Was that why she had surrounded herself with other ladies all her life? But she hadn’t been romantically attracted to any of her friends. And Tommy wasn’t a lady. At first, it had been hard to understand how Tommy could feel like a mananda woman. “Both and neither,” she’d said. Philippa admired and desired Tommy exactly as she was. Perhaps Tommy was what Philippa had been looking for all along.
Her entire body was pitter-pattering from the inside out. Philippa’s veins thrummed with one rhythm, her breath hitched with another. Her palms were clammy, her cheeks flushed. Her legs pressed together.
Baron Vanderbean made his leisurely rounds. Every woman he passed earned a smile and a murmur, and probably one of those ridiculously charming eyebrow winks that made a woman feel so giddy on the inside.
Would Philippa be the last person Baron Vanderbean bowed to? Or would Tommy not greet her at all, after Philippa had all but run off after their kiss at Vauxhall, then forced Tommy out of her house?
Philippa twisted a drooping curl about her finger just in case, and borrowed her mother’s ivory fan so no one would glimpse her pinching her cheeks for color. She handed the fan back to her mother just in time.
“Mrs. York, Miss York.” Tommy made a handsome leg. “I believe a new set is just beginning. If you’re not promised elsewhere, might I have this dance?”
“Actually,” said Mother. “Philippa—”
“—would be honored,” Philippa said in a rush.
The flash of ire in Mother’s face indicated this disobedience would not go unpunished.
Philippa would worry about that later. At the moment, she had an opportunity to be back in Tommy’s arms.
The moment they were in the relative seclusion of a crowded dance floor, Tommy lifted Philippa’s hand and placed her own against Philippa’s side.
“Do you forgive me?” Tommy asked.
“No,” Philippa said. “Do you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Tommy answered.
“Of course there is,” Philippa said. “You shouldn’t forgive me until I’ve apologized properly for my role in our row the other day. I should not have spoken to you so harshly and sent you away without giving you the chance to respond. I let emotion cloud my logic.”
Tommy’s dark gaze held hers. “And I apologize for not including you in a crime that could have sent you to the gallows if you were caught.”
“That’s a dreadful apology,” said Philippa. “I was disappointed to be left behind, but I was hurt not to be consulted, at least.”
“’Tis better to be discarded after careful consideration than dismissed summarily?”
“Something like that.”
“You have never been out of my thoughts from the moment I first met you.”
Philippa’s heart fluttered. Would she ever grow used to such romantic words? “I accept your apology. You were only trying to help. I am sorry I reacted to the situation as poorly as I did.”
“I would have been devastated if my siblings pulled off a caper without including me. It should have occurred to me you might feel the same way. I accept your apology.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“May I kiss you now?”
Philippa stumbled. “We’re in the middle of a ballroom!”
“What if we weren’t?” asked Tommy. “Could I kiss you then?”
“No,” Philippa forced herself to answer. “That part stays the same.”
Tommy gave a crooked smile. “I was foolish to hope your feelings had changed.”
They hadn’t changed at all, which was a large part of Philippa’s problem. Even if she and Tommy never saw each other again after the season was through, there would always be a hollow place in Philippa’s chest where Tommy had once been.
She doubted she would ever fully recover from this tendre.
