“Clothes aren’t meant to be comfortable, darling. They’re meant to look exactly like everyone else’s, only better. Here, see this opera gown on page eighteen.”

“How about a different activity?” Philippa suggested. “What about—”

“A book,” Mother crowed. “I told your father you’d choose books over gowns. He merely grunted instead of responding, but I know he feels the same way I do. Very well, Philippa. You’ve won. I shall allow one more literary acquisition.”

Splendid. The very thing she’d begged to do for months, only to discover no private collector in England possessed any of the objects Philippa wished to acquire.

“In exchange,” Mother continued, “you must review the expanded list of potential husbands I’ve made for you, so you can be sure to give them special attention. Have you been practicing fluttering your eyelashes in your mirror like I showed you? Or the flirtatious giggle?”

“No,” Philippa said.

“Darling, you really must come at this game with a bit more strategy. It’s not chess. It’s dominos.”

Philippa blinked. “Dominos has more strategy than chess?”

“It has the right strategy,” Mother explained. “You line up the competition and knock them all out of your way until you’re the last one standing.”

“That’s…not how you play dominos,” Philippa said.

“Be the last domino,” Mother said gently. “That’s all I ask of you. A nice, ivory domino with an entire brood of pips and a husband with a title that makes hearts beat faster.”

Philippa wished she could find a man who could wake her frozen heart. In the meantime, all she thought about was Tommy. Whom she was desperate to see…in order to talk about the case. Nothing more.

“Mother,” she tried again. “I didn’t come to pester you for a new book.”

Her mother shook her head in confusion, as though she must have misheard. “You didn’t?”

Philippa took a deep breath. “I’d like Baron Vanderbean to escort me to Hyde Park again. I know only the two of us fit comfortably in his phaeton, but it would be a fine opportunity for people to see—”

Mother gasped. “Of course people need to see you with him. But not without me! No one else will have Baron Vanderbean until the Knightsborough gathering next week. We will be the most envied hostesses in the ton!”

“Hostesses?” Philippa repeated blankly. “To what?”

Mother’s eyes glittered. “A tea! Not with any of your bluestockings, darling. We must invite important people. I know just the ladies most likely to spread the best gossip.”

17

17

Every time Underwood opened the door, Philippa fought the urge to dash from the sitting room to see if the new arrival was Tommy. Her anxiousness—eagerness, whatever this was—had nothing to do with the night before at the ball. Tommy wasn’t a real suitor.