Her tone held the delicate snap of icicles. Obviously, she was still displeased about the abrupt way he’d taken his leave at Eversby Priory.

Only a small part of Tom’s brain functioned normally. The rest of it was busy gathering details: the whiff of perfumed dusting powder, the intense blueness of her eyes. He’d never seen a complexion like hers, fresh and faintly opalescent, like milk glass with pink light shining through it. Was her skin like that all over? He thought of the limbs and curves beneath the ruffles of her dress, and he was suffused with a sensation that recalled the way icy water could sometimes feel hot, or a burn could feel like a chill.

“That sounds like something from a Jules Verne novel,” he managed to say. “I read the one you recommended, by the way.”

Cassandra had crossed her arms, a gesture of annoyance that bolstered the sumptuous curves of her breasts just a bit higher and made him weak in the knees. “How is that possible when you left it at Eversby Priory?”

“I had my assistant purchase a copy.”

“Why didn’t you take the copy I gave you?”

“Why do you assume I left it deliberately?” Tom parried. “I might have forgotten it.”

“No, you never forget anything.” She wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “Why didn’t you take it?”

Although Tom could have easily come up with an evasive answer, he decided to tell her the truth. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d been subtle about his interest in her so far.

“I didn’t want to think about you,” he said curtly.

Phoebe, who’d been looking back and forth between them, took a sudden interest in a flower arrangement on a console table, much farther down the hallway. She went to fuss with the greenery, pulling out a fern and sticking it into the other side of the display.

Something in Cassandra’s expression eased, and the firm set of her mouth softened. “Why did you read it?”

“I was curious.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Not enough to justify four hours of reading. One page would have been sufficient to explain the point of the novel.”

Cassandra tilted her head slightly, her gaze encouraging. “Which is?”

“As Phileas Fogg journeys eastward, he gains four minutes every time he crosses a geographical longitude. By the time he returns to his starting point, he’s a full day early, which allows him to win the bet. Clearly, the lesson is that when one travels in the direction of the earth’s rotation in prograde motion, the hands of the clock must be pushed back accordingly—and therefore time is delayed.”

So there, he thought smugly.

But Tom was confounded as Cassandra shook her head and began to smile. “That’s the plot twist,” she said, “but it’s not the point of the novel. It has nothing to do with what Phileas Fogg comes to understand about himself.”

“He set a goal and he achieved it,” Tom said, nettled by her reaction. “What’s there to understand beyond that?”

“Something important,” Cassandra exclaimed, her amusement bubbling over.

Unaccustomed to being wrong, about anything, Tom said coolly, “You’re laughing at me.”

“No, I’m laughing with you, but in a slightly superior way.”

Her gaze was teasing. As if she were flirting with him. As if he were some callow young suitor instead of a worldly man who knew every tactic of the game she was trying to play. But Tom was accustomed to experienced partners whose strategies were precise and identifiable. He couldn’t tell what her objective was.

“Tell me the answer,” he commanded.

Cassandra crinkled her nose adorably. “I don’t think so. I’ll let you discover it for yourself.”

Tom kept his face expressionless, while inside he was dissolving in a feeling he’d never known before. It was similar to drinking champagne—one of his favorite things—while balancing on the steel framework of an elevated railway bridge—one of his least favorite things.

“You’re not as sweet as everyone thinks you are,” he said darkly.

“I know.” Cassandra grinned and looked back over her shoulder at Phoebe, who had rearranged at least half the flowers by then. “I won’t delay you any longer, Phoebe. Are you showing Mr. Severin to the guest cottage?”

“Yes, we’re lodging a few of the unattached gentlemen there.”

“Will I be seated near Mr. Severin at dinner?” Cassandra asked.

“I was instructed to keep the two of you as far apart as possible,” Phoebe said dryly. “Now I’m beginning to understand why.”

“Piffle,” Cassandra scoffed. “Mr. Severin and I would be perfectly amicable. In fact …” She glanced up at Tom with an inviting half smile as she continued, “… I think we should be friends. Would you like that, Mr. Severin?”

“No,” he said sincerely.

Cassandra blinked in surprise, her expression cooling. “That makes things easy, then.”

As she walked away, Tom stared after her, mesmerized by her supple walk and the swish of intricately draped skirts.

When he finally thought to look in Phoebe’s direction, he found her speculative gaze on him.

“My lady,” Tom began warily, “if I could ask you not to mention—”

“Not a word,” Phoebe promised. Seeming deep in thought, she set a slow pace along the hallway. “Shall I alter the seating arrangements,” she asked abruptly, “and put you next to Cassandra?”

“God, no. Why would you suggest that?”

Phoebe looked wry and a bit sheepish. “Not long ago, I felt a sudden attraction for a man who couldn’t have been more unsuitable. It was like one of those summer lightning storms that strike without warning. I decided to avoid him, but then we were seated next to each other at dinner, and it turned out to be one of the luckiest things ever to happen to me. Just now, seeing you with Cassandra, I thought perhaps—”

“No,” he said tersely. “We’re incompatible.”

“I see.” After a long pause, Phoebe said, “Something might change. One never knows. There’s a very fine book I could recommend, titled Persuasion—”

“Another novel?” Tom asked, giving her a long-suffering glance.

“What’s wrong with novels?”

“Nothing, as long as one doesn’t mistake them for advice manuals.”

“If it’s good advice,” Phoebe countered, “why does it matter where it came from?”

“My lady, there’s nothing I want to learn from fictional people.”

They exited the main block of the house and went outside to the paved garden path that led to a redbrick guest cottage.

“Indulge me in a game of pretend,” Phoebe said. “Just for a moment.” She waited for Tom’s reluctant nod before continuing. “Recently a good friend of mine, Jane Austen, relayed to me that her neighbor Anne Elliot just wed a gentleman by the name of Captain Frederick Wentworth. They were betrothed seven years ago, but Anne was persuaded by her family to break it off.”

“Why?”

“The young man lacked fortune and connections.”

“Weak-minded girl,” Tom scoffed.