“We didn’t know each other then,” Tommy tried again. “You know me now—”

“Do I?” Philippa said with obvious skepticism. “If Baron Vanderbean trusted me enough to tell me the truth, why didn’t Tommy Wynchester do the same? It would have been a perfect moment to mention we’d already met, and how.”

“I see that now,” Tommy muttered. “It didn’t seem relevant at the time. We were talking about your parents’ desire to marry you off, and it wasn’t as though Great-Aunt Wynchester figured into those plans—”

“No,” Philippa agreed, crossing her arms over her bosom. “She certainly does not.”

Sometimes Tommy was so used to playing a part that she forgot the fiction was real to others. Her roles might be temporary, but her actions could leave a lasting impact.

“I’m telling you now,” she said frantically. “No matter how much I might wish I had, I cannot confess any sooner than this moment. I was Baron Vanderbean, and I was Great-Aunt Wynchester, but I was always Tommy, who admires you more than everyone else combined.”

Philippa swiped at her eyes, which had lost some of their glossiness.

Tommy stepped forward.

“Don’t touch me,” Philippa warned.

“I wasn’t going to kiss you as Great-Aunt Wynchester,” Tommy said.

“I don’t want you to kiss me as anyone,” Philippa said. “It was an experiment that has now concluded. There is no need for further discussion. I certainly won’t be dwelling upon the experience.”

Oh. Tommy stared at her. Oh.

The single most shining moment in Tommy’s entire adult life meant nothing at all to Philippa. She had tried it. She didn’t like it.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy said. “I didn’t mean to press unwanted advances upon you.”

Philippa’s lips tightened. “They weren’t ‘unwanted’ in…a wanting sense. You… My feelings were unwanted in the sense that I don’t want things I shouldn’t want.” She shook her head. “I cannot disappoint my parents. Not like this.”

That was the least eloquent thing Tommy had ever heard Philippa say, and yet she understood perfectly. Philippa saw what they could have together and preferred not to have it.

“You intend to marry a man, then?”

Philippa sighed. “Every young lady intends to.”

“I never did.”

“You’re not a young lady. You’re an old lady and a dapper gentleman and probably also a country milkmaid and the King of Prussia, for all I know. You don’t live like other people, Tommy. I do. I’m Philippa, no matter what. I cannot hide.”

Of course the daughter of a wealthy MP would expect to show her face in all the fashionable places she pleased without being gossiped about, or tossed out, or shunned forever.

What could Tommy possibly offer worth giving up all of that?