“My opinion is irrelevant,” Tommy said dryly. “I appear to be outvoted.”
“Not to me,” Philippa said. “Your opinion is the only one that matters. I’ll have to try harder to impress you.”
“Have you been trying to impress me?”
“Has it not been working?”
“Oh, it works,” Tommy said. “It’s been working since before you were trying.”
Philippa grinned. “Was my eye-fluttering really that dreadful?”
“‘Dreadful’ is a harsh word,” Tommy said. “And yet even a harsh word like ‘dreadful’ fails to fully encapsulate the horror in which—”
Philippa smacked her shoulder. “I won’t do it again.”
“You can do it whenever you want. You can doanythingwith me.” Tommy slanted her a look, but Philippa’s gaze was fixed on the path ahead. At this hour, the shadows were not quite dark enough to make watching one’s step necessary. The Dark Walk was visible and smooth. The unclear path was where to go next with Philippa.
They weren’t acting now, were they? They were alone. Marjorie and Elizabeth had seen to that. They would be standing guard at a calculated distance. The air was calm and cool. No one else was on the path. No one was watching or listening. If ever there was a moment when all pretenses could be dropped, surely this was it.
Why was the prospect so terrifying?
Perhaps because Tommy was rarely herself. She always left home in one guise or another. Yes, Philippa was nowawareof the role…but she alsowantedthe role. She hadn’t said, “Oh, how I long to be close to Tommy Wynchester.” She’d said, “Can you pretend to be Baron Vanderbean for the next three months?”
What if shedidn’twant Tommy?
If their playful banter was a game, if she had misread the admittedly ambiguous signs, she would not only lose Philippa forever.
She’d be rejected asherself.
That would hurt so much more than just going along with the charade.
“My mother thinks I wear too much lace.” Philippa looked down at her gown, then up at Tommy. “What do you think?”
Tommy waggled her brows. “I think I’d be happy to help you take it off.”
Philippa narrowed her eyes. “That’s what Baron Vanderbean would be happy to do. What does Tommy Wynchester think?”
“Everything the baron thinks, but more ardently.”
Philippa stopped walking.
Tommy released Philippa’s arm so that she could face her.
Philippa’s blue eyes met hers. “The baron flirts with a lot of women.”
“He does,” Tommy agreed. “He may have a checkered past as a rakish scoundrel.”
“Is that all it is?” Philippa asked. “Just flirting?”
“He might have a checkered past as anaccomplishedrakish scoundrel,” Tommy admitted carefully. “But there’s been no one else for him from the moment he glimpsed an absolute angel just over a year ago.”
“A year ago.” Philippa’s gaze fell. “Who is it?”
Did she still doubt the truth?
Tommy could have told Philippa every detail about the first time she’d laid eyes on her, or the first time Tommy had heard Philippa speak and realized how clever she was, or the first time Tommy had heard about Philippa’s charitable endeavors and realized how kind she was, or the first time Tommy had seen Philippa light up with her reading circle and realized how much she valued her friends, and how beloved she was by them in return.
But words were never as good as action.
