cloud of gauze and lace. The white lace trimming the base of the skirt billowed and fluttered, allowing brief glimpses of the toes of Philippa’s pink slippers.
She looked good enough to eat. Tommy’s heart thudded violently behind its protective layers of cambric and waistcoat and lapels.
“Mrs. York. Miss York.” She made her most extravagant bow.
Mrs. York gave a false, high-pitched titter.
Philippa did not change her expression, but her blue eyes shone as they met Tommy’s.
“I brought you something,” Tommy said.
The corners of Philippa’s mouth quirked. “Is it a painting of trolls?”
“Imps,” Tommy corrected. “And I would never part with that.”
“Oh.” Mrs. York waved her hands. “Mustwe recall the horrid ‘art’ the Duke of Faircliffe gave to Philippa? Baron Vanderbean, what have you brought? Oh, a lily! Philippa appreciates your gesture, which I think we can all agree is more romantic than anything the Duke of Faircliffe has ever done. A pretty flower is all that is proper. Here, give it to me. I’ll ring for a vase at once.”
Giving the delicate lily to Mrs. York was significantly less romantic than handing it to her daughter, but Tommy did as instructed.
Philippa appeared neither impressed with the gift nor disappointed that she was apparently not to touch it. Her eyes were not on the tender lily, but on Tommy, taking in every carefully dressed inch, from her freshly shined shoes all the way up to her painstakingly curled locks.
It was not a sexual perusal, Tommy reminded herself firmly. No matter how it felt.
Now that Philippa knew the truth, she was simply curious how the trick was done. Thinking was Philippa’s favorite activity. Her clever brain must be whirring madly beneath the deceptively staid golden ringlets, as she calculated and analyzed and developed her theories.
Nonetheless, Tommy’s body registered the slow sweep of Philippa’s gaze as though it were the caress of a lover’s hand.
Ankles and calves hidden inside carefully shined boots. The fit of her breeches and the muscles of her thighs. Her midsection further accented by the smart cut of her tailcoat and waistcoat. The frantic pulse at the base of her throat, hidden beneath the starched fall of a carefully folded cravat.
Tommy would be more than happy to spoil the magic and take off every stitch of clothing if Philippa agreed to do the same. It was not a wish that could come true, but Tommy’s brain did not work in the same logical manner as Philippa’s.
