“Of your family, to be precise.” Philippa gave a lopsided smile. “You were an orphan, and now you’re surrounded by a found family of siblings who love you. I live with the same parents I was born to, and it could not be more different. My father rarely speaks to me, and my mother only talks about her eagerness to marry me off. If those—prigs, did you say?—aren’t clever enough to see how splendid you are, more fool them.”

“Thank you,” Tommy said softly. “I—”

“Philippa, darling, there you are!” Mrs. York burst from the crowd and latched on to her daughter’s free arm, tugging her away from Tommy. “What can you be thinking to go out-of-doors in weather like this? No more sets with the baron tonight. Come, come. You must dance to warm those cold fingers. I’ve been taking names in your absence, and now we have Lord…”

Tommy watched in dismay as Philippa disappeared into the crowd.

The whispers behind her grew louder. She didn’t want to hear them. She lifted her chin and strode past. If Philippa were to spend the rest of the night dancing, then so, too, would Tommy.

Even if she could not have the person she longed for most.

16

16

As Philippa took luncheon by herself in the York dining room, she could not stop thinking about Tommy.

How easy it had been to talk to her. How lovely it had been to dance with her. That moment in the garden, when it had almost felt like—

But no, of course it wasn’t that. Philippa had spent the rest of the evening gazing over the shoulders of endless dance partners to watch Tommy conquer debutante after widow after wallflower. How they flirted and smiled and gave full-throated laughs instead of the false little titters Mother insisted were the proper way for young ladies to giggle.

Of course, none of those women had realized Tommy wasn’t Baron Vanderbean, but Philippa supposed they wouldn’t have been any less charmed to know the truth. It certainly hadn’t impeded her. Philippa’s admiration for Tommy grew with every moment in her company.

It was so easy to believe that Tommy was exactly who she pretended to be! Philippa frequently found herself forgetting Tommy wasn’t actually a man, even though she knew better. She occasionally even managed to forget Tommy wasn’t a real suitor, even though she knew the truth about that, as well.

Mother was in raptures over the ball. The surprise appearance and subsequent popularity of Baron Vanderbean had catapulted Philippa into new heights. She’d had to clamp her lips together not to point out that they’d been social climbing up a dreaded foreign lord. Hangers-on to a Wynchester.