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“He looks like he disapproves of us already,” Pepper murmured.

Beside her, Chester let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his lungs for nine months.

“He looks,” he said, voice rough, “like the most miraculous sweet anyone ever made.”

She turned her head toward him.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt sleeves rolled, waistcoat unbuttoned, cravat entirely forgotten somewhere on the nursery floor. A lock of hair had fallen over his brow. His hands—those big, capable, steady hands—were cupping one tiny foot as if it were spun glass.

Pepper watched his thumb stroke the sole, feather-light, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was real. She felt something in her chest twist and settle.

“We are not,” she said weakly, “calling him Pudding. Crust. Or Sugar.”

“That seems harsh,” Chester said. “He is very clearly custard-based.”

She tried to swat him; her arm made it about three inches and flopped back, traitorous.

He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “You were extraordinary,” he said quietly. The teasing slid away; the awe remained. “I have never seen anything like you.”

“You,” she pointed out, “are the one who almost fainted.”

His ears went pink. “In my defense, no one warned me about…quite so much … reality.”

“No one warned me about quite so much everything,” she said. “And yet here we are.”

Here we are.

She looked down at the baby again. A son. A boy they had both carefully never planned on, never named in advance, never quite allowed themselves to imagine.

“I thought…” She swallowed. Her throat still felt oddly bruised from effort and unshed fear. “I thought we had made peace with the idea that this might never happen. That we’d be crowded with girls and flour and borrowed hearts and that would be enough.”

“It would have been,” Chester said at once. “It is enough. He is…” His thumb stroked that impossibly small foot again. “He is not proof that you are not broken. You were never broken. He’s just…more. A grace note. Or the cherry on top?”

“A grace note,” she repeated softly. The doctor’s cool hand on her wrist; his measured words—risk, not certainty—echoed and faded. “I was so afraid, Chester.”

“I know.” His grip on her hand tightened. “And I meant it, what I said. If he had never come, I would still be here. Annoying you. Listening when you shout about flour. Filling nurseries with other people’s children until we ran out of beds.”

Pepper blinked back a fresh sting of tears. “That seems likely. Margy has already claimed the east wing.”

“As is only proper,” he said. “Duke’s daughters, even if adopted, need space.”

At the mention of the girls, the muffled sounds outside the door rose again—someone (Margy, undoubtedly) arguing at top volume about precedence. Aunt Florence’s voice floated through the wood:

“You may not storm the lying-in room, Marguerite. You are five. You may petition for an audience once the duchess is sitting up.”

Chester huffed a laugh. “I should have her barred from the nursery at birth. She’ll be teaching him to climb the curtains before he can walk.”

Pepper looked down at the baby’s tiny, perfect ear. “He’ll never stand a chance with three sisters,” she said. Tenderness swelled so hard in her chest it almost hurt. “Poor little man. Born into chaos and title, expectations…”

“Born into family,” Chester corrected softly.

They fell quiet for a moment, listening to his small, stubborn breaths.

“We should name him something,” Pepper said at last. “He can’t go through life as Sweet Pudding Wyndale.”

“Cruel, but fair,” Chester said. “We do need something to put on the christening papers.”

“Your mother will demand something ducal and impressive,” Pepper mused. “George. William. Augustus.”