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She stilled and didn’t look up at once. Her pulse betrayed her anyway, quick and unhelpful. Flour on your face? Let it stay.

“Are there any,” his voice came low, careful, “buns too lopsided for polite society? The kind that tastes perfect but doesn’t flatter a tray?”

Bridget and Marta exchanged a smile, and their gazes drifted down to the kitchen counters to give them space.

“Missed luncheon again?” Rosine asked, thumbs pressing the dough’s warm center. Her thumbs faltered, leaving a shallow dent.

A rueful lift of his shoulder. Her pulse tripped. He waited at the edge of the counter, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier awaiting orders—and the discipline of it made her chest ache. She watched his gaze stay fixed on the tray—polite restraint—while heat climbed her throat; his nearness ran bright along her skin. “When your sign is ordered,” he murmured, “I’ll ask you for more than buns.” The words landed low and warm, like opening the oven a hand’s breadth.

“When my sign is ordered,” she returned, and her voice held steady though her heart went quick and foolish, “I’ll hear you.”

Even at ease, he seemed to fill the kitchen—tall and straight-backed, broad across the shoulders, with the lamplight catching on his short black hair and that unruly lock that fell over his brow whenever he leaned forward to inspect her work. When he finally looked up, those dark, intelligent eyes did what they always did to a room—Bridget smoothed her apron, Marta found her manners, and even Mrs. Dove-Lyon, who trusted that mind enough to keep it close, never needed to raise her voice when he was near. Heat washed her cheeks; she fumbled the braid as his gaze found hers, steady and intent, as if he were studying a winning position. But his size didn’t pose a danger. Her pulse quickened; the dough on her fingers felt clumsy; she wanted to be better because he was watching.

Behave, heart; he says buns, and I wish for a kiss.

And the desire was the issue. Mrs. Dove-Lyon kept rules sharper than knives: staff did not flirt on the floor, and matches—if any—went through her veil and ledger. Rosine would not commit to any man until her work, hours, and reputation were her own; Sander would not court while danger shadowed the House.

And even though Rosine’s heart forgot its rhythm when he was near, she wanted to be the one thing that could draw his attention from the tray, from exits and threats, back to her. He had known loss and forged himself anew; she was still kneading a life that would rise, carving a place with sugar and heat until London could not do without her—make herself indispensable just as he’d said right away when she’d arrived, and only then, if she dared hope it, to him as well.

The lock of hair fell over his forehead; her fingers twitched to tame it—claim it—and she stilled, but some part of the wish crossed the space, because his mouth tipped as if he had felt the touch anyway.

“One or two,” she said. “If you’re quick.”

“The easiest thing I do,” he murmured. The corner of his mouth tipped—almost a smile—and he stepped close enough that the oven’s heat seemed to lean into him. “Your little braided masterpieces,” Sander said, lower, “make it hard to guard anything. Even self-control.”

Heat gathered low. She dared a glance up.

He wasn’t smiling entirely. But his eyes lingered, dark and long enough to steal the breath she meant to take. Her fingers eased; a loop slipped in the braid, and she set it right.

He reached at last—and chose the ugliest bun. Any man would have taken the best. He took the worst without a word, and something she hadn’t known she held, loosened.

Before he could draw away, she pressed the largest roll—golden, glossy, still warm—into his other hand. “Only one more,” she said, softer than she intended.

He looked down, then up, and the space between them tightened. His brow tipped; his mouth curved as if he’d kept something worth whispering. Her heartbeat stumbled and found a new rhythm. He took the buns and, in the taking, his fingers slid over hers—soft, deliberate, a mark laid on the skin. He left as he always did, soundless and sure, and the air he’d warmed with vanilla and cardamom clung to her mouth as if it had been a kiss.

Rosine bent to the dough again. The rhythm didn’t steady her. Every fold called up the press of his nearness, the quiet dare in his eyes. A glance and a bun, and I’ve lost my footing. A kiss would be worse.

Or better.

She shaped one last roll—smaller, neater—and brushed it to shine. When it was baked, she would set it on the chipped but clean plate by the side door where the cool draft lived. He checked there in the late afternoon, always, before the evening swelled.

For him.

Marta would tease. Bridget would grin. Let them. Rosine wiped her hands, listened to the quiet take up its old hum, and told herself she would do the same tomorrow—bake early, watch the doorway, and keep one warm bun waiting for the man who made heat feel like hope.

They could walk to a rabbi tomorrow if all they wanted was marriage; that was not the point. She would not wed until her name lived on her own glass; he would not risk her while the House was hunted. Those were the rules they had chosen, and the reason any ‘if’ between them still mattered.

Chapter Three

At the Lyon’s Den, just before ten at night—when respectability slept and secrets prowled in silk and boots—Sander held the front as he always did: part ghost, part guard.

The kitchen still clung to him. Two buns—one plain ugly, one perfect—had been set in his hands by her fingers. He should have eaten them. He hadn’t yet because he was still cherishing the dough that had graced her hands as he wished his kisses could.

And she’d left an extra shiny bun on the window ledge for him. Again.

When my sign is ordered, I’ll hear from you.

That was why he gave most of his wages to Mrs. Dove-Lyon to expedite Rosine’s dream. The sooner she had her bakery and a sign with her name, the sooner he could court her properly, to just in his mind and dreams. She’d be furious if she knew he helped to finance the bakery, but the closer he got to Rosine, the more he wanted her—and the less courage he had to tell her he was helping to pay for the bakery. It was for obvious reasons that anyone who cared to look at how fiercely brilliant and talented Rosine was, truly. She had the skill to lift a new bakery into prosperity—he’d watched her do it at the Den. She lifted his spirits with her buns and had captured his heart with only her smile.