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“I’ve reserved a supper alcove,” Rees said brusquely. “The fireworks are not until eleven o’clock, so I suggest that we visit the arcades.” Then he grabbed his wife’s arm and set off down one of the paths. Tom felt a bounding surge of happiness. Lina was his for the evening, at least. He put out his arm to her. Lady Bonnington and her husband had strolled directly after Rees, so they were suddenly alone.

Her large eyes looked almost frightened. “Are you all right?” he said with a sudden pulse of alarm.

“This isn’t proper,” Lina said in a low voice. “I don’t feel right here, not with Lady Godwin. It was different before I met her. I thought this was all rather humorous, the wife who lived with her mother, and I in her bedroom. I must have been mad!”

“You’re as much a lady as either of them,” he told her.

“No, I’m not,” Lina said, shaking her head. Her skin glowed alabaster clear in the light of the gas-lamp hanging from a tree above them.

“And yet, I think you are a lady by birth, are you not?” Tom said, deliberately ignoring the implication of her statement.

“That’s hardly the point.”

“You are a lady,” he insisted.

She shrugged. “My father was well born enough. But I’m not any longer, and I don’t feel comfortable with them. I don’t.”

“Your father?” he asked.

“Just as you said of your position,” she said indifferently. “He is a vicar largely because he is the youngest son of a baron. The youngest of four, mind you. But that is beside the point, as the term lady has little to do with kinship, not really. I’m your brother’s doxy, Tom, and I don’t want to make up a party with his wife. It’s not right. I’m ashamed that I ever agreed to Rees’s scheme.”

He pushed back the hood of her domino. Her hair caught sparks of light from the lamps and glowed a bronzed gold. Tom was conscious of deep happiness. He caught her hands and held them under his chin, kissing first one and then the other. “You’re going to be my wife, Lina McKenna,” he said.

She stared up at him. “You’re mad,” she said flatly. “As mad as your brother.” She tried to turn and go, but he wouldn’t let her. Then his arms slid around her and she stopped struggling.

“Where would you like to go, Lina mine?” he asked her, his lips skimming hers, tasting delight with restraint. “If you don’t wish to join the others in the supper alcove, we shall explore the gardens on our own.”

She blinked up at him, her eyes thickly fringed with lashes tipped with the same golden light as her hair. “How can we sit about and pretend to have genteel conversation in a supper alcove? I and your brother’s wife? It’s absurd!”

“You are a lady, as well as she,” he said gently. “And even if that weren’t the case, Vauxhall is notorious for being ripe with all sectors of society.”

“I don’t want to be one doxy among many,” she said flatly.

“You’re no doxy,” he said, pulling her against him. He devoured her with that kiss, trying with every fiber of his body to tell her how he felt: about her, about the two of them, about their impending marriage.

She was cradled in his arms, breathing quickly, melting against him, joy in his arms. It wasn’t until some five minutes later, when Tom looked up, breathless, his body on fire—

To meet the expressionless eyes of his brother. And behind Rees, the bright, inquisitive face of Lady Esme Bonnington, her mouth frozen in a silent “O.”

For one long second, no one said anything. Then Rees said in an utterly normal voice, as if he’d seen nothing and cared for nothing, “Our supper alcove is to the left of the Pavilion, Tom.” He turned and offered his arm to Lady Bonnington.

Lina was looking up at him with horror. “Was that who I think it was?” she asked. Her back was turned to the walk and she hadn’t known of Rees’s presence until he spoke.

“Yes,” Tom said. His arms tightened around her. “Did you truly not wish to go to supper, Lina?”

She shook her head violently. Her lips were plump from his kiss; she looked young and utterly defenseless.

“Would you like me to take you home?”

She hesitated.

“I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go,” he said, tracing one of her eyebrows with a fingertip. “And my only payment is kisses. Would you like to go to the opera tonight? With me?”

Her eyes brightened, but then she shook her head. “I couldn’t. What if someone saw us?”

“And what then?” he asked softly. “May I not accompany a beautiful young woman to the opera? I think I may.”

“I’d like to go to the Pewter Inn,” she said suddenly. “I’d like to meet Mrs. Fishpole.”