“Good Lord. You cannot possibly want Whiddleburr.” Tommy shuddered and stepped back. The future was clear. “Nor shall you defy your parents.”

Philippa looked up in shock. “You think I should marry him?”

“No. I cannot agree with your assumption that they can control your life. You’re three and twenty. Two years past the age of majority. Disappointing your parents is not the same as defying them. They’re the ones disappointing you.”

Philippa clutched Tiglet to her chest and closed her eyes.

“If they’re sorry they raised a wonderful daughter with a mind of her own, then they are the ones with the problem.” Tommy stepped forward and brushed the pad of her thumb across Philippa’s cheek. “The decision must be something you can live with.”

“I cannot live with ruining my parents’ lives,” Philippa said in a small voice. “I longed to make them proud. Instead…It’s not just them. My reading circle is in danger, too. Our charity work. The women and children who were counting on us. Even the laws my father is trying to pass in Parliament. That’s not what…I was trying to put wrongs to right, not cause new ones.”

“And you did both at once. Actions have consequences.”

“I want different consequences.” Philippa swallowed. “A different life. If I’m to be a wife, a baroness would be splendid. I realize you cannot really marry me…Unless you can? I’d much rather be with you than Lord Whiddleburr.”

“No,” said Tommy. “You’d rather have Baron Vanderbean.”

This was not the proposal of her dreams.

Philippa did want her…but only disguised as someone else. Tommy’s shoulders curved, her exquisite gold-and-blue livery awkward and heavy.

She had been so looking forward to taking her regalia off and being herself again. Then here came the woman she loved, pleading for Tommy to put a disguise back on.

Tommy had asked Philippa to stay. To make this her home, just as Tommy and her siblings had. To be herself. Philippa. Not any label society or her parents tried to place upon her.

That wasn’t good enough. Tommy wasn’t good enough. The baron identity was the dressing that made their relationship palatable. Her stomach churned with acid.

Philippa wanted her only if Tommy could be someone else.

“You want me to put on my tail coat and go and beg your father for your hand?”

Philippa’s brow furrowed. “It would take some begging. Lord Whiddleburr outranks you. Outranks Baron Vanderbean, I mean. And you’re not in Parliament. But at least the baron is near my age and not a fortune hunter.”

He wasn’t anything. He wasn’t real.

“That’s all I would have to do?”